There’s a gaping hole in the configuration of online dating profiles as far as I can see. No, its not the presence of a lie detector test to flush out the cads that are in fact still married and seeking a fling (although a little x box that glowed a little red light about that fact would be a welcome addition)
It’s a little section that would allow you to elaborate on your vices.
For your vices give a glimmer of insight into your personality far greater than anything that you could verbalise within your written profile. Vices give insights that demonstrate baggage far more vividly than a veiled reference to a desire to live a drama-free life, compassion more instinctive than the profile pic with your World Vision sponsor kid, and a diversity of character far greater than what you can conjure up by vomiting adjectives such as fun-loving, compassionate, caring, genuine, honest, fair etc etc zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Vices give an insight into the areas where you see yourself as slightly less than perfect but can easily transform into something more endearing that this week’s best cute kitten video on youtube. Every vice has a silver lining.
Try these for example. I’m not saying these are mine. Ok, yes, they are mine.
Vice #1 Lockdown for weeks while the Biggest Loser is on
Like a Kardashian drawn to a body-con leopard print, I am dragged into this reality sob-fest drama year after year. After an anxious orientation period resembling to the first term at high school, I will spend at least the first three episodes seeking a couple of champions to cheer and will be sucked in by reality-TV selective editing to feel scorn for a contestant akin to the need to boo-hiss a panto character. I will watch from the couch, usually downing carbs, (see Vice 2) issuing forth a verbal version of #biggestloser twitter feed to no one in particular as my slightly overfed new friends suffer at the mercy of the trainers and the elimination episodes.
Cue gratuitous Commando pic.
But from this you will gain an insight into my softer side. I will cry for their history of being bullied, their banishment to the bigger ladies fashion department, their beaten-down lack of confidence and the brutality of the episode where it is revealed that their lifespan is shortened to a point that it is more likely that Lindsay Lohan will grow old than they will.
Vice #2 Carbs
My name is 40s chick and I am a carboholic. My addiction is selective – confined as it is to the white carbs – the emptiest, glycaemically-overloaded, nutritionally void, overprocessed grains that bear no resemblance to anything found in nature. Present me with a wholegrain and I will sneer and toss my head like a purebred Persian cat rejecting house-label tinned tuna. Observe me after an ill-advised dabble in an Atkins or South Beach high protein diet and I will appear as crazed as a meth addict but seeking the embrace of a slippery linguine rather than a crusty crystal. If you try to show empathy when I’m on some protein-fest by eating an ostensibly healthy Caesar salad, bear in mind that all the while I’m mentally gouging out your eyes just to get at your croutons.
The upside? When I let go of the calorie count, you’ll share in my indulgence in risottos, *home-made lasagne (* but yes, with the béchamel from a jar), spaghetti slathered in pesto sauce and slightly over-engineered toasties. And I’ll indulge your child with Froot Loops – purely so I can filch a handful here and there.
Vice #3 Creams
Risk a glance into my bathroom cabinet and you’ll be suitably reassured by the lack of prescription pill bottles but in the same instance appalled by the oversupply of face creams. From AHA to BB to Zinc, they are all there. From my endless quest for an eye cream to dispense with puffiness, to the guilt-tripped purchases from the nice lady who does my eyebrows and casually makes reference to under-exfoliation, to my obsession with travel-sized kits induced by their sheer cuteness and portability.
The advantage? My every move I make will be improbably fragrant, there’s a chance I won’t resemble a croc-handbag once older, and you’ll be able to swipe a little Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream if you are having a metrosexual moment.
Vice #4 Running
This and Vice #2 go hand in hand but not in the order you’d expect. I’d don’t carb so that I can run, I run so that I can carb.
It’s a tad unsocial in that my weekend schedule will revolve around training, that despite my terror at the prospect of sub-five-star accommodation I will ditch you for running camp in a heartbeat. You will find that weekends away will inexplicably tie in a rural running event before I can kick back with you and enjoy regional produce.
But it does allow a pleasant indulgence in event T-shirts which in themselves provide reassurance that in the case of nuclear holocaust we’ll be able to clad ourselves for days in fresh T-shirts without the aid of laundry. If I get sucked into one of my hell-hole periods at work, you can be assured that even if the fridge is barren of a scrap of milk or the pantry bare of bread, you will survive in my house via the supply of running gels and powerade.
So I get that online dating profiles are all about highlighting karaoke skills that are second only to Beyonce’s, your ability to bust a glass ceiling as if you had the power of Wonder woman’s bracelets and Masterchef-style skills in the kitchen, but its your vices that make you real. Just keep em a little less extreme than Mesdames Cyrus and Lohan and its all good.
If you are taking your online dating a little more seriously than this blog, check out this website for fabulously simple online dating advice.
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If only!!