my ex-husband’s match.com profile (as written by me)
NAME: angryman
HEADLINE: So long as I have one woman to demonize, I can love another woman, no problemo.
69-year-old man
[northeastern city, state]
seeking women 50 - 65
within 20 miles of [northeastern city, state]
RELATIONSHIPS: divorced
HAVE KIDS: Yes, but they never live with me (2)
WANT KIDS: I didn’t even want these two, but now that they’re here, and I don’t have to see them too often, I love them. A lot.
ETHNICITY: White / causasian
BODY TYPE: average
HEIGHT: 5′8″
RELIGION: Jewish
SMOKE: used to smoke 4 packs a day, but that was 30 years ago. Now, No Way.
DRINK: beer, red wine, liqueurs (only expensive brands)
ABOUT MY LIFE AND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR
I want to get laid; who doesn’t? But nothing tricky or fancy — just plain old missionary a few times a week. I won’t even notice whether you come or not. I go to bed at 9:30 and wake up at 5:30, so sex at those hours is what I want. I shower in the morning, so I may be a bit sweaty at night. I’m looking for a woman who doesn’t care what I smell like. I don’t care if you’re fat or thin, but not too much in either extreme. Basically I’m looking for a woman who is economically self-sufficient and won’t need any money from me but doesn’t have too interesting a job. I want a woman who leaves her work in the office; a secretary or real estate agent or librarian would be ideal. A woman who turns off her brain when she comes home and will cook, do the dishes, knit or watch “Desperate Housewives” and will be ready to go to bed when I am. I’ve had a series of professions, but basically, I don’t like to work, so now I’m retired and I just like to putter around and fix things. My ideal woman would have a lot of broken small appliances that need fixing.
FOR FUN
I have about 30 acres of country property, and I like to spend 3 or 4 days a week there, plus holidays, plus 2 months in the summer, so if your job or family will conflict with that schedule, don’t bother writing. The woman I want must be happy to spend much of the year at my farmhouse: the bathroom (I’m tearing down the extra bathroom my ex-wife put in so I can make a photographic darkroom) is simple but functional. The kitchen wouldn’t win any prizes (now that my ex-wife is not around to clean it or to pay someone else to, and believe me, I’m not paying any cleaning woman), but I cook outside most of the time anyway, summer or winter, because mostly I eat big slabs of meat. I let the lawn go to hay and sell the haying rights to the farmer down the hill. There are no screens on the windows, because I don’t mind bugs. I’m one of those people they never bite. If you get bitten by mosquitoes or don’t like bugs, forget it.
MY JOB
I’ve been unhappy in three different professions over the past 40 years. What I really wanted was to own a hardware store, but I didn’t find out that Lee’s was for sale till it was already in new hands. Too bad. Now at last I’m retired and can putter around the house getting in your way and fixing your broken small appliances. Or trying to. At least I can twist wire around the broken parts and they’ll probably work as good as new. Or if they don’t, isn’t a broom as good as a vacuum-cleaner, a whisk better than a mixer, the broiler better than a toaster, and pigeons better than telephones? And if you go to bed at 9:30 the way I do and get up at 5:30, who needs electric lights? But fixing things is fun.
MY EDUCATION
Ivy League all the way; three Ivy League schools (undergraduate plus two graduate degrees), but I scorn them and their ways (even though I dress like a 1955 preppy) and never give them any money. I didn’t even go to my graduations. I don’t keep up with my roommates. Can’t remember their names. The fraternities were anti-semitic in my day, at least the non-Jewish ones were, so I didn’t have any friends. That’s all right; college was for work, anyway. I got out in 3 years.
FAVORITE HOT SPOTS
My farm. My home office, where I sit at my computer and manage my investments (while you’re watching “Desperate Housewives” and waiting for me to be ready to go to bed).
LAST READ
The Wall Street Journal. The Economist.
BODY ART: none
SPORTS AND EXERCISE: T’ai Ch’i. Yelling. Meditating.
