The Perils of Online Dating

Sorry I don't do oral on a first date...

In the interests of Science, I thought that I may get some blog worthy material out of trialling a bit of the old online dating malarkey. I mean what have I got to lose, best case scenario I get a date with a lovely young lady, worse case scenario I get an amusing anecdote.

So where to start? As this was my first foray into the wonderful world of online dating, I erred on the side of financial caution and chose a site called Gumtree.com where it is completely free to upload your profile.

For those of you unfamiliar with Gumtree, is was initially set up to provide Antipodeans with free information on rooms to let in London. It soon became hugely popular and extended it's services into other areas such as jobs, stuff for sale and dating.

It really is the cowards dating dream. It costs nothing, you don't have to use your own name, they can hide your e-mail address and most importantly you don't have to go through the probable rejection of approaching a female and getting turned down.

So I uploaded a profile, just giving the basic details such as age, occupation, interests, as well as a bit about the sort of girl I was looking for i.e. preferably still breathing, with a general level of symmetry in bodily features. There was no photo of me attached, as explained I am a coward.

So that was it, very simple, just took a couple of minutes and then it was time to play the waiting game. I had uploaded this in the morning and checked my e-mail box later than day, there were no new mail. So I checked Gumtree, sure enough my profile was up on the site, but such is the popularity I had been pushed down to page five and was now underneath the listings of hundreds of other online predators.

So I refreshed my profile to put me back in the first position. My lack of a social life that weekend was going to give me a real positional edge over these other losers. While they squander their day socialising and living their life, I could refresh like crazy.

And it worked, kind of, as this morning upon opening my inbox there was a fresh e-mail awaiting my perusal. I have literally (bar the name) copied and pasted this below, I promise it is genuine:

HI mate

1stly I hope you wont be offended by this email.I am a 27yo, fit bi lad looking to give bj to str8 guys. I am str8 looking and have a hot mouth and can suck till completion. Just sit back and need not do anything in return.

Genuine offer and if u havent had a guy suck u before , its very horny! Try it guys give better bj than gals! I am in NW central London.Hope to hear from u.

Matt

I mean look at the misuse of grammar, completely unacceptable. In addition to this, he seems to have skimmed over the fact that I was looking for a female, still beggars can't be choosers...no apologies 'Matt' but you are not quite what I am looking for and both our quests for online love/bj's must go on.

Next stop, online dating via a Social Network, ladies of Facebook prepare yourself...

Ignorance is Bliss

Out of Sight Out of Mind...Until you View the Photos on Facebook.

One Friday night a couple of weekends ago, I was enjoying myself at a friends wedding, merrily working my way through the £1,000 tab that had been put behind the bar, when I received a text from my housemate.

It read, 'where are you, we're having a massive house party?'. My housemate was on a night out with his mates and in addition his brother was staying with us, as he and a load of his friends were in England as part of a round the world trip, the capacity for carnage was rife.

I was momentarily disappointed that two fine social events had collided in my normally sparse calendar, but didn't give it too much thought as I was having a splendid time at the wedding.

Having stayed overnight in a hotel, I returned to my house mid afternoon on the Saturday. The house seemed to be in fine fettle and certainly there was no evidence of the anticipated carnage. All the attendees had already left and my housemates were pretty cagey when I asked how the night was.

The only feedback I got was, 'it was all right, just had a few beers'. I put this lack of enthusiasm down to them being hung over and being pretty jaded myself from my own festivities I didn't spend too much time pursuing my line of questioning.

A few days later, surfing through the pages of the social network site Facebook, I came across these photos on my housemates brother's profile page:

So...a load of men came round my house and for some reason walked around my living room topless.

So many questions, so scared of the answers...in the end I decided it was best to just live in blissful ignorance. Permanently terrified, blissful ignorance.