My three beaus.

I've got mail!  Lots of mail, in fact. I am a fisher of men and I've got a bit of a mixed catch. Anything from requests to chat from 18-year olds who think I'm hot to comments that my profile is too scary for most men due to my bluntness and a photo of me looking militant and aloof in my Che Guevara gear, to a message from a guy in the forces whose interests include 'long-distance wanking'. 'Walking', one presumes, or else the man is bragging.

Requests for 'chats' I simply ignore. I can't abide smalltalk in most situations and what's worse than regular smalltalk is smalltalk about inane subjects with complete strangers. I prefer big talk, or, even better - meeting up with complete strangers. If nothing else, the awkwardness of initial meetings entertains me. Not everyone shares my point of view, of course. Many people on the site don't see the point of casual social interaction if it doesn't directly lead to their desired goal, i.e. a long-term relationship or marriage, yet how can you find that elusive one if you're not prepared to engage in the initial stages. I've had an email from a nice-sounding fitness instructor (looking a bit like Dane Bowers from Another Level), who has a most gorgeous cat:

"You probably get thousands of emails, but I hope I stand out." I invited him out for coffee, but when I explained to him that I wasn't out to find my soulmate, that I was simply interested in meeting up with random people to see what transpires, he sent me a rather abrupt message to say that he thought it was a complete waste of time: "Predictably, I'll never measure up to your standards of an 'ideal partner' and we'll end up just being 'friends'. No thanks."  I'm not actively looking for an 'ideal partner' and this chap clearly has a bit of an inferiority complex. As for not living up to my standards...well, all I can say is that in the past, my standards have been...unconventional. Best of luck to him, anyway.

Predictably, I've exchanged several long emails with an aspiring writer who's done time for small-scale drug trafficking, who was writing a book about his prison experiences and subsequent romance with a female prison warden when his laptop got stolen and year's worth of writing disappeared. We talked a bit about muses and Jack Kerouac but I wasn't too enthused about the drug trafficking bit, even though he'd explained that he only sold to friends to fund his own addiction. I used to have weakness for damaged, tortured men, and I'm not keen on revisiting that area.

One chap, David, a Londoner of Spanish descent wrote me an email that made me guffaw and spit out my coffee: "I saw your profile and was instantly mesmerised by your beauty."
I dare him to say that to me with a straight face.
He continued: "Then I read your profile and found that you are as intelligent as you are beautiful." What is he trying to say? Still, he was articulate and his spelling was good, which worked in his favour, as one thing I can't abide is txt spk and poor spelling and grammar. I foolishly gave him my mobile number and he spent a whole evening texting me the likes of: "OMG, I can't believe how beautiful you are. Why are you still single?" I told him of my tragic past and asked him why a charmer like him is still single. "Because I haven't met you yet." Smooth.

I take him with a pinch of salt. You see, on PlentyofFish you get two virtual 'be mine' roses to send to people every month. I noticed that he'd already sent someone a 'be mine' rose and since the recipient wasn't me, I can only conclude that he's courting more than one girl. Furthermore, he's a bus driver, and as I told Gabriel*, "I've done working class, darling." Terrible as it may sound, I have serious doubts about a bus driver being able to widen my intellectual horizons. Do I come across as a terrible snob? Finally, I checked out the charmer's Facebook profile and found that he a) only has female friends b) his profile is very recent and c) he only has one photo and that is deliberately distorted, which suggests to a cynic like me that he may well be attached and trying to score with other girls without his partner finding out.

Then we have an Aussie who works as an engineer in Saudi Arabia in between learning Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing), walking across South America for a year and a half, taking disabled folk for a spin in his boat during his spare time and dreaming of yachting across the world. Sounds okay on paper, though walking's a pretty slow way to get across South America and when he mentioned that his other dream is to walk across Russia, well, I think I'll take a train, personally. Then he had the audacity to suggest that women in Saudi Arabia are not really oppressed by men, that wearing a head-to-toe burka is no biggie and that the women themselves insist on wearing it and coerse other women into doing the same. The last bit may well be true; as all oppressors know, if you give the oppressed an illusory bit of power over their peers, they tend to focus on that rather than the big picture. I told him as much, as he hasn't responded yet. If he does, I may grant him a dinner with yours truly, but one dinner only.

Lastly, an interesting character. His photo appears alongside one of Mick Jagger at some photo gallery, he sets up the stage before rock gigs, he wants to motorbike across Europe and he manages to look like different rock stars at will, simply by changing his hair and facial hair. "An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory" is his motto, and I agree. Too many people of this site are all mouth and no trousers, and all too keen on online chat only, whereas this one seems to be happy to meet in person, loves travelling and photography and, I must admit, is rather good-looking. I think I shall meet him and assess him.