EXERCISE HABITS: every day.
DAILY DIET: meat and potatoes, especially meat.
INTERESTS:
EDUCATION: B.A., Ph.D., L.L.B.
OCCUPATION: retired
INCOME: Ask me later.
LANGUAGES: English.
POLITICS: Unpredictable (if I think you’re a knee-jerk liberal, or just a jerk liberal, I’ll argue against you)
SIGN: don’t believe in it.
MY PLACE: live alone
PETS I HAVE: no answer.
PETS I LIKE: dog. If you have a cat, you’ll have to choose between me and the cat. Before the second date.
ABOUT MY DATE:
HAIR: any
EYES: any
HEIGHT: any
BODY TYPE: average
LANGUAGES: English
ETHNICITY: Asian; white, caucasian
EDUCATION: high school
JOB: secretary, librarian, real estate, paralegal
INCOME: enough so you can pay your own way
SMOKE: no way.
DRINK: social drinker
RELATIONSHIPS: any
HAVE KIDS: no
WANT KIDS: no.
TURN-ONS: early to bed and early to rise
TURN-OFFS: professional or creative woman who loves her work
September 2, 2007 at 9:20 pm
brilliant.
mimi, now remind us: why did you marry this guy?
September 2, 2007 at 9:27 pm
good question.
let me remember:
i think the main reason was my biological clock, which was ticking away. after we’d been together two years we started trying for a pregnancy, and (after one miscarriage) i had our first child in 1985. we got married in 1984 (during the first pregnancy).
i should have some better reasons:
well, of course, we loved each other (then….)…and we were both smart, witty, ironic, etc. that’s a short answer but it gives the general drift, i think.
September 2, 2007 at 10:13 pm
So it’s very funny (again in a depressing way for us still wandering in the match.com desert), but how is this connected to your weekend with Performer?
September 2, 2007 at 10:21 pm
my weekend w. Performer was 25/26 august, and the post about it is dated 27 august.
i’m spending labor day weekend laboring in manhattan, and he’s spending it laboring in the rural hinterlands. he returns to ny late next week.
to ans yr question: i feel there must be a connection betw my stable but still very new relationship w. P and my ability to confront [at last] the awful things about my marriage.
September 2, 2007 at 11:11 pm
And in such a devastatingly funny way.
Two beginner online dating questions:
1-How did you handle multiple dating?
2-Were you always looking for “the one”?
I guess these two questions are connected and both indicate my complete cluelessness about the process of “dating”.
One more question:
Are all your archives online?
I feel like I need more models I guess.
Thanks for all your reading and writing.
September 2, 2007 at 11:19 pm
dee, if by ‘multiple dating’ you mean dating w. more than 1 man w/in a week [or in some cases, for me, w/in a day], i’d say, just read all my posts. they’re all in the archives, from february through the present. read them in order….my life got more exciting in may. the dating started in june 2006 and picked up in october/nov, then got slow till late spring. i never had the opportunity for 2 relationships at once until the very week i met performer [read esp. april / may / june / july].
and yes, i was always looking for The One, whether it was 26+ years ago [before i met the man who became the father of my children, my now ex] or my new ’sexagenarian’ dating. this time round, i would have liked more flings and many more dates, but i shouldn’t complain, because the number that i had –for someone my age — is good. but yes indeed, my goal was to meet The One and stop dating.
September 4, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Really good stuff! I like, “Interests: ”
And the interesting part is, if you were to create an account for him with this as written, he’d probably get dates. I’m sure of it. (Sad but true.)
It makes sense that you’re exploring your ex while dating Performer. When we try something new, we often explore our past to make comparisons — am I different with these two people? how are they different? etc. We just want to make things right.
September 4, 2007 at 7:58 pm
delighted that you appreciate ‘INTERESTS.’ that’s one of the parts that [i must say] makes me giggle….
and yes i’m afraid you’re right this person i sort of invented and sort of didn’t probably _could_ gets lots of dates!!