Millions of people around the world are trying to find love online as we speak. For years I was one of them. In the wake of my divorce in 2007, over a period of five years, I went on hundreds of dates — most of which went on to involve a sexual liaison of some kind — because I was searching for someone to replace my wife, and because it was easy and I was trying to outrun my pain. Click and you’re on.
I expected to be able to find something perfect out there in the ether, beyond my laptop. I went halfway around the world looking for the perfect woman: from Sydney to New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles. A burlesque dancer. An escort. An actress. All incredible women with so much to give but who couldn’t deliver the instant bolt of love I had convinced myself was a prerequisite for any long-term relationship to blossom.
When I did get that “glimpse of eternity”, to borrow a great line from Stephen Vizinczey’s In Praise of Older Women, with an eccentric but beautiful artist who lived just around the corner from where I live in Sydney, our love affair ended after six months.
