Stella Grey - The Heartfix - An Online Dating Diary

It wasn’t only the way people behaved on dating sites that astounded me, but also the descriptions some gave of themselves there. Perhaps it’s social media’s fault that lots of men have embraced the power of the inspirational quote. Sometimes these are attached to names at every sign-off (Gary ‘Love life and grasp and hold on to it every day xxx’). Some had profiles that I suspect were drafted by their 14-year-old sisters. ‘My favourite things are the crinkle of the leaves under my shoes in autumn and birdsong after the rain.’ ‘I don’t care about beauty,’ another had written. ‘As long as you have a beautiful soul I want to hear from you.’ I was charmed. I wrote to tell him I was charmed. He didn’t reply; perhaps what he wanted was inner beauty attached to a 30-year-old body. Another early correspondent was enraged about my preference for tall men. He wrote me a one-line message: ‘Your insistence on dating men over 6 feet tall is heightist.’

I explained that I am taller than that in shoes. ‘I’m a tall woman,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry if you have an equal-opportunities-oriented approach to sex, but I like to look up to a man when I kiss him. I continue to allow myself that preference. Apologies if that offends.’

‘You know the average height of men in the UK is 5'10 don’t you,’ he replied. That happened to be his own height.

‘Luckily I’m not interested in averages,’ I wrote.

‘You may as well ask for an albino who’s a billionaire,’ he countered.

It was hard to know how to reply to that, so I didn’t. I always replied to a first approach, unless there was something vile about it, but didn’t feel obliged to keep responding to people who replied to my reply, and especially not those I’d said no thank you to. Otherwise some pointless conversations would never have ended.

I paused at the smiling face of a man called Dave who lived in Kent. ‘Hi I’m Dave, an ordinary bloke, 43 years old and ready for a serious relationship.’ What caught my eye was that Dave was 52. The age updated automatically on the heading of the page, though he hadn’t updated the personal statement that appeared beneath it. His description had been written a full nine years ago. ‘Oh God,’ I said aloud. ‘Dave’s been here for nine years!’ Poor Dave. ‘I hope you find someone soon, Dave,’ I said to the screen. ‘Unless you’re a bad man, obviously, in which case womankind has made its judgement and you should probably take the hint.’

Most people’s dating site profiles say little about them. Some real-world interesting people have no gift for self-description and fall back on the generic; some people are careful to be bland and unspecific; and others are actually as dull as their blurb suggests. It can be tricky to deduce which of the three you’re dealing with, at first or even second glance. There are those who appear to say a lot, but actually give nothing away. Everybody loves holidays and music and films and food, and wants to travel the world. Everyone has a good sense of humour, works hard and likes country weekends; everybody loves a sofa, a DVD and a bottle of wine. Then there’s the problem of integrity. Some things that are said might prove not to be true: marital status for example, or age, or location, or general intentions (or height). ‘I’m looking for my soulmate,’ doesn’t always mean exactly that. Sometimes it decodes as I’m not looking for my soulmate, but that’s what chicks want to hear . Inside the anonymity of the database, nothing can be relied on at face value. I’m not suggesting there are grounds for constant paranoia, but I learned to be on the alert. In the early days I had a conversation with a professor at a certain university, and checked the campus website and found that he wasn’t. When I challenged him his dating profile disappeared and my emails weren’t any longer answered. When I told a friend – who was also searching for someone – about this, she said, ‘Sometimes I’m confident, and sometimes taking on a second-hand man is like going to the dog refuge and picking a stray, not knowing what its real history is or how it might react under pressure.’

Not that this is everyone’s experience of online romance. I know of dating site marriages … well, I know of one. Admittedly the woman in question is a goddess. The goddesses, the willowy ones with the cheekbones and the swishy hair, are probably swamped with offers. As for me, all the dating site gods (tall, articulate, successful, well-travelled; they don’t even have to be handsome) were swishing right past me.

I asked my friend Jack for a male appraisal of my dating site profile. He said it was lovely, like me. That was worrying. I needed clarification.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘You expect a lot. You make it clear you only want clever, funny, high-achieving men.’

‘I don’t say high-achieving. I don’t say that anywhere.’

‘You say it without saying it. And it’s clear that you’re alpha. That puts men off. I’m just saying.’

‘So what should I do? Claim to be a flight attendant with a love of seamed stockings?’

‘That would get you a lot of attention. But then you’d need to follow through.’

‘I’d have to study the British Airways routes and talk about layovers.’

‘Every middle-aged man in the world dreams of layovers,’ Jack said, looking wistful.

He helped rewrite the copy so that I sounded more fun, though not as fun as Jack wanted me to sound. There was an immediate response in the inbox. ‘Reading between the lines, I think you’re holding out for something unusual,’ one said. ‘I believe I’m atypical. For a start I don’t have a television. When I had one I spent a lot of time shouting at it.’ I replied that I couldn’t bear to watch Question Time either. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘ Countryfile , for instance. Countryfile ’s really annoying.’ I asked him what he did in the evenings. He said he spent a lot of time with his lizards.

It was a grim Tuesday night, the rain lashing down. I went in search of someone friendlier. There were lots of men who claimed to be the life and soul of the party, but who looked like serial killers on Wanted posters. In general, using a bad passport photograph to illustrate your page isn’t the best of all possible plans. I rummaged through the first five candidates the system had offered and had a look at what they had to say. ‘Scientific facts are never true. If you know why scientific facts are never true, you might be the girl for me.’ ‘Still looking for the right one, a woman who won’t expect me to be at her beck and call.’ ‘Second hand male, in fairly good condition despite last careless owner.’ ‘I am a complex person, too complex to explain here, a hundred different men in one. If you want a dull life you are wasting your time. Move along – nothing to see here.’ ‘Looking for intelligence, co-operation and a natural blonde.’ ( Co-operation? )

Perhaps, I thought, I should narrow the search, by ticking some of the boxes for interests. A search based on ticking ‘Current Affairs’ brought up a raft of virtue-signallers. ‘I’m dedicated to the pursuit of justice for all and hate political unfairness.’ ‘The top three things I hate are liars, deceit and war.’ (Whereas, presumably, the rest of us are assumed to approve of wars and lying.) Then I had a brief conversation with a man who said he loved world cinema. I messaged him asking what kind of films he liked. Back came the reply: ‘Hi thanks for asking, my favourite movies are Driller Killer , The Lair of the White Worm , Cannibal Holocaust , I Spit on Your Grave , Cabaret and The Blood-Spattered Bride .’

The first dinner offer came from Trevor, an American expat in London. Trevor had been dumped and was only just passing out of denial and into acceptance, he said. He was doing the work (the therapeutic work on himself, he meant), but was finding it hard. Four thousand words of backstory followed this statement, and in return, I gave him mine. A few hours after this another great long email arrived, talking philosophically about life and quoting writers. It was charming, endearing; I reciprocated with my own thoughts, quoting other writers. We were all set. Then, the day before dinner, Trevor cancelled. The last line of his message said: ‘To be honest, I’m not interested in a woman who’s my intellectual equal.’ (I know this sounds as if it might not be true, but I’m sorry to tell you that it is.) He added that he felt honesty was the best policy. I didn’t like to tell him what my policy was, but right then and there it could easily have involved a plank, a pirate ship, a shark-infested sea and a long pointy stick.