INTERNET DATING III

So my friend Bloggiana, aka SweatyNun (her internet dating alias), has been contacted by 45 men. I think that seems like quite an extraordinarily high number and I say so. What are they saying to you, I ask with a hint of go-on-you’re-only-teasing-surely in my voice. Bloggiana shrugs. She says it must be that amazing profile you wrote me. So I am forced to shrug too and grope for my identity which somehow seems to have slithered out of me and is now cowering under the table. But really, how can SweatyNun have attracted 45 fans when I BigTitsBlondeHairLongLegs have netted a measly 19? To the resounding thuck of a cork being eased from its Pinot Grigio life partner, I challenge her. Are you absolutely sure, I ask, trembling gently.

We go online. SweatyNun makes me stand at the back of the room while she types in her profile name and password and I suspect secretly edits her matches before allowing me to have a look. I hold my wine glass with both hands and think dark thoughts like who on earth would want to be with a SweatyNun and why didn’t I call myself UpsideDownTracy or BlotchBabe or even IscratchLikeACatandScreamLikeABanshee?

At last I am allowed to step forwards and scrutinise SweatyNun’s inbox. I am disappointed to note she has now engaged a further five admirers and I feel myself begin to swoon slightly. We open her messages. TinklyToenails says Hi, loved your profile. Tx. HeadLikeATurnip says Hi, just thought I’d pop by, maybe you’d like to do the same to me?? (Brain like a beetroot, I’d say.) StrangleBungler says Hello SweatyNun, What a coincidence. I too am a Christian. Shall we meet?

We flick through the remaining proposed candidates when suddenly Bloggiana screeches to a halt and says OhMiGod. Oh my God, what? We’ve reached a patron by the name of TrannieV. He looks tall and striking with a surprisingly good head of hair for a man who admits to being over 50. The strapline is a bit offputting, something about skirts and trousers but by now the PG has kicked in and I’m not really paying attention. Bloggiana looks a bit fevered. Something about the way the mouse keeps hopping up and down the screen like its tail is on fire. She reads through his profile, her moans low-key but audible nonetheless. Then she goes back and scrolls through his picture album which, unlike most, boasts a lot of photographs. She looks at one and then at two. At three and four and five and finally we come to ten and I see what all the fuss has been about. There is TrannieV, resplendent in a dress, his hair immaculately swept back into a pony tail, his paunch neatly disguised by a shawl.

SweatyNun! I exclaim. I know, she says. And not only that, she adds, he’s an old boyfriend. Lorks, I exclaim again. Bloggiana smiles at me in a watery kind of way. I sit down next to her. It’s time, we agree, to start re-writing. And pronto.