Romance in High Gear- Epilogue and A Week of Extravagant Valentine Offerings

Dear All,

Where shall I start? Well the visit to the numerologist and a tarot reading remained pending... But I was still licking my wounds in the aftermath of the meeting with PLINBH and couldn't quite muster the enthusiasm for either. Although my anger had subsided by the time I was released from the purgatory that was that meeting, and I was almost hysterical with laughter- most probably from the sheer relief- as I had walked to the car, it had made me rethink why I had even agreed to meet the man and made me reflect that the tables always ended up being turned on me! As some people did not fail to remind me I had been expecting too much, which was something I couldn't quite wrap my head around- was it too much to expect someone to be truthful on their profile? Am I the only person to describe myself as being fat on my matrimonial profile?- I sure as hell haven't come across anyone else to do so although the photos tend to betray frames better described as being 'on the healthy side' (!).

I had in the meanwhile declined an interest sent me by 111 (I had started assigning them numbers according to the sequence in which I had declined their interest) but ended up meeting him anyway- such is my luck! 111 sent me an interest on the Valentine's Day weekend. "Matrimonial website" in their wisdom and efforts to market true love and romance, all of which are clearly passing me by (sigh), had introduced the innovative (ahem) idea of allowing all members to send off free 'e-gifts' with their messages. Thus, I was the lucky recipient of a couple of gift boxes (empty, most probably), four (yes, I kid you not) roses, an e-teddy bear and a song ('jaane kyun' from 'Dil Chahta Hai'- a touch cynical if you're looking for love?!). One of said gift boxes had been sent by 111, with a note saying 'Liked your profile. Would be a pleasure to know more abt you. Plz be in touch to proceed. tc 111'- as an aside, I really go for the authoritative tone they all adopt when instructing 'to be in touch'...not! 111 seemed familiar and I almost instantly recalled meeting someone of the same name in connection with the work that I was doing then, but I dismissed the idea it might be the same person since it just seemed like too much of a coincidence. I went on to read his profile where he proclaimed that he was on his way to setting up a globally recognised billion- dollar organisation and was a serial entrepreneur (which of course I read as killer because really, what else could he possibly be?). He said he'd published a book, was into theater and wrote poetry...I couldn't put this together with the man I'd met, but since there wasn't a photo I couldn't be sure (and I had now learnt my lesson about 'profiles with no photos'). So I sent off a photo request- to which I received no response. Anyway, in keeping with my new, generous, matrimonially-inclined persona I decided to give him some time... to no effect. 

A couple of weeks later I happened to be scanning job postings on a website and the first one was for a position at a certain organisation, which I decided to check out of curiosity. No prizes for guessing- it turned out to be 111's organisation and a sister concern of an organisation that was also involved in a project I was working on. I went all investigative and found the link that said 'TEAM' and sure enough 111's bio was posted there with remarkable similarity in the style of writing and some content and indeed, he had published a book. At this point given that on the one occasion I had met him, I had not been remotely interested in this person (someone I know described him as very un-yummy!), I thought it only fair to put him out of his misery and respond to his interest in some way- so I promptly declined him. This seemed very wise up until the point that I got a call from a third person requesting me to attend a meeting with them and 111! At this point I was somewhat frantic- there was no way I could not attend the meeting but I had no desire to come face-to-face with a man I had so unceremoniously declined just the week previously (and surely he would know me since I had boldly posted a photo on my profile!). Anyway the meeting went as planned and since it turned out that 111's team would be working with me briefly I went to his office as well to meet them. On the way over, he wanted to know where I was from and other such trivial details- but given my somewhat (!) suspicious nature I was convinced he was attempting to make subtle enquiries and I was giving nothing away! BTW in the interest of full disclosure- 111 said he was 5'7" whereas he's 5'5" with the headgear and hairstyle so lets subtract 3" to get the real height! Of course, I was faced with the fact that if anything were to go wrong in the project I was working on I would have had to shamefacedly confess all to my supervisor- aaaargh! The work went ahead with no further inauspicious meetings and I was all done and dusted.

Although I thought this was the end of the matter I turned out to be wrong. It seems that men on matrimonial sites, and I am not sure whether they are the same or a different species from other men, do not seem to follow the adage of 'once rejected, twice shy'. I had, in the hope of increasing my chances of meeting someone appropriate, posted my profile on a couple of websites but all this really resulted in was I tended to run into the same undesirable characters on both sites! 111 was one of the many- and he either did not recognise me from one site to another or was living in the fervent hope that I wouldn't recollect that I had declined him a month previously on another site (the mind boggles). So there sitting in my 'requests' was still another identical missive from 111. I pressed the 'reject' button as hard as I possibly could hoping to convey (unsuccessfully, most probably) exactly how un-anxious I was to pair up with him!

Yours, swimming in Valentine riches!-

S