Last year I enrolled at Match.com using the pen name of “MrMarvelous” just to see if there was anyone out there as desperate as I was to meet their perfect mate. After blowing off an entire day’s work perusing the women within 100 miles of my zip code, seven major metropolises and all of the neighborhoods I’ve ever lived, it became readily apparent that of the 40 million single men and women who subscribe to on-line dating services, most are looking for the same thing – and their profiles reflect it. So, to leverage myself against my male competitors and attract more than my fair share of the lovelier sex, I decided to create the following original member profile to flaunt my rapier wit. After all, isn’t that what women want: a man with a sense of humor?
Dating headline:
Tom Selleck Look-a-like In Search of Love
For fun:
I enjoy risky activities like running with scissors, skydiving without a chute and guessing women’s weight. I like doing things in dark, damp places and want to find someone who enjoys the same. I love the ocean and dream of opening a five-star skin care clinic at the trendy Paranur Gandhi Leprosy Colony in Hawaii. Like my parole officer, I feel that if you find the right vocation, your job and your hobbies become one in the same.
My job:
I work as a telemarketer for a cemetery. Calling people at dinner time to discuss their immediate plans after death has helped me immensely with the online dating scene. After working at “Plots ‘R Us” for six months, I’ve developed a thick enough skin to allow me to work through all of the hate mail and death threats that I’ve accumulated at Match.com.
My ethnicity:
I was born the only Jewish boy in a home full of Mormon women. Plagued by daily beatings at the hand of my 7-year old sister, I struck out on my own at the age of 43, in search of my father: the only gay Karate Instructor I’ve ever known. My mother told me that I was conceived in the back seat of a 1943 Peugeot station wagon on her prom night. Since that time, I’ve become inexplicably drawn to used car salesmen and the smell of cheap upholstery.
My religion:
I was baptized as a Buddhist, circumcised by a freelance Mohel and spent the first 10 years of my life sequestered in a Catholic confessional, so I consider myself religious but not spiritual. My sect believes in reverse re-incarnation: that mankind has already lived their best days in the distant past. Each time we are re-born, we return one rung lower on the ladder of life. Eventually, after returning enough times, we end up as a chewed piece of gum, stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe only to be scraped off on the curb.
Favorite hot spots:
I’m generally not a “club” person, but sometimes I’ll dress up in my best leisure suit and go looking for Bakersfield disco clubs; pretty tough since discos went out in the 1970’s. I love traveling and will often stow away in cargo containers aboard trans-pacific freighters. The accommodations aren’t great but I’ve met a lot of wonderful people and have become fluent in 15 dialects of Tagalog.
Favorite things:
Since I’ve been paroled, life has been about taking advantage of all of the things I could never have while sharing a cell with three women: my own bar of soap, sharp objects, a mirror, keeping a whole pack of cigarettes to myself, being able to fall asleep without screaming, being stabilized on my medications, a new tattoo every week with a clean needle and unfettered access to the general public.
Last read:
Although I love to read, since the lobotomy I haven’t been able to tackle anything much longer than 10 words before I start to hyperventilate. I generally stick to reading the instructions on Preparation H boxes or the restraining orders that inevitably come every week. Someday, I’d like to tackle a great American novel; something like “Curious George and the Pizza,” “Is Your Mama a Llama?” or “The Frog and the Toad Are Friends.”
About me and what I’m looking for:
My therapist tells me that I’m a mystery wrapped in an enema. I’ve been told that I’m good looking, sexy, have great legs, am fun to be with and an exceptional wit. But that might have been just to get me to eat my peas.
I spend most of my time outdoors and love to travel. Not having a place to live will do that to you. I love exercise and enjoy a good chase from the police on a warm summer evening. My special lady has to be tall, smart, of good child-rearing stock and have wide hips as I intend to have ten or fifteen kids once I get off of the anti-depressants.
I was raised by my grandparents: devout polygamists who practiced celibacy. My grandmothers used to tell me that I could be anything in life I wanted to be as long I made decisions with my “big” head instead of my “little” head.
I’m looking for the kind of woman who knows how to take care of me: the kind of lady who doesn’t mind getting up in the middle of the night to adjust my IV drip or change my soiled diapers. I need a woman who likes to cuddle and hold me after my panic attacks. I’m a great conversationalist and most of the time I can form whole sentences despite the Thorazine. I like sitting by the fire sharing a good bottle of wine with my special lady. Over the years, I’ve amassed quite a collection of screw top wines from all over the world. I also like to think of myself as quite a good cook. In the Rocky Mountains, we have a lot of road kill during the spring, so I’ve become something of a connoisseur when it comes to preparing smashed game.
They say that the majority of successful relationships begin in the workplace. Although I’ve had passionate relationships with the UPS driver, the Xerox repair person, three of the security guards, fourteen temps, all of the cleaning women and half of the secretaries, I still haven’t found “the one.” Having exhausted all of my workplace options, I’m turning to Match.com to meet that special someone.
I have exceptionally high standards with women that I allow into my life. They have to be either smart, dull, funny, lifeless, passionate, cold, humorless, wealthy, poor, athletic, sedentary, slim, fat, beautiful, plain, wealthy, broke, healthy, infirm, generous, cinchy, self-centered, old, young, well-traveled, self-absorbed or have just about any other quality that a man looks for in a woman; as long as they’re alive, warm and breathing.
Are you out there?
Author’s note: this was the actual profile, word for word, I successfully used on Match.com. At least until the end.
