Looking for love online

No, I haven't been checking out the male talent online for myself. I am (luckily) very happily married but a friend of mine is single and after a couple of glasses of Italy's best fizz she confessed she had registered with Tinder, the online dating site. She asked me to look through her options with her and help her pick potential dates.

\
Tasteful early '90's wedding fashion-don't I look....shiny.

I presume you've all heard of Tinder, or something similar. There are lots of apps out there supposedly "matching" potential partners.

Tinder's line is "Tinder is how people meet. Like real life, only better."

Well from my brief scroll through the app on my friends phone looking at the potential partners on offer I would agree. It's better because unlike in the nightclub at 1am you are not peering drunkenly through the gloom wondering if you are coming on to  a right male munter. On Tinder and similar sites, you can see just what you are getting if you can read though the lines. And it's not always good.

My friend and I were amused to see that most people obviously edit themselves. Lovely close up of a square jaw? Check picture two and the bloke has jug ears and worse, a straggly pony tail. Distant view of chap in skiing gear gazing across to snow-topped mountains? Scroll on to find paunchy bald guy who is more used to ice in his fast food drink than under his feet. Always, always check picture 2 and if possible 3!

Now. Reading descriptions. We loved the write-up one guy had submitted which mentioned that he liked to eat out, eat in, cook and be cooked for. You guessed it - man mountain. One guy had confusingly said he was both interested and not interested in a serious relationship. Commitment phobia?

We gave up after spotting one man's profile picture which was a photo of (someone's) huge....well genitalia is the polite word I suppose. It was standing to attention and ENORMOUS! We know it was that big because he had thoughtfully stood a can of a famous fizzy drink next to his bits for scale!

We wondered just who would respond to that picture- not my friend that's for sure!

Another friend actually went on some dates after using a similar app and told us there is a good reason why some of these people are single. Obviously not all - it's the modern way of dating and hurrah for that. But unlike in the old dark club, or pub where only make-up, alcohol and poor lighting misled you, technology has endless tricks to make frogs look like Prince Charming.

Top tips from my internet dating friends? Learn estate-agent style tricks - average height means he comes up to your shoulder, nice personality means he's not going to win any prizes for good looks, funny means his gran laughs at his jokes and looking for fun means he's looking for an easy, free sh*g.

Don't agree to dinner on the first meet up - a daytime coffee is both safer and means if he doesn't light your fire at first glance and a short conversation establishes you have no chance of even creating a spark you can knock back your latte and leave. If it's love at first sight you can discuss going onto a gallery/restaurant/hotel after you've finished coffee.

Don't go on pity dates. My friend didn't fancy one guy at all but liked him so much she didn't want to hurt his feelings when he kept making big romantic gestures to ask her out so agreed to dates against her better judgement. She hoped she would learn to like him "like that" but didn't and in the end she had to come clean and he got hurt.

Me and my Mr Right.
And if you are married don't register on the site which finds you dates via your location - one man in our (small) village got caught out when a recently divorced neighbour joined the site and was offered this man who lived at the end of our street as a potential partner. The idiot had even posted a picture of himself! We didn't tell his wife but just about everyone in the pub that night registered with the site  and all asked him for his number - he soon took his profile down!

There is hope for all those of you out there single and worried Mr Right will never come along - quite a few of my friends have found love via the www.  You just have to be patient and not expect perfection!

Oh and by the way, I'm using "women looking for men" for the purposes of this post but obviously am aware that the men looking for women and those looking for same-sex partners have exactly the same issues!