Q – the profile and the reality!

A man doing this for the camera? Please no.

I met Q through a mutual friend a couple of years back and we had a brief fling followed by a superficial and occasional gesture at friendship, so it was with some amusement I recently stumbled upon his online dating profile. This seemed an excellent opportunity to gauge the ratio of truth to nonsense of a man's self-analysis (a qualitative rather than quantitative survey, you understand).

The profile commenced with a photo of Q looking imploringly up at the camera, hand coyly over mouth, puppy dog eyes.  This alone would usually be enough for me to "Next!" a bloke (no effete manipulators, please).


The content of the profile itself however, was more engaging. He comes across as funny, articulate, self-effacing, genuine, charming, sweet. A fantastic date and/or boyfriend in fact.


I will refrain from quoting it directly, in the interests of maintaining some shred of decency and anonymity (for him not me), but I think it is fair to say that were I to rewrite this profile (as many men request a female acquaintance do), here are some of the key points I noticed were missing:

• Happy to offer unsolicited unconstructive criticism on anything from your career to your choice of footwear to what you are cooking for dinner this evening (even if he is not invited to said dinner).
• Rude to taxi drivers, and potentially anyone else who is working class and/or an ethnic minority.
• Likes to receive texts and exclaim expletives such as “bugger” (or the strangely unplummy "motherfucker") in loud voice to provoke you into asking what the problem is. If ignored will repeat in attention-seeking manner until he gets the go ahead to disclose a "teaser" about the latest girl who is "stalking" him.
• Enjoys point-scoring off friends, particularly in front of their new girlfriends.
• Inability to give compliments: they "have to be earnt" - yes headmaster!
• Frequent difficulty in distinguishing between wit and tactlessness/rudeness.
• Capacity for occasional acts of charm and sweetness, but only activated after at least a bottle of wine, and likely to be strenously denied in the morning.
• And let's not forget my personal favourite: the post-coital baby voice with accompanying lisp. Irresistible.

On the other hand (after all, it wouldn't do to appear one-sided), also unrecorded on his profile was the fact that he possesses a rather nice, sleek body.


Can I ever approach a profile with my prelapsarian innocence again?