Total Pageviews

Thursday 7 June 2012

Forever Young




“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” 
 
Mark Twain

The first time I engaged in an online discussion with someone from a dating site, it wasn’t to flirt or arrange a date; it was to learn the ropes.

This lady, by her own admission, had been on and off the sites for 4 or 5 years.  She gave me quite a few tips on the female rules, such as a woman should never go to someone’s house on a first date, always meet somewhere public and get a friend or relative to make a call about half an hour in which is to see if a) all is well or b) offer a potential get out should the date be a disaster.  Oh, and never chat to someone who doesn’t have a photo on their profile.

Wasn’t that a bit shallow?  Apparently not – you need to be able to make sure that the person is who they say they are, plus you need to recognise them if you were to meet.

Still not totally convinced, I said that I had heard several stories about people using false or ancient photos anyway, so did that really matter?  She didn’t really have a satisfactory response to that one, but did go on to say that she hadn’t found that to be the case in her experience.  However, she had found that men usually lie about their height, unless they were tall, naturally.

That just struck me as the most ridiculous lie ever.  Surely the truth would be discovered within nano-seconds of the date starting and sometimes even beforehand if the woman happened to see him in the car park?  Of course, but that didn’t alter the fact that she’d been out with plenty of men whose stated height was six foot plus but who had turned out to be under five foot six.  As she was nearly six feet tall herself, this was a complete turn off for her and bearing in mind that her cleavage was one of her best assets (her words – I never met her to find out) it was always off putting when it was at eye level with her date.  Before cutting the evening short, she always used to ask why the man had lied and the answer was usually the same; “Because if I put my real height down I wouldn’t get any dates.  Once I get in front of someone, I have a chance to show them my personality and then maybe the height won’t matter.”

Ok, I can see that logic, albeit that it is a tactic which is unlikely to succeed. But is it right to actually commence a relationship based on a lie? 

I therefore decided that I would not lie about anything on my profile and would be absolutely and totally honest.  Foolishly I assumed that everyone had the same standards.  After all, women wouldn’t need to lie about their height, would they?

Well, no.  But what I did find is that they lied about their age.  Not everyone of course, but apparently that is the most common lie a woman tells in their dating profile.

One woman I started chatting to put her age as 45 and looked absolutely stunning.  Amazingly, she made the initial contact with me (that in itself was unusual as the only people who had done that had been those desperate to escape from places like Russia, Ghana or Nigeria and who somehow were ALWAYS 28 years old) and after a few emails and phone calls, we decided to meet.  Following my rules (see earlier blogposts) I arranged to go to her area, which was about 40 miles away.  I picked her up from her home, which was a beautiful farmhouse-style property in about 2 acres of land in a rural setting.  I wasn’t invited in, but as she stepped out of the house it was clear her pictures didn’t do her justice.  She was simply gorgeous with a clearly well-toned and worked on figure, so there was some instant chemistry. We set off for a restaurant and had a fantastic Thai meal, getting on like a house on fire and obviously sharing a similar sense of humour.  The evening flew by as we chatted, finding out about each other’s backgrounds and previous experiences.  Apparently she had tried the sites before and failed as there were too many “weirdo men” who she seemed to attract but was sick of her own company and decided to have another try. She had found my profile “refreshingly honest” (irony alert) and had also been pleasantly surprised that my pictures didn’t do me justice either.

Her story was that she had left school and gone to work for the company her father had part owned (which was a multinational household name so there was clearly wealth in the family) where she stayed for 14 years until the birth of her two sons, now 23 and 22 and coming out of Uni.  Her marriage had dissolved a few years ago and she was currently studying Law by correspondence course, hoping to eventually qualify as a solicitor.

So had I found “the one”?  Clever, witty, self-sufficient, attractive and also apparently interested in me!

At the end of the evening, we were the last to leave the restaurant and I drove her home. Again, I wasn’t invited in but we did arrange to meet up again the following week and there was also talk of a weekend away in a month or two, if everything went well.

My head was full of future anticipation on the hour long journey back, but there was something nagging at me that I couldn’t put my finger on.  Then it hit me… she was 45, her eldest son was 23 and she had worked for 14 years… what age was she when she left school?  8? Clearly not – school leaving age was 16 minimum which made her 53 and maybe 54 depending on what month her birthday was.

I spoke to her the following day and asked her to clarify again… maybe I had misheard or misunderstood… I so wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.  However, when I mentioned it, she just exploded into an angry rage on the other end of the phone, accused me of “checking up on her”, said that “people like me were EXACTLY why she left the site before”, delivered a final foul mouthed tirade and hung up, warning me never to contact her again.

So she can’t remember to make the dates work to fit her deception and yet it’s somehow my fault?  Further, she couldn’t even be honest once she’d been found out as she “admitted” she was 49 (again, at least 4 years shy) and also said she had done it because otherwise she didn’t get dates from people she wanted to go out with.  She couldn’t see that it really wasn’t a nice thing to lie in order to get something you wouldn’t normally have, so I think I had a lucky escape there. 

What most intrigued me, however, was that if she had managed to cover it up and we had really hit it off, when was she actually planning to tell me?  Would I have been planning her 50th only to be told by one of her sons, “Look, Mum had that eight years ago!”  I think I would have questioned everything she had ever told me at that point.  As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”

So, bearing in mind that she could have easily been 45 if looks and personality were the measure, would the age have mattered if I had known at the outset?  Well, probably, yes. My partner Dawn is nearly 10 years younger than I am and that was a big hurdle for me to overcome.  It wasn’t the current age difference that bothered me, but what the condition of my body would be in 20 years’ time.  I was looking for a long term relationship and someone I could grow old with, not necessarily to be looked after by.  It did take me some time to accept that Dawn really, really didn’t care and in any event, she loves old people (bloody cheek!).  I guess by the time we get to middle age we are who we are, we know what we like and – most importantly – what we don’t like or are prepared to accept.  

After all, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.



No comments:

Post a Comment