Smart as a horse, hung like Einstein ...

So there's a local dating website that I've been known to visit every now and then. I go there for a number of reasons.

First of all, it's a good place to find funny stuff to write about, being that it's full to the brim of freaks and lunatics. But also, as a single person, I think it's important to keep working out those dating muscles.

No, not those muscles, you pervert, I mean that it's important to stay in the game, keep your brain fresh, your dating skills sharp. Like a dating ninja.

The first thing you do when you sign up on a site like this is choose a name for yourself. These generally fall into four or five basic categories: the sickening, such as "Pookie-Pants" or "Cuddle Bunny"; the trying-hard-to-be-clever, like "Mr Right"; the overly obvious, like "George"; the just plain honest, such as "Divorced Dad"; or the over-promising, like "Handsome Dave".

Once you've settled on your name, you then have to write a short line about yourself to go along with your profile. I suppose it's all about advertising, and this is where you need to do a bit of self-promotion. So it's a bit like giving yourself a pay-off line. You know, your own personal "Just Do It", "Yebo Gogo", or "Saving you time, saving you money, putting you first".

Now this I can buy into. After all, advertising is what I do for a living, so I totally get how important it is for a product to put its best foot forward, and give people an idea of what it does and how it does it, in just a few short words.

So I decided to surf through a couple of the daters' pay-off lines to see how good we are at selling ourselves out there on the meat market. And I wasn't disappointed. There was the full range, from the inspired to the bizarre and even the just plain crazy.

My absolute favourite came from a chap whose pay-off line is: "Smart as a horse and hung like Einstein." Pretty funny, I thought, if he's joking. Not so funny if he's describing himself honestly.

I hoped like hell that the guy who wrote "Animal Lover" was joking, too. I'm not so sure this is that kind of website.

Another interesting one I came across was: "Opsoek na Christelike waardes!" I'm guessing there would be no tequila and wild monkey sex on the first date with him, then? Another one read: "Just when you thought it was safe to go out again." Anyone else out there also wondering if this guy is a serial killer?

But they aren't all freaks. This one caught my eye: "Let's not discount the possibility of me being the one." Cue the Barry White soundtrack, roaring fireplace and scented candles. What a charmer.

Then I decided I'd better size up the competition, so I went to check out what kinds of pay-off lines the ladies on the dating website are writing.

But if the 20 or 30 profiles I scrolled through are anything to go by, I think the guys must be better at this pay-off line business than we are. Maybe all those years of crafting their pick-up lines has given them the edge.

Miss "Fourth time lucky?" had me worried. But not nearly as worried as "Classy, spunky lady". You have to question whether one can be classy and spunky at the same time? And "Wie's jou tannie???" With three question marks. Clearly this lady really doesn't know who her tannie is at all. And I wasn't crazy about Miss "Ignite me and make me your chariot of fire", either. You know what they say about boys who play with matches.

But it's easy to be critical, which I discovered quickly enough when I got to working on my own pay-off line. Coming up with three or four words that encapsulate your entire personality is way trickier than you think. I even looked at some classic advertising pay-off lines to see how the pros do it. But in the context of a dating website "They taste so good 'cos they eat so good" would probably make me sound a little weird; "It's not inside it's onnn top!" feels a little cryptic; and "Sheer Driving Pleasure" might paint me in a bad light.

Maybe I'll just stick with "Dating ninja".