After the Cow Girl debacle, I went straight back online with another dating site. I was working on the same principle as those eager to get behind the wheel again as soon as possible after a serious accident to regain confidence.
I signed on with a dating site designed for people wanting to have sex with as many people as possible and posted a photograph of myself with no clothes on, just my glasses, and smiling confidently and a little suavely at the camera, as though clothed or unclothed it was all the same to Lord Tangent, as I called myself. I also indicated, by ticking boxes beside diagrams of little stick people making love in various positions, the positions I preferred. Three of the ten I hadn’t considered before and one looked well beyond my capacity, but I ticked all of them. I also ticked yes to ten questions about my sexual habits, likes and dislikes, including one asking whether I ‘like it if it hurts a bit’. The wider I cast my net, I reckoned, the greater the harvest. In the space where I was invited to say something about myself, I said I was single and looking for someone who didn’t mind getting muddy.
There was no joining fee for women; chaps had to fork out £15 per month. The moment my membership was active, as they termed it, I carefully inspected the profiles of women who lived within 20 miles of my postcode. About half had posted nude photos of themselves. If they were genuine photographs, not a few could have made a living in the glamour trade. Some included the head and face; many were just torsos. I saw no reason to discriminate against these torsos. Initially repelled, I quickly grew to like them. Often I liked them more than when the head was included. I liked their style, these torso women, which seemed to me an admirable blend of cynicism about chaps and intelligent use of the theory of Occam’s Razor.
There was less beating about the bush on this website than on my last one. Apparently, it wasn’t necessary to exchange chatty or informative emails for a week or two before one party coyly suggests meeting for coffee. On this one you either liked what you saw in the photo or you didn’t, and in theory the entire relationship could be conducted without a word being spoken on either side. During my moments of lucidity it seemed too good to be true. Everybody knows men tend to go on what they see. But surely women aren’t there yet — are they? I sent emails to about 20 women. I kept it brief. I said: ‘When and where? Regards, Tangent.’
Not one of those 20 replied. Emails from other members did, however, trickle into my inbox over the ensuing weeks.
I had an outrageously filthy suggestion from a soldier serving in Afghanistan who couldn’t have been more apologetic when he realised his mistake. Another man invited me to a house party at his villa in Morocco. A woman from Alabama, whose photo looked suspiciously like a professional job of an 17-year-old model who wouldn’t have been seen dead on a site like this one, nor would have been remotely interested in a 54-year-old reptile like me, emailed to say, ‘Hi Gorgeous!’ Perhaps she was being ironic. And finally — Hallelujah! — I received an email from what appeared to be a real and genuine woman who lived within half an hour’s drive.
She suffered from multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair, she said. She liked going to the cinema and to the theatre and she particularly enjoyed musicals. She was 67. She was looking for someone who could manoeuvre a wheelchair with a heavyish woman in it and take her out to shows. She was sorry, but she only liked tall men. How tall was I?
Well, a genuine response deserved a genuine reply. I was six foot standing up straight in my socks, I said. I heard nothing for a fortnight. I was beginning to wonder whether six foot was too short in her book when she emailed again. Did I have a car, she said, and if so what sort was it? I was currently driving a 1989 straight-six Mercedes ‘E’ class coupé, I said — not the most wheelchair-friendly car ever made, admittedly. And she must have thought the same, because that was the last I heard from her, or from anybody else on that site for the duration of my two-month membership.
I’m now left wondering whether the site was essentially a money-making scam targeting lonely old men, or whether I’m even uglier than I imagined, or whether the problem is perhaps a combination of the two.
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