“Dad, she’s way too nice for you!” commands Millie. “Look what she does; how she looks!” We’re sitting together scrutinising dating profiles, served up that morning in a happy, smiling, online lexicon of love.
Millie is joking, I hope. She has a point, though. So many of the women not only look lovely but also have jobs, interests and passions that set the benchmark high for a bloke whose idea of a good night in post-bereavement now involves greasing his car’s suspension (not a metaphor). I read of delightful women whose “musical” means near-concert-class pianist v my torturing Harry the cat with my sax. Others whose lifetime of working for charities contrasts with my own servitude to mammon and, of course, those whose “me on the beach” photo suggests a body toned and trimmed by pilates, not, as mine, by poppadoms.
I wonder whether I’m ready for this. The clay of my new persona is barely formed and unfired by time and experience. Will it shatter looking for love? I’ve told no one other than my children and my Widowed & Young mate Andy. I’ll tell my beer dads soon, but for the moment I want a clear run at it with advice from someone on the same journey. Pete and co would be too distracted by speculation of pleasures of the flesh, not personality. I want both.
“Dating online is like getting your house valued; the next moment the board’s up, a sale is agreed and the removal van packed,” warns Andy. “It’s a conveyor belt laced with dating catnip – once on, you’re hooked, mate.” I get it. One moment I’m idly searching and a few minutes later I’ve written a profile, uploaded the least gargoyle-like photos I can find and face some soul searching.
Do I broadcast that I am a widower? My chosen website lies in the middle ground between the “select’n’shag” pick-up apps and the specialist bereaved “meet’n’grief” ones with their opportunities to cry with strangers. I worry, though, that declaring my status may be a big downer – people assuming I’m permanently miserable. But I can’t bring myself to lie – I’m on emotionally thin ice, anyway.
I allude to “love of life undiminished by big challenges in recent times” and so, Alan Clark-like, am “economical with the actualité”. Andy had been more blunt: “Say you’re a widower and you’ll attract women who want to be your bestie not your bird.” (Andy is, for want of a better phrase, a great geezer.)
As I look at the profiles that pile in, I realise I’ve no idea what I’m really looking for. No, what I really want is to go back to the life I had before Helen was ill. I can’t, so mustn’t try to recreate the past with an ersatz Helen – what chance of success for anyone cast in that role?
Even saying this opens up the midlifer’s dating challenge – you end up extrapolating from the tiniest evidence a version of a whole future together.
I am trying to think of my new screen chums as random fun folk, some of whom I’m drawn to as I would be if I met them socially, but with the added attraction of knowing they are looking to meet someone. In the physical world I’d have to socialise for Britain and probably destroy my liver trying to match the number of single ladies who cross my screen daily.
The downside, in an era of online shopping, is summed up by Millie: “Go on, Dad, put the filters in to make sure you get what you order.” Her digital native’s assumption that you can serve up a relationship like a New Look frock is tempting but flawed – you can’t fancy someone more because they live five miles away and chemistry can’t be barcoded. So I’m adding visceral to virtual by “smiling” only at the very few women who “feel” special, irrespective of pretty much any factor other than “non-smoker”.
However, despite trying to relegate online dating to a tea-dance chance to meet some fun, interesting people, Yeats’ small voice will still be whispering in the ear of any women I meet: “I have spread my dreams under your feet; / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” No first-date pressure then, girl.
Adam Golightly is a pseudonym
