Hong Kong Roulettte

By Lola in HK

After a couple of months of roaming the arid desert of Soho in pursuit of a delectable male, I had been wondering whether I should not be trying the Online Avenue for meeting members of the opposite species. I figured it was an additional sourcing channel and that if I could get my head around the Loser aspect, I might be able to rustle up a few dates with eligible bachelors. Mightn't I?

Anyway - first step was to take a sniff around one of the local dating websites to see what the general quality of talent was looking like. See below sample:

"Lost Gweilo

American guy in his early 30’s, 6 feet tall and athletic build. Highly educated, back in school again and will be studying in HK for the next three years. Basically looking for a girlfriend…will not be thinking about marriage until at least after I finish school. I have no money, so if you like hanging out in LKF and Soho, you will be buying! I have no issues with women making more than me and am completely down with “eating soft rice”! I like hiking, sports, cooking and hanging out with friends. Shoot me a note and we can meet up!"

Instinct told me to shoot the idea dead in the water, but no, oh no, I didn't listen to instinct, and the result is naturally that I have well and truly taken a bullet for the Hong Kong single female team on this one.

Yesterday morning, after a record 5 days (uhuh), I removed my profile from the internet dating site.

Internet dating seems to be one of the rare areas of life where the motto "you get out what you put in" does not really ring true. I made the decision to go online, posted a description and a photo all in the space of about 20 minutes. Now, the optimist might say that the 40 responses I got in the first day were due to my irresistible wit and beauty, but the cynic in me tells me this is a numbers game.

Let's call it Russian roulette.

The fact that most people's profiles say nothing more than "Hello" or "wanna chat?" and do not display a photo is also rather a telling sign. Nevertheless, I did, or so I thought, strike lucky when I came across one response that sounded funny, laid back and not looking for a handjob in the cinema. I proceeded to chat with this individual. Let's call him Norman.

Not wishing to fall into the trap of meeting someone who was hysterically funny on e-mail but looked like Jabba the Hut in the flesh, I agreed to meeting up. Now, this may seem a daunting and rather premature step for some, but Hong Kong is the kind of place where you meet new people pretty much every week anyway, so I figured "what's the difference?" (mistake numero uno: it would appear that I am of an extreme level of naivety). Also, I was pretty sure I could talk to even the most boring person in the world for at least an hour, given the amount of weddings I've attended lately.

So, Norman and I went back and forth a few times on times and dates. In hindsight I should have read the signs when he sent an aggressive text saying ' Don't waste my time. What have you got to hide?' when I declined from meeting on Friday night (I was out with my mates at Staunton's.. I mean, this internet malarkey is not going to get in the way of my social life... I was kind of hoping I could fit it in during the free periods in the first stages.. you know, Sunday evenings, weekdays etc). But hey-ho, we agreed to dinner on Sunday. This was essentially error number 3. Just because someone sounds normal on the phone, does not mean that they are of dinner date standard.

So! I arrived at the restaurant and Norman was sitting there with a bottle of Veuve, which I thought was very nice, if slightly extravagant for the Chicago Pizza Kitchen. (I'm kidding... it was actually a nice restaurant, I just thought that would have been funny...).

Anyway, before I'd even walked across the bar, I instantly knew it was never going to be a runner. Looks-wise, clearly more than a bit of photoshop had been going on and he had slopey shoulders. Sorry guys, but if there's one thing I can't do it's slopey shoulders. "Ooooh coat-hanger!!!" my friends cried out, when I recounted the story in minute detail, the next day. I can work with a beer gut, I can work with a receding hairline but posture is, in my book the foundation of the male form. So, it sounds cruel but, well, there was just no way it was going to go anywhere...

Well, we had drinks, had dinner and had a bit of a laugh. I really did try to give it a chance, but we didn't even really click as potential friends. Typical of most males, he didn't really listen to anything I was saying. A fatal error: I am hilarious - we all know that! Tuh! Basically we spent 3 hours with me asking questions and him talking non-stop. Ladies, if he stopped and asked himself now, he doesn't know a thing about me, except that I am a brunette and I have a large pair of knockers, although I'm sure he doesn't realise it...

ANYWAY... throughout the course of dinner, he made several attempts at physical contact, all of which I wriggled out with the determination of David Blaine breaking loose from a barbed-wire cage above the Nile. He touched my knee - I moved my legs and crossed them. He took my hand - I dropped it like a dead weight. You get the picture. For me, it was obvious there was no chemistry whatsoever and my body language (facing forward, legs closed, arms mostly folded or crossed over my body) was screaming "not interested"! But something clearly got lost in translation.

Ughhhhhh... anyway, to cut a long story short, we get outside and I quickly utter 'Well, thanks for a nice evening. That's the taxi rank over there. Bye!". And then time stops still. The next few seconds feel like three hours. He lunges at me like an adolescent, causing me to do the old turn-the-cheek move. Hideously embarrassing and I end up with a wet earlobe. Yuk.

I was then bombarded by tirade of text messages as I walked home. Up until this point, my analysis of my first internet encounter was "Oh well, not such a bad blind date, nice enough guy, but no way I am seeing him again". It was only after the 10th text message and the half a dozen missed calls that I realised that there really was NO WAY I was seeing this person ever again and that I really ought to think about moving over to the New Territories. To give you a flavour - the textage was along the lines of:

"it was very insulting when you turned away like a fish gasping for air"

(this one made me laugh out loud, but the proceeding texts tell me that it was probably not
intended that way),

"I don't know why I bother. I should just stick to meeting drunk English teachers in Lan Kwai Fong"

(aww, isn't that a nice thought?)

Hmm, I thought a little about how I should respond and came up with this gem, which I thought was both considerate, yet nicely skated around the "I'm out of your league" issue:

"I had a great evening and I think you're really nice but I'm a big believer in chemistry and neither of us can control that. Thanks for a good evening and best of luck with the dating"

Bad, BAD move. This was met with a plethora of responses (one from each personality?), none of which really warrant written word, but all of which slightly disturbing. I turned my phone of and went to sleep, making a mental note to remain single forever if this is what it takes to avoid weirdos.

I turned on my PC the next morning, and was greeted by a ranting e-mail along the lines of:

"I really wish we'd never met - I feel so shit about it. Anyway this is the last you'll hear from me!"

Hmmm, well let's just hope it is, eh??

So, dear readers! My first take on internet dating is that you have to be prepared to be a firing board for people's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of lovely folk out there online, but
I for one am not emotionally tough enough to deal with internet dating. As such, I'll be heading out to Wyndham Street tonight as usual.....

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