The Heartfix: An Online Dating Diary. Stella Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ her in person. Undeniably, I had been a shock to some men I’d met, and I wasn’t the only one to have had that experience (look, I’m not particularly hideous). I’d been talking to other women of around my age who had found the very same. It was agreed that there were notable (noble) exceptions, but in general men had expectations that a woman who’d ‘put herself out there’ would dedicate time, effort and money to her appearance, so as to compete. Some men are of the opinion that the whole physical manifestation of a woman on the earth should amount to an A–Z of efforts to please, and that we’re all madly in competition with one another. There are men who think that’s all that lipstick means. There are tabloid newspapers that suggest that’s all that clothes mean, and who divide women into goat and sheep camps, the frumpy and those who flaunt themselves. There have been men, in the course of this quest, who have been openly scandalised about my lack of commitment to looking younger. But then as Jack kept telling me, ‘Men are visual creatures.’ He was doubtful about the Scheherazade strategy, one involving telling stories and general email-based bewitchment. Nonetheless, I resolved to stick with plan A. I decided that I would be quirky, and bright, and a little bit alpha, and I was going to be my real age, for as long as it took. Initial disappointments wouldn’t deter me. I was going to beat the system and find the man I’d want to be with for the rest of my life. I was just hoping it wouldn’t take another 1001 nights.

Trying to Write the Right Profile

      Here’s my first attempt at a dating profile. The additions in bold in brackets are my reactions to reading it now.

      ABOUT ME

      Tall, dark, reasonably handsome woman, just turned 50, hoping for second love after the end of a long marriage. (Is tall, dark and handsome a bit of a macho way to introduce yourself? I’m trying for witty, but I think I’m just coming off as annoying, to misquote Rex the dinosaur in Toy Story.) Intelligent, lively, curious, bookish. Not a skinny person. I’m just saying. Not obese either, but if slender is your type, then I might literally be too much to handle. (Christ, no, that’s not even funny.)

      WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR

      A tall, clever, funny, loyal, lovely man. (Not much to ask, is it?) Ideally, someone to grow old with. Someone bookish, good-humoured, sociable, kind. (You should probably have written: ‘Happiness; not interested in flings’. That’s probably enough.) I have a bit of a thing for big sturdy academics who rock a linen jacket. (Oh no.)

      MUSIC

      My music likes are catholic, as in wide-ranging and not as in Vatican City. (You’ve just offended somebody.) Jimi Hendrix, Kathleen Ferrier, Pat Metheny, Philip Glass, Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and all the usual classical. Not really an opera person. Fond of seventies and eighties tracks that remind me of being a student. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Glen Campbell, Velvet Underground, John Martyn, Blue Nile, Marvin Gaye, Blondie, Pretenders, The Cure, David Bowie. Very fond of wordless film scores and ambient. Favourite guilty secret: Fleetwood Mac. (Accurate enough, though you’ve completely omitted the jazz you listen to all day. And I’m not really sure why you’ve written all this.)

      BOOKS

      Usually have a book stuck to my face. British and American nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the usual retinue of greatness: Dickens, Austen, Brontë, Wharton, James. Oh, and those Russian chaps, and those French chaps (that you don’t read much. Plus, your cuteness is already annoying). Currently on the bedside: Michel Faber, Richard Ford, Kazuo Ishiguro, Fitzgerald, Franzen, Forster, Iris Murdoch. Larkin and Eliot. Art books. A.N. Wilson’s The Victorians. (This is true but you might be trying too hard. Perfectly nice men who read only 99p Kindle thrillers will be deterred. It doesn’t matter what you read or what other people read.)

      FILMS

      Twelve random Desert Island films: Local Hero, Some Like It Hot, Philadelphia Story, Annie Hall, Hero, Blazing Saddles, Two Days in Paris, Stranger than Fiction, Rocky Horror, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, A Night at the Opera, All About My Mother, Blade Runner. (Except that’s thirteen.) I’m a big fan of world cinema of all sorts. Guilty pleasures: The Bourne franchise, popcorn thrillers.

      FOOD

      Basically Nigella. (You are embarrassing.) Very greedy and eat almost anything (you’re saying you’re fat). Cooking and eating are important, as you will see immediately you meet me. (You keep telling the boys that you’re fat, you know.) World food rather than just traditional British, though in reality there’s a lot of chicken. In summer, fish and chips out of the paper while sitting on a sea wall. Restaurant pick for a blowout dinner – mussels to start, venison or duck, lots of cheese, a clever chocolate pudding. And wine. Lots of wine. Garlic with everything except custard. Death Row meal: steak and sweet potato fries. (Really not clear why you’ve written down any of this.)

      ART

      I’m an art nut and go to galleries a lot. I have trouble with some of the conceptual stuff but am not completely ungroovy. (Oh God.) I’ve even admired the occasional video installation. I like primitive art, Renaissance art, nineteenth-century art, early/mid twentieth-century modernism. I like abstraction, colour, some expressive work. Howard Hodgkin. (At this point you’ve probably deterred people who think this is a spec, rather than just your own ramblings.)

      HOME

      Home means a lot, physically and as an idea. I like to decorate, in different senses of the word. (No, me neither.) Having said that, heading off with a rucksack and being forced to be a world citizen would probably be good for me. At home I feel the pull between sleek functionality and a more cluttered, wildly coloured nineteenth-century approach with some Moroccan-boho touches. (A chap might wonder if you’re asking to be housed and to be given a furnishing budget, at this point.)

      TV AND RADIO

      Radio 3 and 4. Not a live-TV watcher, in general. Low tolerance for commercials. No tolerance for reality television, of any sort. I like thrillers, crime, suspense, psychological. Quite partial to the occasional bonnet drama (I don’t mean cars). Culture and science docs. (You sound like a media snob. But that is accurate enough.)

      PLACES

      I haven’t been to enough places. I know bits of Europe well and tend to return to them. Ideal holiday: a place with swimming plus exploring opportunities, interleaving history/travel days with relaxing days. Wild swimming fan: lakes and rivers often preferred to beaches. No interest in the Caribbean or tanning. I want to see more of the world. (Add that trekking in Nepal and Machu Picchu are not on the list.) I want to see ‘Arabia’ as the nineteenth-century explorers saw it. (Do not say this – people will delight in misunderstanding it.)

      POLITICS

      Sensible-compassionate left-middle. (Don’t use the word compassionate about yourself. Or charismatic, come to that.)

      SPORT

      No. Unless you count walking the dog. Or watching Wimbledon and Six Nations rugby. On the television. On the couch. (This is brave, perhaps, but necessary. Too many midlife men are gym-oriented.) I cycle, but rarely uphill.

      WEEKENDS

      An ideal weekend: eating, reading, going out for a mooch and a coffee, dipping into a museum, going to the cinema, making dinner and drinking wine. Or: off to a wild green place for walking and the pub. Or: gardens and NT houses with tearooms. Weekends away in B&Bs. Walks on the beach in winter. (Beaches in winter are a total dating cliché.)

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