Dear SFAR,
I really want to share this story with someone, but I’d rather not do so with anyone who knows my ex partner.
He had an amazing knack of ducking out of paying his end of bills, forgetting his wallet etc etc or, as his brother put it, “If you share costs with ***, you always end up paying the biggest half!” It really was down to a fine art.
A couple of weeks ago I was listening to an interview with a famous female who was single and in her fifties; she was asked if she’d consider Internet dating and she responded that the Internet was full of middle-aged men with no money, looking for middle-aged women WITH money, and that she wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. I’ve no intention whatsoever of touching it with a barge pole either, but out of curiosity I did a search for the dating bit of a national newspaper. What caught my eye was actually the search result below, which said that the national newspaper one was a waste of money, and that the writer had met his current partner on **** and that it hadn’t cost him anything. So I went and had a look at the site mentioned.
And there, large as life, was my ex! Not only that, but he clearly stated in his profile the kind of messages he could receive because he hadn’t paid a subscription!
At that point I realised that maybe Internet dating does have its uses; short of putting a headline saying “I am a complete tightwad”, he couldn’t have declared his stinginess more openly.
I do wish him luck with his search!