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.