Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland Part 1

"s.e.xually, I'm More of a Switzerland"

by David Rose.

Introduction.

My mother always hoped I'd apply for a job at Copperas Hill post office. In November 1990 she was especially enthusiastic about it because things had been hotting up between Saddam Hussein and the Kuwaitis and a war at Christmas is always great news for postal delivery services. She was convinced that, if I played my cards right, I could make a.s.sistant manager one day.

Naturally, every other Thursday for the past eleven years-copy deadline day for London Review of Books personals advertisers-I've wondered where I might be now had I bothered filling in that application form. Not working at Copperas Hill post office, that's for sure; they had wild-cat strikes and ma.s.sive lay-offs towards the end of the nineties. But as my life meandered away from fighting the home-front against Saddam, only a wizard could have antic.i.p.ated that I'd spend the most fruitful years of my life agonising over word-counts with soup-perverts: I put the phrase 'five-header bi-s.e.xual orgy' in this ad to increase my Google hits. Really I'm looking for someone who likes hearty soups and jigsaws of kittens. Woman, 62. Berwick. Box no. 7862.

Of course, I would never have become the angst-devouring love-conduit through which Britain's most romantically awkward eggheads play out their weird and frequently disturbing s.e.x rituals. Life would be much duller, although I'd have fewer bad dreams and wouldn't have to shower quite so often.

An ancient Czech legend says that any usurper who places the Crown of Saint Wenceslas on his head is doomed to die within a year. During World War II, Reinhard Heydrich, the n.a.z.i governor of the puppet Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, secretly wore the crown believing himself to be a great king. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated less than a year later by the Czech resistance. I have many more stories like this one. I will tell you them all and we will make love. Man, 47. Box no. 6889.

Since the LRB personals began in October 1998, I've dealt with the phone calls, emails, letters, faxes and-always less welcome-occasional personal visits from within a very incongruous set-up. While the offices of the magazine have remained very firmly in Bloomsbury, London, the nerve-centre of the personals section was, for the most part, a water-logged shed in Liverpool. Really it was the back of an illegally built garage, but we'll call it a shed because no motor vehicle ever went in there and its main function was the storage of rusted Woolworth's power tools, an a.s.sortment of lawn-patching compounds and my (now deceased) mother's oxygen cylinders (she had dodgy lungs and we kept these in case we ever needed to re-inflate her).

When it rained, the un-insulated corrugated roof made it sound like a clown was firing a machine-gun at a sad robot. There was a power supply that was so precarious I once got an electric shock eating a trifle. And in the corner lived a nest of badgers. Before that the personals were managed from a flat above a bankrupt florist south of the Thames. Recently it's been in a Brooklyn office shared with a very serious publis.h.i.+ng outfit who never reciprocate a round of drinks, hardly ever say h.e.l.lo and rarely smile unless someone has made a very hilarious remark about Adorno. Which happened only once and it wasn't very hilarious.

When someone asks my advice about what to include or exclude in their personal advert, these have been the common conditions under which I've responded-noise, damp, Adorno, badgers. Truthfully, had I worked in surroundings befitting a Zurich-based insurance company, I couldn't have offered any better advice. I was once asked by the Jewish Community Centre for London to be part of a panel discussion about dating. I'm not Jewish, which surprised everyone, but also I know absolutely nothing about dating. Those early phone calls I received from potential advertisers, full of typical British insecurity and self-deprecation-people worried that all they could say about themselves was that they had exceptional liver function and knew from years of looking after their aging parents how to keep a gla.s.s eye sterile-seemed good enough to me. I mean, I liked these people. They were fun to talk to; painfully honest but also engaging, witty and clever. Why not just throw it all out there? At the time I'd been working at the magazine for less than a year, and working in advertising for just a little longer. Not at the rock 'n' roll creative end of things, but in sales-selling s.p.a.ce in car magazines before I moved to the London Review. People asked my advice as if I knew what I was talking about-as if, rather than working in ad sales, I was a relations.h.i.+p counsellor. It didn't matter when I'd explain I was just a very junior sales guy, these people innocently trusted me and every inquiry would end with 'What do you think?' or 'Do I sound like an idiot?' or 'I'm not sure I should make it read like I'm a serial killer': Everyone. My life is a mind-numbing cesspit of despair and self-loathing. Just f.u.c.k off. Or else write back and we'll make love. Gentleman, 37. Box no. 5369.

