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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Heir-raising

Things must be getting desperate out there for the literate and dateless. I've noticed a few magazines normally devoted to more cultural matters now offering a personals column!

So far I've seen Australian Book Review (they don't seem to have specific page URLs, just a broad website URL) and Art Monthly Australia. Does anyone else know of others? And better yet, has anyone got any tales to tell?

I have to admire anyone who looks for love on the web. I have a friend who has had enormous success from online dating services, having found her last two [medium] long-term relationships that way. I tried it once and met a horrible single dad who let his toddler lick the rim of the opening of a coke can while we were talking. I can't even remember why the child was there in the first place (I didn't bring mine) but I was so distracted by the impending cut tongue that I hardly listened to a word he said. When I did tune in it was so banal I never bothered to get in touch again.

A mutual friend tried to matchmake BB and I at least two years before we actually started looking sideways at each other. She kept telling us we were perfect for each other, and I kept telling her to bugger off. Now, of course, she demands elaborate apologies when we meet. And I give them to her. But if we'd tried to go out at that earlier stage, it would have been a disaster. We needed time to be just friends first. The friend who succeeds at internet dating says the secret is a long email correspondence before you even think about meeting.

So there's something to say for taking your time to do things.

I don't know why I just wrote all this. I must be missing him at last.

I meant to tell you about Bumblebee's hair. He's trying to grow his hair long, and until today he looked like a shaggy dog, having let his short-back-and-sides grow out for a few months. He's going to Perth this weekend with Colonel Duck, his grandfather, who wanted me to get B's haircut before the trip. So today I took him to my hairdresser and asked her to neaten him up. She talked to him for a while and ascertained that he wanted to look 'cool' like his friends. So she washed his hair, snipped and snapped, dried it and applied product. COOL! he said, and walked back to me proudly. My loves, it looked exactly the same, just artfully shaggy. I don't know how Colonel Duck will cope, but Bumblebee thinks it's the bomb. And he got a free pot of product to take home, which I guess means less access to the mirror in the mornings for us.

8 comments:

Ben.H said...

Ahem. The London Review of Books has the Alpha and Omega of literary personals. It is essential reading. They even hold monthly singles nights at their bookshop. One day I'll work up the courage to go.

Anonymous said...

Oh no the New York Review of Books my friend. Along with Ptolemy II's star signs in the Good Weekend, here lies the zenith of the personal. Come now how, can one surpass:
"A woman-of-letters looking for her Part of Speech. A European transplant to the West Coast, early fifities, feminine, good-looking. Perfection is not a prequisite; search for wisdom, heart's inteligence and active lifestyle are."
All the key elements are there in just five lines of text. The opening line of Shakespearian imagery; the evocation of Euro-chic in the next, combined cunningly with the playful whimsy of the handy detail of her physical perfection; followed then by her magnanimous recognition of the respondant's lack thereof & her very likely acceptance of anyone still capable of lifting the remote control to watch West Wing while sipping a pinot noir.
But i shall finish with this:
"Play Doctor with a real Doctor. Psychiatrist in early 80s, almost brilliant, and professionally active, seeks seasoned woman with lively mind and joie de vivre."

Ampersand Duck said...

Aren't they brilliant? I knew about those two mags, and feel dumb for not saying so. I don't get to read them enough, and love your examples.

I'm interested that Aussie mags are now feeling that it's cool to do the same, when our intelligence pond is smaller and quite probably inbred. Still, should be amusing reading for the well-connected :)

Anonymous said...

But what or whom is tall & tetchy's monster of all time - Godzilla? George W? Stalin? Hitler? Damn - fell at the first hurdle.

Ampersand Duck said...

Agerum, Alvine, Lång, Delikat, Drälla, Fågelbo, Igge, Ordning, Utgård. Gentleman to 50 familiar with the simple poetry of Ikea, and no stranger to flat-pack assembly, urgently sought by woman currently living in a tee-pee in her own living room. Putting together my Noresund is no guarantee of sex but it does put you a long way up the waiting list.

heh.

Ben.H said...

I prefer the succinct, "My ideal woman is a man. Sorry, mother." that appeared in the LRB personals early last year.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

ahhhh well, it's probably a good thing to let arty wankers find each other more easily than not ;)

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

This town isn’t big enough for the both of us. Failed urban planner. M, 48. Didsbury.

that's a funny, though :) and this one, I think, might actually be Harry, although he hasn't arrived in the UK yet:

Safety first. Dignity second. Trousers last. Rubbish wok-cooked foods enthusiast and flammable materials-wearing loon (M) WLTM F to 45 with fire-blanket and no small amount of knowledge regarding the correct batter-frying procedures of tempura. Bicester.