Tall, dark but no longer a stranger

14 July 2013 - 03:10 By Paige Nick
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It's never nice being dumped, it stings like crazy at the time, nature has a great way of weeding out the losers, and I usually find that when I look back with a more critical and less emotional eye, I'm pretty grateful it didn't work out

Of my five most recent dumps, one was an "I'm getting back together with my ex-girlfriend", one was an "I've met someone else", two were "I'm just not feeling it", and the fifth was an "It's not you, it's me, I'm a douchebag!" That's not actually what he said, but he just stopped calling, so I'm guessing that's his reason.

It's never nice being dumped, it stings like crazy at the time. But nature has a great way of weeding out the losers, and I usually find that a couple of months down the line when I look back with a more critical and less emotional eye, I'm pretty grateful it didn't work out.

Towards the middle of last year I realised the guy I had been dating for two months was a con-artist. I managed to get rid of him after much conniving and stalking on his part, and snot, trane and restraining orders on mine.

The whole disastrous experience made me want to invent a time machine, not only so I could go back in time to make sure it hadn't happened in the first place, and also knee him in the nuts immediately on meeting him; but also so I could travel into the future to warn every woman who ever crosses his path. So I Googled "time machine".

Unfortunately, I didn't find four quick and easy ways to build your own time machine using a lightbulb, some bubble gum, a coat hanger, a jar of jam, and a couple of old motherboards (where's MacGyver when you really need him?), but I did find something almost as useful.

It turns out, we're women, we don't need time machines, all we need is each other. There are a bunch of websites, mainly in the US, that have been created to protect women from men who may not have the greatest track record, the cleanest underpants, or the purest motives.

For a while there was a crowd-sourced website called donotdatehim.com, but these days there's an app you can download to your phone or tablet, that uses collective information to offer insights on some of the guys in the dating pool. At the moment it's only big in the States and on Facebook, but it's hilarious and hopefully coming here soon. When a girl meets a guy she uploads his vital statistics to the app, with or without a photograph, and then she can rate him based on a number of criteria. Then other girls who have dated him can join the party and add their own opinions. All for the greater benefit of those poor unsuspecting women out there who have yet to date him.

Women can rate the men they've dated based on things like whether he'll go and see romantic comedies with you, whether he opens your door, if he pays for you, whether mothers love him or hate him, and the size of his feet. Which we all know is actually code for the size of his ... shoes.

Adam Smith is one of the good guys I found rated on the app. According to women who have dated him in the past, some of his upsides are that he can cook, he has big feet, and he's smart and sexy. He also calls on time, he's a great listener and he loves babies; who is this guy, Daniel Craig? But on the downside, he has a fear of commitment. He gets an average score of 9.2, and he has 19 reviews. Adam Smith gets an A+. Nice job, dude. You win a series of all-expenses-paid shags with some random girls out there who you haven't met yet. Way to go. Imaginary high-five.

It doesn't surprise me that someone finally thought to do this; we've cracked sweaters for dogs, sea monkeys and ant farms, so why not this too? Although you can imagine the sheer fury, the unspeakable damage and the ultimate deaths that would occur if something like this existed for men. I suspect most women who aren't titty-mag models would not take kindly to being rated, while men seem to kind of like it.

Another website I came across is called "Are they really single?" You simply type in a person's name, the city where they live, social security number if you've got it, and you can find out within five minutes if they've ever filed a marriage or divorce licence.

The world is getting smaller and smaller. On the downside, if a chap has a small, er, foot, people are going to know about it; but on the upside, all you con-artists, crooks and dogs, if we ladies get lucky, pretty soon there will be nowhere for you to hide.

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