All I could ever tell anyone was 'it's great, just do it'. Partly out of my own English awkwardness, partly out of a fear of not making the sale back when my targets were impossible and I had no clients, but mostly out of sincerely getting a kick from what they'd written. This wasn't how other lonely hearts columns operated.

On a flight from Glasgow about a year after the column began, where I'd been on a BBC daytime show about lonely hearts with a rogue's gallery of dating experts, advice columnists and women's magazine psychologists, I gave a copy of the LRB ads to a woman who ran an agency that produced the personals sections of many broadsheet newspapers. Other publications tend to contract out their personals sections to specialist dating firms rather than ad sales companies. Usually people phone a premium-rate number and they're asked pseudo-psychoa.n.a.lytic questions such as 'With which historical figure do you most identify?' or, 'If you were part of a celebrity coupling, who would be your ideal partner?' The answers are then translated into a personal ad. In occasional attempts to be more professional I've tried this approach on LRB advertisers, but with less than encouraging results: I am more like Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich of Russia than anyone else who has ever advertised here. Man, 54. Box no. 5349.

You're Helen Mirren. I'm Will Self. One half of this century's uber-couple-to-be seeks tousled fems to 50 for weekends full of recondite wines, obscure blandishments, and winning references to abstruse 11th century s.e.xual practices. No loons. Box no. 7936.

The personals sections managed by this particular agency were full of gorgeous, healthy, intelligent people. Each presented a paradigm of human excellence, albeit infused with a somewhat eerie sense of eugenic urgency. Naturally, she was appalled by the LRB ads. 'These are awful', she said, 'you can't let people say these things about themselves', and then she offered to take over running the section.

I've grown used to this kind of response, but it's still exasperating. Even if the advertisers in other columns haven't been coerced into a clumsy rhetorical liposuction of all the junk of their lives and were genuinely Nietzschean ubermenschen (not-withstanding their appearance in-sotto voce-a lonely hearts column), the existence of such characterless people can only be depressing for the vast majority of us jaded, cynical, out-of-sync-with-the-world types: I hate you all. I hate London. I hate books. I hate critics. I hate this magazine, I hate this column and I hate all the goons who appear in it. But if you have large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, are younger than 30 and don't want to talk about the novel you're 'writing' I'll put all that aside for approximately two hours one Sat.u.r.day afternoon in January. Man, 33. Box no. 7810.

Of course, there's no need to feel intimidated by the s.h.i.+ning beauties occasionally sprinkled across small ads sections like glitter on a dog t.u.r.d. Significantly, one of the most revealing and often unquoted statistics about personal ads is that the commonest complaints are to do with advertisers rarely being the way they describe themselves in their ads. Such instances of advertisers not being altogether candid-or, more accurately, lying-are probably the c.u.mulative results of dating agency spin, being delusional about their sense of self or simply a fear of not being interesting enough. It's not a complaint we get at the LRB. Although we have occasionally had concerned phone calls from respondents surprised that certain adverts weren't, after all, intended ironically- My hobbies include crying and hating men. F, 29. Box no. 8620.

I'm not convinced personal ads tell us anything about human behaviour other than that our ideas of what makes us attractive to others are based on very arbitrary a.s.sumptions. Speedos aren't a good look for anyone. Knowledge of circuit training and which protein shake is best for a post-squat-thrust warm-down isn't going to win you points in the 'great to talk to' league. In this sense, the personal ads in the London Review of Books are very liberating. Their strength comes from resoundingly rejecting those archetypal elements of attraction that press so heavily on our insecurities but that few of us actually possess. Bespectacled and melanin-deprived, the LRB personals tell us not to be ashamed; to relax a little and enjoy what's out there without feeling threatened by it. We can read them without ever having to suck in our gut: Young, charming, thoughtful, attractive, sporty, zesty, intelligent. None of these are me, but if you'd like to spend an afternoon or more considering alternative adjectives to be applied to 53-year old cantankerous dips.h.i.+t, write now to box no. 0927.

