Internet dating

Ha, what fun that is!  When my husband left me in January 2010, the first reaction was RELIEF.  It was so wonderful to have peace, quiet and calm in the house - no more yelling and screaming and throwing punches.  The thought of wanting to be with anyone ever again never crossed my mind. A few months later I still felt pretty much the same, but some of my girlfriends started egging me on to give internet dating a try.  What the f......!  I had been married 26 years by the time we divorced and we had met the "old fashioned way", so what the heck did I know about internet dating.  Anyway, after a lot of nagging I thought I would give it a shot.

There is a pretty good site here in Switzerland (naming no names) so I took a look on that, and to be honest I didn't know whether to laugh or throw myself straight in the lake. I mean, all those people who are "romantic, sensual, liking long walks on the beach". What the hell! I am none of those things, nor do I know anyone who is.  So I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound, and drew up a non-photo profile.  Something along the lines of "fat, 50 and menopausal, couldn't care less how much you earn, not interested in your car, can build my own white picket fence thank you very much, and if you really want to know what I like best in bed, it is complete control of the TV remote and a cheese and pickle sandwich"!  (The reference to what I like in bed was after a complete weirdo contacted me asking if he could lick my feet while I was wearing high heels - at first I thought he was joking and then realized that this nutter was for real!!!!  Turns out I'm a "lying, frigid b*tch" - well whaddya know!)  I also did not put a photo because I had actually recognized a couple of work colleagues on the site!!!! and reading their profiles was, I thought, waaaaay too intimate.  But guess what, I had so many replies from men who loved my profile, it was unbelievable, thereby I believe, giving lie to the fact that men also feel they cannot just be "normal men" - but have to pretend to be some Brad Pitt lookalike.

Courtesy Catfish and Online Dating

So I agreed to meet up with (in total) around 7 men, I think, for a drink somewhere public and, with 2 exceptions, they were really good company.  The 2 exceptions were (1) a very nice chappy who I couldn't understand in any language (he was Turkish) and (2) another Turk who frankly was on the wrong site - I mean, it was immediately "so shall we go to your place or mine?"  I told him wherever he wanted to go sling his hook.  I ended up having dinner twice with a charming Italian called Massimo, but there wasn't much spark there and frankly his ashtray breath was more than I could take, and then met up with a Panamanian/Swiss who remains a close friend to this day and briefly dated a Spanish lawyer who was an experience in itself, and with whom I also still remain in touch.

Turns out the Spanish guy was a high-powered lawyer - the chief lawyer for a big multi-national in Switzerland with a penthouse overlooking the lake.  Some of my friends were pig sick that I had struck it "so lucky" to meet a guy like this but hey, he invited me out, not the other way round.  After a few dates he asked me if I would be his date at his company's annual black tie dinner (f......k!!!!). What the hell would someone like me wear to something like that - I mean, these women were dripping in jewels and designer clothes.  I suppose on the positive side, no-one else would be wearing a dress from H&M with plastic earrings from the kiddies shop in town - but I digress.  So I said ok, when would it be and when should I come over?  He said, oh not till May, and don't worry about driving here, it's in Monte Carlo for the Grand Prix (double f.....k!!!).  So I asked how would we be getting there - and you've got it - corporate jet!  Oh man, I felt soooooooooooooo sick.  I mean, what the hell?  I don't think I slept for about a month worrying about it.  It turned out in the end that he had to travel to Japan for an urgent meeting so he had to cancel.  To say my relief was palpable would be an understatement, but I didn't get off the loo for about a week.

Dating him was actually great fun - he was so full of testosterone that it was a hoot (for a while).  I wasn't intimidated by him or his money, which I think is why we remain friends. But bloody hell. What an episode.  Eventually I deleted my profile from the site when a colleague of long-standing asked me out (and we have been seeing each other ever since, but do not, nor will we ever, live together).  We are just like a very comfortable pair of old slippers, happy in each other's company but leading our own lives totally independently.

That being said, I have to say that my one-and-only experience of internet dating was a positive one. It's not for me and there were a couple of scammers (to be written about in "internet dating bis") but all-in-all I have to say that there really are some nice men out there - they're not all flesh-eating monsters and many/most of them just want a bit of company the same as we women do.  Just be sure to pick the right site.