Today’s marriage proposals – when made at all – come in many forms. Sometimes the mere twitch of an eyebrow is enough. For others, the route to the altar is harder. Proposals may arrive through text messages, others perhaps by TV’s dateline service, which attracts at any one time some 30,000 people looking for partners. And there are numerous similar agencies, many mentioned in this book. Newspapers and magazines, however, still remain one of the easiest and most popular routes to meeting others.

‘would Like To Meet’

Of the advertisements in these outlets, a fairly small space is taken up by Women Seeking Men, much less for Women To Women (‘straight’ or ‘single’ for ‘socialising and eating out’). A bigger section comes under the heading, Men To Men. With the exception of the Financial Times, where readers may be more concerned with making money than dates (though both together will not come amiss), the largest column of all is usually for Men Seeking Women.

As one example, under a caption ‘Ladies And Gentlemen’, one upmarket paper highlights a cri de coeur. Beginning attractively enough ‘chap 40, single, in back of beyond’, the gentleman goes on to describe the object of his search – ‘city based lady for cosy, cultural Christmas conversations and Tuscan hols’. But the heading ‘Good cook and ironer?’ leaves much unanswered. Is it the city based lady or the chap 40, single, who will do the ironing and lace the pudding with cultural Christmas conversations in the Tuscan hols? The answer may mean the beginning or end of a romance.

These few lines, like all the other adverts or a good CV, usually conceal more than they reveal and are quite unlike those once very popular in Germany. They began ‘innocent divorcee’ (schuldlos geschieden), always schlank. After a brief description of the required Adonis the ending comes ‘with a view to marriage’. This phrase has completely disappeared from the current scene, and not only in Germany. Of almost 100 adverts under Men Seeking Women, taken at random from a large circulation London-based newspaper, there is only one reference to marriage. It comes from an Indian businessman of 27 who wishes ‘to meet genuine lady for a lasting relationship, possibly marriage’. Divorce itself has become too common to be mentioned.

The ‘alluring, attractive, charming, caring, affectionate’ females are all seeking not marriage, but ‘friendship/relationship’. This is occasionally extended to an ‘honest, loving relationship’. Occasionally the word romance is mentioned and one person in a hundred may be ‘genuinely looking for commitment’. The ‘attractive, adventurous, assertive, affectionate, charismatic, charming, extrovert, good looking, gorgeous’ men who advertise (no blushing violets here) want women for fun, friendship and laughs, romance (occasionally) and (rarely) timeless moments or (even more rarely) a life companion. Some men hedge their bets with explanatory adjectives: no strings; lasting; long term (followed by a question mark); steady; sincere, or even . . . solvent. When a single mother or student is mentioned, so is a ‘supportive relationship’, though who is supporting whom is not quite clear.

Translation Guide

A dictionary of words and phrases can be useful in translating some of the messages. TLC for tender loving care is now passé. WLTM for ‘would like to meet’ is the ‘in’ word for an assignation. It should really add TBA, to be arranged. That escape has not yet been adopted. ‘No hang ups’ does not refer to the laundry. N/S is for non smoking, presumably tobacco. Somebody in a January advertisement still wants to ‘pull a Christmas cracker’. The pulling is unlikely to be for the motto inside the wrapping. SOH (sense of humour) is naturally much in demand. Just as naturally but far more rarely is LTR (long term relationship).

Honesty might win over a hesitant suitor for the 40-year-old woman who ‘likes being spoilt’ and seeks a film star hero (tall, dark, handsome) for romance. For good measure she adds that he must be wealthy, too.

No harm in asking. Phrases like ‘for genuine friendship’ or ‘an honest loving relationship’ can cover up stranger needs. In other countries there are no such inhibitions. In California, for example, a weekly paper might publish adverts barely intelligible to the more restrained English reader:

And in the same publication there are enough hot, hot bodies on offer to curl the pages, let alone the toes of anybody brave or reckless enough to reply.