Meeting My Match

There comes a time in your life when you concede that you need help. For me that time is now. I just never thought it would come at 23 and have anything to do with my love life.

In a straight run from my 15th birthday right up to my 22nd, I had a steady stream of girlfriends. Okay, hardly a stream, more like three big buckets of water. But in the last year there’s been something of a dry spell.

My website too has all but withered from the draught. And so, with it, and my love life in mind, I decided to dip my toe in the wet and wild world of online dating, thinking it might provide amusing fodder for my blog and a story to desperately conceal from the grandkids.

Match.com seemed an obvious place to start. It’s the world’s largest online dating service, has inspired twice as many marriage as any other site, and though it doesn’t appear to have a returns policy, it does come with a guarantee. Apparently, I’ll find the special someone that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside within 6 months.

This sounds good. In the last 6 months only whiskey has made me feel that way. But it’s also made me vomit on more than one occasion. Just as long as I don’t do that I imagine my love life is about to improve. Or else it’ll make for interesting reading.

After clicking past several photo montages, at once putrid and promising, of attractive, mostly interracial couples, I’m asked to enter some information about myself under four broad categories: Basics, Appearance, Interests, Lifestyle and Background/Values. I’m modest about my body type, list my lips as my best feature (from a selection that included ‘calves’ and ‘belly button’), and mention nothing about my website, or indeed, the devil worshiping that requires human sacrifice. I am, of course, just joking. We can use lamb.

I do however brag about my frequent trips to California, drop a Norah Jones lyric about “rain falling on a tin roof” and admit that I am an incredibly slow reader and have been reading modern Czech classic, The Unbearable Lightness of Being for an unbearably long time. I figure that will make me sound rather sophisticated, if a little slow.

I struggle however to choose even one sport or exercise that I enjoy.

Questions regarding my “match” are even more taxing. What colour eyes do you like to stare into? What kind of hair do you like to run your fingers through? Should she want kids?

Hitting next takes me to a screen even more daunting. Describe yourself and your perfect match to our community. I’ve got 2000 characters in which to do it and a further 128 for my ‘dating headline.’ If you’ve ever used eBay this is the equivalent of an item description and title. Except this is not granny’s old tea set from the loft, this is San, you know, from the block.

Still, I hit submit and send my profile for approval by a match.com member of staff. In 72 hours time I’ll be out there again, albeit in the online dating world, leaning on the virtual bar, looking for that special someone who makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but doesn’t make me vomit the next day.

Stay tuned to see if I do indeed find a match, strike a flame or blow chunks.