epsiode 25

A Boys' Eye View

I am the last person in the world to profess to understand men. For example I was with one for ten years and I'm still slightly baffled about him. My experiences since show I'm not more enlightened. And take now, I've had date three with Hairgel, (yes he does keep a hairdryer and straighteners right by his bed), and I have no idea where he's coming from, although his hair is very nice. So, I would never put myself up as some expert on men, (that just makes me want to fall off my chair laughing at the thought), but you know what, instead of moaning about them, I thought I would speak to some single men, find out what makes them tick and ask for their experiences with modern dating. Genius.
I started out asking Hairgel, only because he was the most handy. He had been single for over a year, and only met women through friends, or at parties. Because of his job he went out a lot and he relied on the old-fashioned method. I wondered if other women had tried to make him their gay best friend but I kept the thought to myself.
Feeling unenlightened by him I widened my search to find men who use modern dating methods; after my experiences with internet dating I was desperate to find out the male point of view.
Man one: I was introduced to someone who was described to me as 'sweet.' That worried me because if that's the best word you can come up with to introduce a male friend, then we're in trouble. The thing was that it turned out he was sweet. He wasn't the most handsome man in the world or the most confident but he had a nice manner and I could see that he would probably be a good boyfriend for someone. He had belonged to a well-known internet dating site for over six months. The poor guy had emailed a number girls and had absolutely no response at all. Not even a 'no thank you'. In fact in six months the only action he got was from a couple of girls claiming to be trapped in Lagos and needing money sent immediately, because their lives were in danger.
Yes, of course, my life is in danger and what do I do? I join an internet dating site, upload my picture and spend ages pouring over pages of men deciding who will rescue me. I had an awful sneaking suspicion that this guy actually considered it.
He saw internet dating as a supermarket shelf that men sit on while the women browse. He was the dented can that no one wants. I felt so bad I almost offered to date him myself.
'Would you sign up to an internet dating site again?' I asked.
'No, my confidence is already at rock bottom.' I felt like crying. I asked him if he considered the old-fashioned method of meeting women in bars and he looked at me as if I was totally mad.
Man two: Another internet dater. This guy couldn't have been more different from man one. He was young, good-looking, successful, and intelligent. Why on earth do you use the internet? I asked him, thinking women would be throwing themselves at him (and I had to restrain myself from doing so, thank God we were having coffee, not wine). Anyway, he said that he was too shy to go up to women in bars and the whole email courtship prior to dates was a confidence builder. Ye Gods, sensitive too. Unlike man one, man two was deluged with responses. Most, he said, were alright, but on more than one occasion the woman hadn't matched up to the photo. In fact one woman had four photos up and looked gorgeous, but when he met her she didn't look anything like them.
I asked him what kind of woman he was looking for. Attractive, intelligent, amusing, sensitive, kind. I asked him if he was still looking. Oh, no he had actually met the love of his life through the internet. Wow, I said, and what does she do?
She was a porn star.
Man three: He had gone to various dating events. He agreed with me that there were always more women than men, and that the women made the first move. He was honest. He wasn't sure he wanted a relationship, although he was keeping an open mind. Sometimes he just wanted to get laid and well, apparently that wasn't too difficult to achieve. And sometimes he met women that he would rather not have met. One story was when he went speed dating. It was all going well until he found himself sat opposite a woman who was more than a bit overweight. As soon as he introduced himself she became defensive and told him that she couldn't possibly tell him what she did because there was no way he'd understand. Feeling perplexed he pushed her and pushed her and in the end she told him, and he did understand but he didn't understand her.
'It was as if she ensured I rejected her before I actually rejected her.'
He finished off saying that he would never understand women.
Man four: OK, now in the interest of research I kept my temper. Man four, still has his balls intact, on the basis that I didn't meet him, but spoke to him via email and over the phone. Man four is the reason I gave up internet dating twice. He is married, and he uses the internet for his extra marital fun. He picks girls he thinks will be easy (usually based on what they're wearing and how they are posing), chats them up, which by the way is a big part of the fun, and then meets them, and hopefully sleeps with them. He directed me to his profile. The photo of him looks great, he's successful, he's single (of course) and bizarrely he doesn't live where he says he does. This means he has less chance of getting caught. God I wish I knew where his wife was, because I would love nothing better than to shop the bastard.
He never tells the women that he's married. And he never sees the same woman more than twice. I asked him about his photo. Yes it was him, but him fifteen years ago. Are women disappointed when they see him in the flesh I asked? He laughed at me. He is so charming it doesn't seem to matter. Biting the urge to scream at him, I asked him what he did before internet dating. He still cheated, but it just took far more effort.

So there you go. Man one is the kind of guy that we should go for but don't. Man two claims to crave sensitivity and intelligence but goes out with a porn star. Man three is probably the most normal but isn't sure he wants a relationship. And man four should be shipped off to the colonies and made to do hard labour. Apparently we don't do that anymore, unfortunately. So, as I get ready for another date with Hairgel, (it is slightly tiresome going out with someone whose hair looks better than yours), I decide that I don't understand and I think perhaps that I'm actually not supposed to.

Next Week: Where have all the grown ups gone, part 2?