All hail Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland

LAST week’s column noted that British crabbiness was making me sick, as the U.K. press moaned daily about everything it felt had gone wrong with the 2010 Vancouver Games. This week, as the Olympics draw to a close, it’s the Brits I must turn to again -- this time, as my salvation.

For what is a columnist to write about as a circus this exciting pulls up stakes? It’s been wonderful for our city to masquerade as the centre of the universe, but now we, its citizens, must sadly shift our focus from our own navel to the lint-packed bellybutton of another. Thankfully, Great Britain, next host of an Olympic Games in 2012, has a motherlode of loveable losers eager for our inspection.

A few years ago, you may recall, David Rose, the editor of the famously quirky personals column in the London Review of Books, came out with a compilation of its greatest hits, They Call Me Naughty Lola. British people – at least the type who read the LRB -- take the opposite approach to North Americans when seeking a mate in an ad. There’s no boasting – quite the opposite – as I happily found once again as I perused Rose’s sequel, Sexually, I’m More of a Switzerland.

So take off your red mittens and relax into the sights, sounds and smells of this nation of nut bars. After all, you and I will surely have fun again some day -- unlike “Drooling, toothless sociopath (M, 57) seeks F any age to make this abandoned gas station kiosk feel more like home. Must bring shoes (size 10).” 

Equally doomed to lonely ennui? “I scrimshawed this advert from the tusk of a walrus. Now make love to me. Pathetic man, 49.”

On the other hand, some LRB advertisers sound as though they’ve already had a bit too much excitement. “I’ve kissed too many frogs in search of my prince. Woman, 32. Retired from amphibian biology very much against her will.”

And then there are those who are just plain confused: “Does anyone know what I did last summer? Kitsch horror-film enthusiast and recovering alcoholic (M, 52).”

Physical allure doesn’t seem to be a concern for LRB advertisement authors such as this one, at box no. 8369. “Like a lot of people, I’m uncomfortable in my own skin. Unlike a lot of people it’s because I have an unidentified skin allergy that has baffled science for 47 years. Woman, 47. Itchy and baffling.”

It’s obvious to me that Itchy and baffling might find someone simpatico in “Love me, love my fungal skin complaint. Man, 37, charmless and flaky.” But maybe she craves more of a challenge. I wonder if she’s considered the succinct “I beg to differ. Box no. 0535.”

Itchy and baffling might also be drawn to the 41-year-old man promising “the worst sex you’ve ever had with dumpy kibitzer.” Not to mention “Some men can only be loved by their mother. Not me, I’ve got Mr. Snuggly Panda. Male, 36, and Mr. Snuggly Panda, also 36.”

I hate to be nerdist, but an awful lot of the writers featured in Sexually, I’m More of a Switzerland have something in common: a love of science or engineering, sci-fi and role-playing games. The role-playing games and sci-fi I will leave alone, out of a rare humanitarian impulse. I give you, however: “In February next year I will begin work in my garden on a 1:128 working scale model of the Karakumsky Canal, which stretches 1,200 km from Haun-Khan to Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan. It irrigates a course of 800 km and is the largest in the world. Now make love to me. Man, 53. Kettering.”

Exhibit B: “Marry me and I will grant you access to the finest collection of mounted albino tiger barbs this side of Gloucester. Osteopath and weekend taxidermist (M, 43).”

Let’s hope that pair doesn’t form a support group and try to help this (doubtless four-eyed) sad sack. “…Not quite worked out yet how to talk to a woman without her ‘going to make a phone call’ and subsequently making her escape out the bathroom window. Would appreciate theorems and schematics explaining why.”

Surely such schematics could be readily provided by this charmer. “What are the chances? 1 in 216, as Richard de Fournival astutely explained in De vetula, written between 1220 and 1250. I don’t expect you to know that, however, because you’re an idiot. Maths professor, 58, not afraid of being absolutely right at box no. 7765.”

Unlike the severe left-brainers, some LRB lonely hearts try to be vaguely in synch with the times. The Black Eyed Peas obviously inspired the “desperate woman, 34,” who wrote, “What you gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk? I’m going to get a PhD in Social Sciences and spend Saturday nights alone in Oxted.”

Others dance to the beat of a different drummer, like “English lecturer, 44.” He claims he’s been “Modelling himself on The Fonz in an entirely non-ironic way since 1979.”

I can’t help but picture Fonz II sharing break-up tales at some grungy pub with box no. 0558, who writes plaintively, “If I wear a mask, will you call me Batman? Just asking.”

Some singles are quite specific in their desires. Like “Woman, 38. WLTM man who doesn’t name his genitals after German chancellors. You know who you are and no, I don’t want to meet either Bismarck, Bethmann-Hollwegg, or Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillings-furst, however admirable the independence he gave to secretaries of state may have been.”

Others are less discerning, like “Man, 41. Will you marry me? Anybody? Box no. 8976.”

Oh, to play yenta. I’m not the only one the LRB personals prompt to ape Cupid. See “Wanted: rich, deaf and blind woman to take my irascible old fart of a father off my hands. Must like the Telegraph.”

Returning to last week’s gripe about British-Hinterland relations, I must point out that you’ll even find some Canada-slagging in the LRB personals. A male who calls himself The Owl Who Married a Goose looks for love under this banner: “National Film Board of Canada bore seeks woman who ideally has a shed full of public information films and a ravenous appetite for animated shorts that rely heavily upon waltzes.”

It is my dearest wish that The Owl Who Married a Goose is put in charge of planning London 2012’s Opening Ceremonies.