After all these years I'm honestly still cheered by the phone calls I get from people as insecure about their attractiveness as I am. I enjoy talking to these people-rich, lively and (it's true) often strange folk whose main selling point is their knowledge of medieval filigree, or their jam collections, or fondness for ingesting things they probably shouldn't be ingesting: They say you are what you eat. I'm eight Panadols, a few daily Seroxats, a couple of Senokots, a whole clutch of Nuvelles and-since I came around this afternoon-three crayons and a Maxi Pad. Dizzy historian (M, 54) seeks woman for whom the terms 'good times', 'tracking device' and 'A&E' aren't always a million miles away from each other. Box no. 3235.

Perhaps we're all taken in by the Scheherazade effect-a term coined by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller* in reference to the ancient Persian queen and storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. Like King Shahryar, beheading his virgin brides once he's had his way with them, we read personal ads ready to laugh at them and brush them aside. But, just as Scheherazade permanently stays her execution and wins the affection of her king with tales full of history and humour, so the LRB personals keep us compelled with their inventiveness-their minute performances-engaging us in such a way as to keep us wanting more and thus forever postponing their dismissal: If you're reading this hoping for a mini-biopic about battles with drugs, cancer and divorce, talk to the guy above. But if you want to know about historical battle sites in Scotland, talk to me. Alan, 45. Scottish historical battle expert and BDSM fetis.h.i.+st. Box no. 8553.

Each advert, whatever first appearances may suggest, is very carefully crafted, often involving hours of pain and self-examination and, very possibly, home-made benzodiazepines: Yesterday I was a disgusting spectacle in end-stage alcoholism with a gambling problem and not a hope in the world. Today I am the author of this magnificent life-altering statement of yearning and desire. You are a woman to 55 with plenty of cash and very little self-respect. When you reply to this advert your life will never be the same again. My name is Bernard. Never call me Bernie. Box no. 3916.

Despite the number of exchanges between an advertiser and me, it's very rare that I find out if an ad has worked. Although I've heard a handful of success stories, people are very shy about admitting they met their partner through a lonely heart. More often I only hear from the advertiser again if it's to complain about the standard of response generated-the orthodontist who collected cavity samples and proudly sent a whole alb.u.m's worth of photographs, the woman who posted photocopied pa.s.sages from the Bible with the cryptic annotation 'I've done this and enjoyed it', or the gentleman whose hobby was doc.u.menting his sightings of albino people. This volume, along with the first, They Call Me Naughty Lola, merely collects the adverts themselves, but imagine how enlightening (and terrifying) a volume of responses would be.

This advert formally ends the period of my life I like to jokingly refer to as 'the years I spent a lot of money on drugs' and begins the phase I hope will be known in the very near future as 'the weekend I had s.e.x with that guy'. Woman, 32. Box no. 9830.

Even the mode of response is, in itself, an important consideration here because most LRB ads don't give email addresses. They rely, rather, on a box number forwarding system that costs an extra fiver per ad and is entirely at the mercy of the ambivalent British postal service and the LRB advertising department's staff holiday schedule: If fate brings us together, destiny will probably tear us apart. Kismet may see us off in the morning. Causality might cook dinner. Hubris will almost certainly iron my trousers. Determinedly deterministic man, 37. Mostly leaving everything in the hands of Royal Mail and a box number reply-forwarding system that made no sense whatsoever when Louisa at the LRB tried to explain it. Box no. 8522.

Indeed, it may seem to the casual reader that the LRB personals began at the wrong time, coming as they did four years after the birth of one of the most successful online dating communities, Match.com. In this digital generation of social networking sites, the personals in the London Review of Books are something of an enigma. Not only have they survived, undiminished in their openness and brutal self-a.n.a.lysis, but they have steadfastly resisted the anodyne resources of the modern dating landscape, as if Match.com, Craigslist and JDate are, if anything, simply too easy, like finding the teacher's edition of the algebra textbook complete with answers in the back.

