Chapter 6

On his way home he thought about Clive’s’ suggestion of online dating but there was no way he was going to do that. That was for sad lonely people, granted he was a bit lonely but he wasn’t sad and anyway he’d have to pay, paying for a date that was like, like prostitution!
Whatever his feelings on the subject he still logged on when he got home and had a look. He “googled” dating agency and got 2,500,000 results, must be big business he thought to himself. If you couldn’t find your perfect partner on here they probably weren’t out there he surmised after he had looked at a few of the sites. There were websites for all tastes and fantasies some of which seemed to Jimmy quite unsavory. There were many advertising Russian or Bulgarian wives with just as many offering advice on Russian or Bulgarian dating scams, he’d have to choose carefully, that was if he was if he was taking this seriously, which he wasn’t! One which did catch his eye and make him chuckle was the, marry an ugly millionaire online dating agency; he’d have to put that in his favorites.
When he found a few sites which covered England and actually had a section for men who were looking for women, he settled on one that was easy to navigate and seemed quite popular. He was able to be quite specific on the type of lady he was looking for and in what area. He made a general search and found hundreds of pages of ladies in his area looking for men, he was amazed! Lots of them had pictures and many of them looked quite nice; amazed again. He still wasn’t convinced and by now was feeling tired and as he had work in the morning, headed off to bed.
He hardly gave it a thought over the next few days. It was busy at work and he was doing lots of taxi driving, what with that, hanging with the boys and sleeping, he didn’t have time for anything else. Not until the weekend. That weekend the boys were staying with their mother and by Sunday Jimmy was at a loose end and found himself gravitating back to that dating site.
This time he did a more specific search looking for someone living nearby who was his age, a non smoker who had, or liked, children. There were 18 pages of them! He read some of the profiles and was sure that all these women couldn’t be telling the truth, and if the men they were looking for actually existed he would be very surprised and even if they did exist he was sure they wouldn’t be advertising their wares on here.
There seemed to be some sort of unwritten law that you could exaggerate the truth or bend it a little. He noticed that no one was fat, they were either cuddly or ample and no one was ugly, they were average or not good looking. It made him laugh; he couldn’t imagine someone saying “look at that average ample bastard!” He guessed honesty might not be the best policy, though you were likely to get caught out in the long run. He supposed that people thought if they got as far as meeting and they actually got on it wouldn’t really matter what they put in their profile. He also thought that writing; shy, couch potato looking for a shag might not get many replies!
Another thing that caught his eye was that so many of the profiles looked similar. Everybody seemed to be looking for the same thing and if everything that they put on their profiles was true every evening Blockbuster and Threshers would be packed to the rafters with couples getting ready for their romantic night curled up in front of a DVD sipping wine. Then at the weekends, you wouldn’t be able to get close to a country pub due to all the loving couples who would have packed out the place, never mind take a walk in the country or along the beach. Perhaps he was just an old cynic!
Something he was really taken by was some of the names that were used on the profiles. Some women were obviously not worried about getting a date if they were calling themselves scruffy-fluffy-bunny. Or weren’t worried about what sort of date they got if they called themselves number-one-easy-lay. There were loads of great ones that they had obviously taken a lot of time and trouble over thinking up but most of them just used their first name with a number after it like Jane1245, 1245 because 1244 women had got there before her.
He had a spare hour so he decided, just for a bit of fun he would fill in a profile. First came the name, he let them chose it for him and he became Jimmy 1776. Next came the photo or didn’t as the case was. He had no way at that time to download a picture to his computer, no scanner or digital camera, that was his excuse, and he was sticking to it. Anyway he guessed that some women wouldn’t contact him if they saw what he looked like but they might if they didn’t. Crazy logic but it worked for Jimmy. Another thing about not having a photo was no one he knew would know it was him as he had no intention of telling a soul if he happened to go through with this.
Then came the multiple choice description; he was six foot three with short dark hair which was starting to grey a bit. Eyes, yes he had eyes but what colour were they? He studied them in the mirror, blue or green? They were definitely bloodshot, he plumped for grey! He didn’t think he was handsome and muscular or ugly and fat so he became Mr. Average, average weight and average looks. Hobbies and interests was easy too. They give you a list, you mark them off. After he found watching sports and television and films Jimmy thought he better add a few more to make him seem a bit more interesting although he thought flower arranging and paper folding may be going a bit too far.
Now came the hard part where he had to write a description of himself and describe what he was looking for in a lady. Jimmy had struggled here so he looked at what women wanted and gave it to them. He developed from a shy couch potato with no real interests into an outgoing active guy with plenty of interests. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for in a partner either but needed to find someone who had kids or if not at least liked them, had a sense of humour (she’d have to), and didn’t smoke. So he used that, and then, to accentuate his sensitive side he said he wouldn’t rush into any relationship as he had been hurt in the past. After plenty of trial and error he got this all down in some sort of order he was quite pleased with.
Now he wasn’t sure what to do next, he had his profile down and, even if he said so himself thought it looked quite good. He had had fun and if he was that way inclined may have even contacted himself if he had read it. What harm could it do if he posted it on the site? It wouldn’t cost him anything; he would only have to pay if he wanted to contact someone (had he remembered to put tight on his profile?). So after taking a deep breath he clicked on send and sat back to wait for the offers to come in.

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