Hello, I’m a strange man from the internet

I was having coffee with Andrew a couple of nights ago and owing to my (fairly) recent shipwreck in the rocky Straits of Romance, our discussion turned to the subject of Moving On. This naturally evolved into an examination of the exciting world of internet dating. Although I’ve met a number of people via the blog, I’ve never actually done the proper fill-in-the-checklist-and-meet-your-soulmate thing. Andrew has, and he was kind enough to share some of his insights:

The primary flaw with online matchmaking sites is that most straight guys – whether they care to admit it or not – are (a) not actually sure what they want in a partner and (b) hard-wired by evolution to seek out pretty faces. They tend to narrow their choices by automatically rejecting anyone who appears to be suffering from Ed Zachary Syndrome, regardless of how strongly the computer believes they and Bachelorette No 1 would make a really cute couple.

The secondary, but far more insidious flaw kicks in when the prospective suitor starts to investigate his potential future ex-wife’s profile in more detail. This is where he learns that virtually every. single. one. of them enjoys long walks on the beach, piña colada, getting caught in the rain and so forth. The ones that boldly claim, “I ate Hitler’s liver!” stand out in sharp contrast to the clichéd majority and naturally provoke interest. The obvious drawback is that these “interesting” ones are completely and utterly batshit crazy. It seems to be one of those immutable laws of the internet.

If you need me, I’ll be in my comfort zone. Eating pie.