We make no apologies. The effort of writing and posting a response has always been regarded by our advertisers as an essential part of their vetting procedure. Maybe that's to be expected of a very literary readers.h.i.+p. Rather than create a single, generic email that can be sent to as many people as one likes-as is the case on dating websites-respondents to LRB personals have to be much more conscientious. They must choose their stationery carefully, for instance. Would-be Henry Millers could be undone by a coa.r.s.e sheet of foolscap whilst a self-gummed Avery standard could very easily scupper any advance made by a latter-day Anais Nin. Sentences must be beautifully composed and written with a fine calligraphic hand. Every cursive stroke is open to a.n.a.lysis. Every looped 'g' scrutinized for meaning. These are all elements digital dating doesn't allow. Plus, with a written letter, it's impossible to disguise a prison post-mark: Part biopic, part utopian vision, all epic of redemption amidst the trials of mankind. This personal ad has everything. Woman, 38. Only one conviction for nuisance calling. Box no. 6544.

In the age of Facebook triteness, the ability to engage with even the most fractional components of writing has become an increasingly valuable commodity for any intellectually-minded mate. Shortage, it is true, drives demand: Dear LRB, I have no money. Please run my advert for free. I want a woman who is 38. Let her know I'm really clever and good-looking. Thanks. Box no. 4487.

But it would be a mistake to a.s.sume that our advertisers are simply old-fas.h.i.+oned, or that, as traditional lonely hearts sections become transplanted onto the internet, the LRB personals column is nothing more than the last tooth in a gum of long-since vanished small ads sections. Perhaps they are a canon in their own right, presenting a very specific style of writing that is quite apart even from other publications' personal ads sections. Like haiku or sonnets, they suggest specific constraints of form and metre-a 'house-style', if you will-but traverse these frequently with gamesmans.h.i.+p and a desire always to be distinct: Straight line. Straight line. Funny line. Sucker punch. Busy man, 36. Box no. 9732.

Nor would it be entirely egregious to suggest that they have a small place in the broad aesthetic of British emotional awkwardness that would include Morrissey, Alan Bennett and Philip Larkin at the top of the tree, and my auntie Alice at the root ('I can't dance tonight, lad, me dollypegs are 'urtin'). For LRB readers, the personal ads aren't cris de coeur as much as they are bucolic tests of wit and audacity-poissons d'avril pinned to the back of the unsuspecting literary establishment. And yet, when all's said and done, they are personal ads. They may punch above their weight, but there is an end to them that stops considerably short of art's high-table. Their purpose is to attract attention, nothing more. Their absurdity and humour aren't disguises for some deeper intent. They are simple and genuine statements about the people who write them and the people they hope to find. True, their honesty subverts the traditional lonely heart form, and we're often surprised, delighted or infuriated by their unwavering and messy emotion, inelegantly sprayed across the page like water from a garden hose loose on its faucet, but if an advert doesn't garner a positive response-however entertaining it may be-its author will always consider it a failure. Whilst the stakes aren't necessarily high in the LRB personals, there is always a sense of consequence: I celebrated my fortieth birthday last week by cataloguing my collection of bird feeders. Next year I'm hoping for s.e.xual intercourse. And a cake. Join my invite mailing list at box no. 6831. Man.

Note for readers: It should be pointed out that the adverts in this volume are no longer active and as such responses cannot be forwarded on to advertisers.

"A shoddily-painted bust of Richard Dudgeon"

What kind of animal are you? I'm a giraffe. No! Wait! I'm a monkey! Welcome to my tree-top paradise. (F, 62). Box no. 0220.

My way or the highway- the two are very often the same with asphalting loon, 53, mixing his own bitumen and coa.r.s.e aggregate surfacing solutions at box no. 6737.

My success as a lover is matched only by my success in the field of astronomy. Man, 37. WLTM woman to 40 with eyes as big and as bright as those stars that come up over by the trees opposite my house at about 9pm every night, then every 15 minutes or so. You know the ones. I call them the Regular Magic Tree Stars. They may be comets. Or planes. Whatever. Write, we'll have s.e.x, you'll love it. Box no. 8909.

Are you the man of my dreams? Green, 9'10", three eyes, six tentacled arms and reciting the third canto of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene1 whilst crus.h.i.+ng football-sized grapes with hoofed feet? Either stop it now or kiss me, you monstrous wine-making fool. Woman, 41, Exeter. Box no. 1011.

The origin of evil may have been a problem for the Romantics, but not for me-I lay it squarely at the door of freeze-dried onions. Come hang perilously on the cliff of soak-before-eating foodstuffs. Conversation is limited, but the nutritional value is off the meter.2 Man, 41. Box no. 0524.

