Recently, my friends Paul and Will got engaged ((not to each other)). While we are waiting to see if Will’s competitive nature will lead to him tying the knot first, or Paul to reveal that it was all a bluff to force Will’s hand, I thought it time to look at finding myself a partner.

With lots of experience in writing about when to propose, what to do with rings, etc. I thought I was in a perfect position to start a relationship. What a mistake! I’m not a huge fan of the “clubbing” scene, but that doesn’t mean I like to be confined to the house. The probability of two people who don’t like “clubbing” to meet at a club is incredibly low. With this first test in mind I am left with finding people at work or on the Internet.

Sure, I get emails all the time from “Sexy Ladies” who seem to want to be my sex slave, but this seems a bit too forward for me. I’ve always thought that sodomy shouldn’t happen on the first date. I’m a bit conservative that way. So, surely people who share some common ground with me would be using the Internet, right? And if they were, they were likely to be on Internet dating sites.

I thought I had found the solution through a logical process. Unfortunately, after being on a site for over a year I have received no responses. Not one. Something was wrong. I had also tried to initiate contact with several people, each of whom responded with either a rejection or not at all. I was beginning to feel quite discouraged.

From this experience I think I’ve worked out what one of the key problems with this is. People are looking for perfection. If you don’t have rock hard abs and can bench press twice your body weight, you shouldn’t bother. This negates the effect of finding compatible personalities. Unless of course, my personality is so utterly offensive it scared everyone away.

So now that the Internet has failed me, I guess it’s time for Plan B, asking random people on the street.