the dating ‘bio-hazard’

to describe women as picky is a lot like saying muammar gaddafi isn’t having the best month of his life. they have been picky since the time god, in his infinite wisdom, looked at one of adam’s ribs and thought, ‘i could do something with that!’ do keep in mind, of course, that the thought came to him much after he was done with the big stuff, like oceans and mountains, darkness and light. to bring eve into the picture earlier could have initiated a drastic change in planet earth’s many colour schemes.

men on the other hand are, well, accepting. take my friend sudhir, for instance. what the women in his life — and by this i mean his mother, grandmother and six aunts — do when he’s not around is of no interest to him. since 2005, he has also applied this non fastidious approach to the dating game. what a woman reads, what she likes to watch on television, what her political leaning are, who she looks up to, what she wants her ideal man to be like — all of this pales in comparison to the inordinate amount of interest he attaches to the thumbnail photograph on her profile page.

if the image in question is suitably becoming (i.e. if it bears a vague resemblance to any extra on any soap opera), she captures the attention of the aforementioned non fastidious sudhir almost instantly. he then proceeds to bombard the becoming female with that pithy question now inordinately popular in large parts of india: ‘will you be my friend?’

as the smarter sex, it falls to women to protect themselves from people like sudhir. thankfully, his complete inability to find a date in six years is solid proof of how well they are doing for themselves on this front.

one of many things sudhir manages to get wrong all the time is his profile page at the 22834 dating sites that currently claim him as a member. each of these sites asks users to fill in a questionnaire about themselves, with queries on physical attributes, likes and dislikes. sudhir ignores them all, and opts instead for a large photograph of himself astride a bright red motorcycle. with one hand on the handlebar, and the other waving in what he assumes is a coy fashion, he smiles hard. it’s the kind of photograph that would compel most of us to assault the photographer. sudhir, however, usually asks if he can get a larger size, in a glossy format.

i have pointed out to him, gently, that a photograph does matter, but not as much as men like to think it does. as far as attractiveness goes, most women rate men poorly in that department, but tend to be more kind when it comes to a man’s willingness to communicate. ergo, profile trumps photo.

the thing is, questions at dating sites exist for a reason. they are there because women have always wanted a lot of answers. they want to know how tall you are, what you think of romantic comedies, who your favourite feminist is, how you like to spend saturday afternoons, what your idea of a great book is and, in short, whether or not you’re a pompous arse with the iq of a non-flowering plant.

for men unable to find a woman without the help of a dating site, ignoring a profile questionnaire is unforgivable. to not pay much attention to her own profile is worse. let’s say pooja from delhi has made it clear she wants to settle down, for instance. why in the world must she then have to fend off messages from 19-year-olds in orissa offering themselves up as potential friends? if 22-year-old dhwani from bombay specifically mentions wanting to hang out with someone her own age, why must 47-year-old jeetendra from delhi feel the need to tell her how beautiful he thinks she is, three times a day? according to a female friend, some guys simply send her the same email every week or so. they can’t avoid it because they aren’t really looking at who they are sending it to.

too much information doesn’t work either, because the average single woman at a dating site has approximately 17,000 profiles to browse through. if you need 1,000 words to describe why your mother thinks of you as a demi-god, chances are most women will move to the next profile after your first 10 words. it makes more sense to share a few important details about yourself, then stop. saying you like dogs and the matrix is fine; adding ‘beige is my favourite colour’ and ‘i love the smell of earth after the rain’ is pointless. when was the last time you met someone who chose to marry a man because they both shared a love of petrichor anyway? another thing profiles ought to be is positive, so avoid beginning every paragraph with the sentence ‘i know this makes me look desperate, but…’ or ‘i’ve tried dating the regular way for years and failed, so...’

lastly, as arthur c. clarke pointed out in between writing sci-fi classics, the best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return, it’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

sudhir continues to ignore my advice. he uses the word ‘curvy’ to describe himself, even though all his friends would opt for ‘obese’ instead. his argument is no woman will decide whether or not a relationship is going to work based on reading a profile, irrespective of how well or badly it is written. he may be right. then again, women are picky.