Gun for hire. Also terrapins for sale. Confused but fully-booked Bradford cowboy-c.u.m-terrarium zoo gardener, WLTM quick-fire Calamity Jane3 to 50 with no small amount of expertise in rearing amphibious reptiles. Whip-crack-away at box no. 1006.

I made this magazine what it is today-a crumbling, shoddily-painted bust of Richard Dudgeon,4 inventor of the hydraulic jack. Papier macheobsessed idiot (M, 42). Box no. 1312.

Re-enact the American Civil War5 in my kitchen. Man, 51, holed up in the larder, seeks Confederate woman for pitched battles with muskets, pikes, and Tefal griddle pans. Must know how to slaughter a perfectly good omelette. Bucks. Box no. 0764.

Quornbaya, my Lord, quornbaya. Gay, non-smoking vegetarian Joan Baez fantasist (F, 54). WLTM similar to 60 for textured mycoprotein-based protest music shenanigans.6 Someone's cooking meat subst.i.tute fajitas, my Lord, quornbaya at box no. 6587.

This wheel's on fire.7 So is my hair. And my under-paid a.s.sistant. Beatnik chemist and perennial misfiring love jerk (M, 35) WLTM woman to 40 with asbestos suit and no small knowledge of acids and which things from my bathroom cupboard I shouldn't be mixing them with. Box no. 6190.

Man, 41. Not the sharpest sandwich at the picnic. Box no. 2442.

A lot of people say these ads are tacky and tasteless. Not me, and I promise you I know art when I see it. Velvet Elvis and Genuine Pope-shaped hip-flask salesman, 49, looking for woman with lounge bar in the shape of a s.h.i.+p's hull. Anchors away, momma, and bless you, my child. Box no. 1013.

One-time Mario Andretti of popular short-lived quad protests seeks Stirling Moss of resurgent leftist agit-prop theatre for nights of frequent pit-stops and dragging up behind the safety car.8 Must have large bosoms. M, 61. Box no. 8699.

"Mentally, I'm a size eight"

If intense, post-fight s.e.x scares you, I'm not the woman for you (amateur big-boned cage wrestler, 62). Box no. 8744.

The low-resolution personal ad. When viewed from a distance it looks amazing, but up close it's pretty poor. Man, 35, Gwent. Box no. 7863.

Nothing says 'I love you' in a more sincere way than being woken with champagne and pastries and roses. Apart from a dog with peanut b.u.t.ter on the roof of his mouth. Write, we'll meet, sleep together and-in the morning, just before my friend's wife tells me to get off their sofa and get out of their house-I'll show you Winston's trick. It's hilarious. You'll have to bring the peanut b.u.t.ter though-they've put locks on all the kitchen cupboards. Man, 26. Box no. 6433.

My last seven adverts in this column were influenced by the early catalogue of Krautrock band, Paternoster. This one, however, is based entirely around the work of Gil Scott-Heron. Man, 32. Possibly the last person you want to be stood next to at a house-party you've been dragged along to by a friend who wants to get off with the flatmate of the guy whose birthday it is. Hey! Have you ever heard Boards of Canada? They're amazing; I'll burn you a CD.9 Box no. 3178.

This advert is about as close as I come to meaningful interaction with other adults. Woman, 51. Not good at parties but tremendous b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Box no. 5436.

Years of cigarette smoke can put one h.e.l.l of a patina on a guy's complexion. F with hot soapy water, coa.r.s.e brush and a poor sense of smell/sobriety required by jug-faced M, 57. Box no. 4674.

I'm no Victoria's Secret model.10 Man, 62. Box no. 3280.

Meet the new face of indoor bowling! More or less the same as the old face, but less facial hair and better teeth. M, 28. Box no. 3377.

I cannot guarantee you'll fall in love with me, but I can promise you the best home-brewed beetroot wine you'll have ever tasted. Now if that doesn't sound like a fermented bucket of yummy siphoned l.u.s.tiness I just don't know what does. Man, 41. Stupid like wow! Box no. 9851.

It is my manifest destiny to find a man through this column and marry him. Woman, 103. Box no. 2134.

