The search for the perfect man (Part One)

In the search for the perfect man that has followed my marital break-up I've acquired a stalker. Not the sort that sits in the dark outside your house to see when the lights go on or off, or follows you to Tesco to see what brand of fabric conditioner you buy, or who pinches your favourite Aubade knickers from the washing line. No, he follows me around online, collecting little electronic pieces of me. I have a virtual stalker. He could very well be reading this now, in which case I'll say: Stop reading now - virtual eavesdroppers seldom read good of themselves!

My VS, as I'll call him, sort of crept into my life rather unexpectedly about a year after my separation. I was involved in a relationship with someone who, I decided, was never going to muster the courage to commit. Yes he was married, though in his words the marriage was "fucked" and still is now. But that's a story for another time. Maybe.

So, I mentally distanced myself and set off to a new horizon. Virtually. That is to say I chatted online to new people, not with any intention of meeting anyone, but rather to while away the hours that had previously been filled with chatting online to Mr Fucked-Marriage. And I started talking to VS, who was vaguely amusing and didn't resort to sending unsolicited penis shots (which seemed to be the norm on one ISP I probably don't need to mention).

Then one weekend when I was at something of a loose end, VS invited me to meet him for a coffee as he'd been stood up (in retrospect by someone a little more discerning than me). He was good company, seemed quite interesting, and was wearing an item of clothing I find irresistible on a man (something which is too sad to reveal now). Ok, so he was a good couple of inches shorter than me (and I'm not particularly tall), one-eyed and dyslexic. Not being one to be prejudiced, these facts in themselves would not be preclusions to a relationship, but combined with the whole package might have been warnings in the way that a plague of frogs would be.

My problem is that I'm generally attracted to men who aren't hide-bound by convention. I like something of the rebel in a man, and it can manifest itself in many ways. As can wierdness, and it's not always intially obvious which it is. Ok, I know it is most of the time, but there are phases in all our lives when we're less discerning than we might normally be. VS was odd, but not in the way he liked to think he was. He liked to think he was eccentric - worshipping Wicca by prancing around his back garden naked at full moon, and keeping an attic full of porn were a couple of his foibles. Actually the porn was very funny. He decided to treat me to a viewing of some choice pieces one evening. Obviously a prequel to some "creative" sex, but it just made me laugh like the proverbial drain, which rather put the dampers on things.

VS was also rather tight-fisted, and lived in a house I positively hated. And he picked fault in me in an oblique way, so that when I challenged him he always countered "But I think you're gorgeous". And rather obsessive. He kept tapes of phone messages from an ex-girlfriend of a year or so before. He even chatted online to Mrs F-M, which shook me a little. So, not my perfect man. Time to move on.

After I broke the news to him the obsessiveness came to the fore. He filled up my answer machine with call after call, one immediately after the other. He must have put down the phone then remembered something else he had to enlighten me on, so was compelled to ring back again. He also sent me a little short story he'd written, based on me in which the main protagonist (with a gender change to provide anonymity) came to a rather nasty end, drunk and choking on his own vomit, and leaving his poor children to fend for themselves. I ended up screaming at him to "fuck off" down the phone, after he accused me of not leaving him in peace to get on with his life!

This was all about four years ago, but he still resurfaces, sending me little instant messages such as "Talking to you is like talking to crayfish in the Great Ouse". Hmmmm. And sending me emails (to a new email account that he knew nothing about) claiming he satisfies all the criteria in an online dating agency profile I have (for which information he must have done a fair amount of trawling). And sending me recordings of him singing "amusing" songs about dating. I ignore them all, as a response of whatever tone will only encourage.

Still, I suppose the advantage of meeting someone over the ether is that any potential wierdness will remain virtual. I do hope so.