“Singles night” with monocled gadabouts

A VERY funny piece about a “singles night” hosted by the London Review of Books.

I’ve been reading the personal ads in London Review of Books for years. Not because I am scoping out a mate – but because they are so fascinating and frequently they are laugh-out-loud funny. Awesome reading. This is another thing I have to thank the doppelganger for. He is the one responsible for getting me hooked onto these blasted things. They do have a cult following – and in my opinion, rightly so. Funnier personal ads you will never see.

The piece above describes the charm of them perfectly:

Instead of dreary, acronym-filled attempts to impress with physical perfection or accommodating personalities, the ads are a riot of exuberant wit, messy emotion, lacerating self-knowledge and thwarted lust.

So true. That’s what makes them so funny.

Here’s an example of one:

Monocled, plaid-festooned gadabout, out of place in any relationship, or century. Please help me.

“gadabout”. hahahahaha

Another example of one from the article:

Unemployable choreographer and amateur harpist (M, 62) seeks recovering alcoholic with feeble mind. Own tap shoes an advantage.

I’m telling you. These personal ads are addictive. “seeks recovering alcoholic with feeble mind”. BWAHAHAHAHA

Must enjoy beards and harbour contempt for any music that isn’t Belgian jazz

heh heh heh

None of this high self-esteem crap, invented by America in the 1970s or whatever, which I believe is responsible for the decline of manners and general social standards of behavior – as well as the overwhelming TIRESOMENESS of 90% of the population. It’s like everyone you talk to thinks they’re funny, thinks they’re fabulous, thinks their shit don’t stink – and sometimes I feel like saying: who the HELL has been lying to you for 20 years?? Everyone’s walking around feeling good about themselves WHEN THEY HAVE NO REASON TO. This is one of the main fascinations with the beginning rounds of American Idol auditions – and how these horrible singers are truly shocked that they are not Pavorotti – and why Simon is such a breath of fresh air. High self-esteem is HIGHLY overrated. I bet Ted Bundy had great self-esteem, for example.

(I’m not saying we all should walk around hating ourselves. I’ve been there, I’ve done that – I’ve still got the scars. Learning to love myself and learning to try to forgive myself for things I’ve done has been an essential part of growing up – and I’m still in process. But the self-esteem craze nowadays seems to have more to do with LYING to yourself than being HONEST with yourself. And that’s just not cool.)

Back to the London Review of Books – another excerpt from the article:

Indeed, the instant affinity provided by literature is perhaps the secret of the column’s matchmaking success: there have been at least two weddings through its pages — although one, unfortunately, has already ended in divorce.

Here’s a scene from the singles night party – beautiful!!:

Part of the fun of the evening was trying to guess who was who from the ads. Others seemed to be playing the game too: one woman was even clutching a copy of the current issue with various entries circled. I suspected a man wearing Elvis Presley glasses of being the “deracinated Yank, ex-academic” after “paint, polyphony, alliteration, and auto-eroticism” (he denied it); a wild-haired foppish fellow could well have been the “ ex-superhero, now librarian (M, 31)” seeking “solvent woman to 35 for Scrabble, real ale and spontaneous morphing” — although he would not reveal his secret. I am almost certain that I located the “computer geek and amateur bio-mechanic (M, 32)” looking for a woman “with knowledge of advanced humanoid circuit systems”, and if I am correct then his dating techniques were as disastrous as his advert suggested they would be. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” I heard an artist from Finsbury Park plead. The varicose-veined 93-year-old eluded me.

Genius. “real ale and spontaneous morphing”

The personals in The London Review of Books are more addicting than Missed Connections on Craig’s List!