This was written by a good friend of mine after a spate of Internet dating nightmares:
I’m a fifty-two-year-old female (yes, that’s my real age) seeking a man age forty-eight to fifty-four, who actually is what he says he is. My friends would describe me as intelligent, fit, attractive, and a good person with a great sense of humor. Since I really am fifty-two, I have laugh lines, crow’s feet, and I color my hair. My boobs are not as perky as they were at twenty-three, but they’re real, and hey, they’ve fed a child. Can you make that claim? My stomach is still flat without the aid of liposuction, and I’m still capable of turning a head or two. I won’t tell you I have no baggage, or even tell you that what I have is carry-on or will fit into most overhead storage. I mean, let’s be real. If you get to be this age and you have no baggage, you have not lived and you’re probably not a very interesting person. The question is, do you run it or does it run you?
Now, for my perfect match:
I’m seeking a truthful man who can read (for starters, my entire profile), write, is capable of having a realistic assessment of his physical self and is capable of restraint. Let me be more specific. If you have ultra-conservative political views and mine are listed as liberal, ask yourself if we’re a good match. It might make for entertaining conversation for a week or two, but then my friends would probably be reading about me on the front page of the Chronicle for bludgeoning you with a bicycle chain. Ditto if you’re a fundamentalist in any religion, including Buddhism. Trust me when I say this—the concept of impermanence will take on new meaning and rather quickly at that.
If your profile contains grammatical errors like using “an” when you mean “and,” or “your” when you mean “you’re,” or “their” when you mean “there,” you might want to explore what proofreading is or better yet, take a remedial English class. And if you do not punctuate or only use lowercase letters, let me remind you that there is only one ee cummings, and he died in 1962.