The celebrity I resemble the most is Potsie from Happy Days. What feels so right can't be wrong. Man, 46.11 Box no. 2480.

Mentally, I'm a size eight. Compulsive-eating F, 52, WLTM man to 25 for whom the phrase 'beauty is only skin-deep' is both a lifestyle choice and a religious ethos. Box no. 5115.

I've been parachuted in to return this column to its usual standard. Man, 96. Box no. 3270.

Drooling, toothless sociopath (M, 57) seeks F any age to help make this abandoned gas station kiosk feel more like home. Must bring shoes (size 10). Box no. 5310.

Tall, handsome, well-built, articulate, intelligent, sensitive, yet often grossly inaccurate man, 21. Cynics (and some cheap Brentwood psychiatrists) may say 'pathological liar', but I like to use 'creative with reality'. Join me in my 36-bedroomed mansion on my Gloucesters.h.i.+re estate, set in 400 acres of wild-stag populated woodland. East Ham.12 Box no. 0620.

Time is the serenest beauty of the camp, but only I have the reflexes of a fox. And a badger's sense of smell. Woman. 51. Box no. 0522.

I vacillate wildly between a number of archetypes including, but not limited to, Muriel Spark witticismtrading doyenne, Mariella Frostrup charismatic socialite, brooding, intense Marianne Faithfull visionary, and kleptomaniac Germaine Greer amateur upholsterer and ladies' league darts champion.13 Woman, 43. Everything I just said was a lie. Apart from the bit about darts. And kleptomania. Great t.i.ts though. Box no. 2236.

Rippling hunk of a guy; washboard stomach, blonde, blue-eyed, not quite 50, WLTM woman with open mind and some experience of hallucinogens. Box no. 4532.

Two out of every ten times I'm absolutely correct. Man, 35, (Islington). Non-smoker, academic, caring, solvent, pa.s.sionate, articulate, full head of hair. Box no. 7326.

Just as chugging on a bottle of White Lightning14 on a park bench will make you nauseous and diminish the respect of your peers, yet taking just a gla.s.s of cold cider on a barmy summer evening will quench your thirst and take you back to heady days frolicking in West Country apple orchards, so it is with this ad. Man, 37. Refres.h.i.+ng in small sips where the delicate nuances of Somerset burst through full and flavoursome, but anything bigger and you'll end up puking over your own shoes and smelling of wee. Box no. 8930.

My advert comes in the form of interpretive dance. Man, 62. Box no. 4458.

I'm the entire third chapter from that s.h.i.+te book they compiled from these ads.15 Go figure. Man, 57. Box no. 0733.

Sent to prison by a military court for a crime he didn't commit, this man (32) promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade into the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem-if no one else can help-and if you can find him-maybe you can fall in love with irritating TV trivia genius, wearing white socks regardless of the colour of his trousers.16 Box no. 0533.

Sweet Caroline (da, da, daaa)-good times never felt so good. Man, 42-bouncy and irritating like a bad tune you can't get out of your head. Come on, Silver Lady, take my hand-I won't walk out on you again, believe me. Thank your lucky stars at box no. 0618 that we're not as smart as we like to think we are. Cambs.17 At first glance you may consider me a true modernist in the von Webern sense, but-like him-deep down I'm very much a romantic.18 As my collection of taxidermied amphibians will testify. Man, 60. Box no. 9444.

Why waste time in the bath? M, 45, with secret to natural, water-free cleanliness-psychic showering, bathe in your own karma (patent pending). Seeks woman to 50 for invigorating wash-down in the fountain of the mind. Must be prepared to lose friends and never be allowed in restaurants again. Box no. 0217.

Man, 42. WLTM woman to 50 to help harness the disappointment I routinely create in all my relations.h.i.+ps. Own tap shoes an advantage. Box no. 3868.

Being a Capricorn with an ascendant Sagittarius, I only ever date women in February when my moon is in the seventh house. If you're a Virgo with Leo or Aries rising, or Taurus with Pisces or Gemini rising, or Cancer with an Aquarian moon, or Libra with a cousin called Derek, or Scorpio with a dachshund, write now to Sunday newspaper columnist and conjurer (M, 53), fast running out of excuses as to why he hasn't had s.e.x in over three years. Strictly no women with a fear of cats. Or a reluctance to partic.i.p.ate in pagan rejuvenation rites involving the drinking of our own urine. Box no. 9783.

