Last Friday I mentioned that I spent some time working for a computer dating agency, and that I would post about this at some point. Well, here is that post. If you happen to have used the services of such an agency, fear not, I won’t be revealing anything that could identify any of the lovelorn patrons.
I spent a summer working for the agency – for the purposes of this post I’ll call it FixerUppers.inc – covering the maternity leave of a permanent member of staff. I initially found the job via the job centre, although at first I had no idea quite where I would be working, the ad simply asked for a data input operative. I had the relevant skills so applied at the desk, where a pleasant chap informed me the job was at the offices of FixerUppers.inc and asked if I had heard of them. I was 18, and had never been unwillingly single so, not surprisingly, I hadn’t. Anyhow, he arranged an interview, which I attended, and at which I was offered the job – I started the following Monday.
I must admit that prior to this experience I believed in a certain stereotype about the sort of person who would use the services of FixerUppers.inc. It didn’t take long for me to realise that, on the whole, this was unfair. The majority of the clients were not sad loners with the social skills of a depressed halibut. Nor did they have Norman Bates tendencies. Most were perfectly normal people who due to circumstance found it difficult to meet that special someone. Many worked unsociable hours, or had jobs which involved long periods away from home. Others were single parents, or widows caring for elderly relatives. There were numerous divorcees who had moved to a new town where they knew no one and who felt uncomfortable about visiting the sort of venue where two pairs of eyes might meet across a crowded room.
Then there were others who, shall we say, made it a little hard for themselves. They demanded a standard that it was unlikely anyone could realistically meet. Men/women of 50, who would only consider women/men of 25. The most extreme case of this, was a man of 72 who wanted a 20 year old – he didn’t get one – and who took to phoning and asking staff members if they might be interested – we weren’t.
Another hard to match group were the people who refused to countenance a relationship with anyone less than a 10, when they were only a 5 (at best) themselves – oddly this type were nearly always men. Women seemed to consider looks less important.
Unsurprisingly, FixxerUppers.inc stipulated that clients should be single – not for any sense of morality, but for publicity reasons. Therefore, married people were not encouraged to apply. However some did and while most had the brains to lie about their status, some did so quite openly. I’m not sure if this was due to stupidity or arrogance, but it got them nowhere, their applications went straight into the shredder. The surreptitious applications were usually discovered – the person they had been matched with would complain, and they would be removed from the books. Oddly, they often seemed to feel a sense of indignation about this, as though it was perfectly ok for them to use FixxerUppers.inc as an aid to adultery.
So far I have covered the good, the bad, and the ugly who made up the overwhelming majority of clients, none were prefect, but all were normal. But there was this other small group, fortunately few and far between who were a little more worrying. I stated above that none of the clients had Norman Bate’s tendencies, and mostly this was true, but there were some who, well, lets just say, you wouldn’t have wanted to get trapped in a lift with them. In my time there I only encountered 2 such characters – so I’m guessing they weren’t an everyday occurrence.
The first chap had been matched with a woman who phoned to complain about him the morning after their date because over dinner he began to discuss his interest in Satanism and a taste for, umm, rather unusual sexual practices – and I mean unusual, if you had a scale of 1 -100 with staid at number 1, kinky at 50 and nauseatingly deviant at 100, this guy would have scored 150.
The other oddball was actually someone myself and another member of staff knew of. Ordinarily, this would have been cause for a quick remark, maybe even a chuckle, but in this case, the reason we knew of him was because he had a reputation for stalking. In those days, it wasn’t called stalking, and wasn’t a crime, but his behaviour was still way out enough for us to flag his application and let the boss know why we didn’t think he should be allowed to join up. It was worrying to think that had he applied to a different agency (and he probably did) he would not have been recognised., and some poor woman would have soon found him a permanent and unwelcome feature in her life.
My time was up in the October, and I went back to college. Being a data input operative for FixxerUppers.inc (or any other dating agency) was never going to be my chosen career path. It was time well spent though, I learnt a lot about people and the desire to be part of a pair, it seems that no matter how old people are they still want someone special to share their lives with. And on the down side, I discovered that there are people who think they deserve more than one special someone. Would I use the services of such an agency myself? Probably not. It’s hard to say, at 39 I have still never been unwillingly single, so I don’t know what I would do in that situation, but I have a feeling that knowing of the existence of people such as the two odd bods I mentioned would put me off.
ps: I had intended this to be a humorous post, but it’s turned out to have quite a serious tone, sorry about that.
Jack Yan
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