I’m single and meeting other single people is a rarity, at best. Being a 21st Century woman I do what people do – I use internet dating sites. We all know that on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog so on-line dating is, by its very nature, fraught with peril. There are land mines out there everywhere. The uninitiated worry about axe murderers and philanderers but really, rare as they are, they are not the problem. The problem is the way people chronically misrepresent themselves. This goes for both sexes but my experience is with men.

The misrepresentations take a couple of forms:

1). Picture is really old – I can’t tell you how often I have had a communication from some guy who says he is 50 or 52 and who looks pretty good in his picture. He appears to be fit, has hair, nice face. Through email we establish some mutual interest, have a phone call and then arrange to meet for coffee or a glass of wine. When I show up I see a single guy sitting at the bar and my brain says, “yeah – that’s probably him” but it’s hard to see with my eyes all bugged out of my head in shock as I try to process the gray, mostly bald pate and the droopy jowls. Does he think I’ll be so utterly stunned with his sparkling personality that I will simply look past the fact that the man sitting before me looks like he must really be my intended date’s Dad? All I can think is, “I wish you weren’t a liar”.

2). Big important job. – I had a date with a guy who said he was the operations manager for a major winery. This translated into ‘guy who turns on the sprinklers in the middle of the night to keep the vines from freezing’. Not quite the same thing, eh? He was toast after boring me to tears with a 20 minute dialog about buying a golf putter. Too much fun for me!

3). Lied about age – My most recent experience is a guy who posted very accurate pictures but looked a little old for his stated age (58). When we met we were both quite relieved that the other really did look like the picture and seemed to fit the profile. We had a looong conversation about how people misrepresent themselves in their profile and about how bothersome that is. On our second date he said something about ‘for a 58 year old man’ referring to himself. He is a runner so I looked up this race he was doing and found his registration information and guess what? HE’S 64! When I asked him when he planned on telling me this he responded with, “I hadn’t really thought about it”. Well, think about this – I don’t ever want to see you again.

So that’s it. I am just striking out all over the place. I’m sure there must be someone out there who is telling the truth who is just perfect for me. He might be bald or gray or jowly and he might be 64 (will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?). I don’t care if he is. If I know that going in to the date it’s fine. I’m sure I’ll meet him when I least expect it – perhaps while we are both feeling up melons in the grocery store where we can see exactly who we are dealing with – gray hairs, jowls and all.