'Go on, son, hit me in the stomach'. Everybody's boring uncle, 51 ('and I got this scar in Korea'). Box no. 0534.

"The usual hyperbole and a whiff of playful narcissism"

In my house the electric sander is king and I am its willing knave. The toaster is chancellor. You (woman to 37, Cambs. and surrounding) can be a scullery maid. My palm-top is queen. Obey its organisational mastery and mega-pixel display properties at box no. 5712.

I have a mug that says 'World's Greatest Lover'. I think that's my referees covered. How about you? Man. 37. Bishopsgate. Box no. 8763.

Brief personality multi-choice: you're reading a respected literary magazine when you see an advert from an American, intelligent, 57-year-old man with his own computing business and really impressive motorbike. He is obviously the man of your dreams. Do you a) cancel your subscription and start reading h.e.l.lo!, b) sulk in bed, wis.h.i.+ng you were a woman, c) join the queue and write to box no. 2545?

I will file you under 'T' for 'Totty'. Just after 'T' for 'Teutonic' and before 'T' for 'Tributary'. You can file me under 'P' for 'Pithy'. And my shoes under 'R' for 'Recherche'. Well-turned-out man, 46. Box no. 7892.

Philanthropy is my middle name. It's just a name though so don't be expecting any free rides. You can call me Mr Wallace. My first name is none of your business. Applications to box no. 9741.

We've all made mistakes. Mine was a cerise pump during London Fas.h.i.+on Week 2004. Style troubadour (M, 35). WLTM similar, or appropriately dour f.a.g hag. Box no. 8643.

All humans are 99.9% genetically identical, so don't even think of ending any potential relations.h.i.+p begun here with 'I just don't think we have enough in common'.19 Science has long since proven that I am the man for you (41, likes to be referred to as 'Wing Commander' in the bedroom). Box no. 3501.

Normally on the first few dates I borrow mannerisms from the more interesting people I know and very often steal phrases and anecdotes from them along with concepts and ideas from obscure yet wittily-written books. It makes me appear more attractive and personable than I actually am. With you, however, I'm going to be a belligerent old s.h.i.+t from the very beginning. That's because I like you and feel ready to give you honesty. Belligerent old s.h.i.+t (M, 53). Box no. 6378.

Whilst I look forward to an engaging and fulfilling relations.h.i.+p with someone whose emotional needs dovetail neatly with my own in a way that enables us both to express ourselves freely and exist together with mutual respect and compa.s.sion, I see absolutely no harm whatsoever in having wild, disgusting, nasty one-off s.e.x with just about anyone. That's where you come in-woman to whatever age from anywhere either within or from outside the M25 with a pulse and four hours to spare. Exquisite b.r.e.a.s.t.s and own Oyster card20 a distinct advantage. Man, 34. Box no. 2582.

If clumsy, unfeeling l.u.s.t is your bag, write to the ad above. Otherwise write to me, mid-forties M with boy next door looks, man from U.N.C.L.E. charm, and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air casual insouciance. Wicky wicky wick yo.21 Box no. 2851.

I have accommodated many terms from the world of embroidery into my bedroom lexicon. Whenever we make love, you will be s.e.xually satisfied whilst also subliminally studying an accredited course in a skill long lost to women over the ages. Man (57): lover, instructor, and, providing you have gained enough modular credits throughout the term, invigilator on your final exam. Box no. 3721.

The usual hyperbole infuses this ad with a whiff of playful narcissism and Falstaffian bathos. But scratch below the surface and you'll soon find that I really am the greatest man ever to have lived. Truly great man, 37. Better than Elvis and Ghandi. You'll never be a genuinely worthy partner, but try anyway by first replying to box no. 7637. Include a full list of qualifications, your aspirations, and a full frontal nude body shot.

When not in my London city office overseeing the day-to-day business of my successful accountancy firm, I can be found leaning inside taxi cabs, spitting wild obscenities and challenging the drivers to fisticuffs. M, 47. We take the direct route home, we don't stop at Belisha beacons and we never-and I mean never-leave the impudence of a box junction unquestioned.22 Don't expect a tip from box no. 9091.