Off-Topic Time..

Apologies to the CAFC crowd today – going off-topic for the first time in a while!

I'm sat on a train right now and I'm seething. Not for the usual reasons – it's not half an hour late, doesn't reek of pee, and as yet I've not managed to present myself to the world after pressing the wrong button in the automatic toilet.

No, its about an article I just read in this morning's Metro (p19) about the world of Internet Dating. I'm not about to bash it – a friend of mine met his fiancé this way, and a few other friends have had varying degrees of success as well.

In theory, it's great – you get to plug in everything about you (all true of course), and depending on the site in question, get presented with a virtual 'wish list' of the qualities you look for in your potential partner. It's almost kind of like a 'Weird Science Lite' as you go through your shopping list.

Tall, short, race, religion, age... one site even gives you a percentage match of how much you fit a potential partner's criteria, and how much they fit to yours. Or, as a friend of mine puts it - “I meet her criteria by 100% - she only meets mine by 85%. So she has to try a bit harder...”

This is all well and good, and in many ways is simply a bit of harmless fun. However, the interview I read in the paper today concerns people specifically looking for partners who are financially secure. Some quotes from a particular site's director aiming themselves at this demographic:

“We do often get questions about the men because some of these women are wealthy and successful and want someone of similar quality”

“People say it's the basis of shallow... ...We do strongly believe it's not just one thing: money and financial stability suggest quality and drive”

“Is it any less shallow than someone being attracted to someone because of their looks?”

Now, I'll hold my hands up here – I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about people with pots of cash, so this kind of thing can rile me for starters. That said, it's due to the fact that I don't rate myself as having much - others would possibly disagree.

But the interesting thing about the article, and something I've discovered whilst I've been in the process of writing this, is that my initial disgust and anger from reading what initially appeared to be distastefully materialistic, gold-digging comments, gradually eased off.

The thing that hit me was simple – the last quote really is true. People just want to find what makes them happy.

The classic, commonly acknowledged quote out there is that 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. In the same way, it can be argued that success can be measured in the context a person can relate to. Therefore, it stands to reason that a wealthy person's view of 'success' will be somewhat different to yours or mine.

We may see success as completing a project, winning a football match, getting a bonus at work. As the money levels step up, so does the bar of success. That project becomes a company take-over, the football match nailing a multi-million-pound deal, and the bonus could be an equally extravagant proposition.

Are things really that different between the rich and the poor in this respect? As human beings, we all look for things we can relate too, something we have in common. It's not so surreal for beautiful people to be in tow, and to complement the status quo the vice-versa tends to stand the same.

For centuries people have looked for 'their equal', and the modern human being will adapt to it's circumstances – if there are millionaires or people of a certain raised level of wealth out there, it's only natural that they will seek out the same type of person.

So, tonight I will sit in my corner of comparative averageness. I will bathe in the salary that the high-class city worker won't bother to get out of bed to earn.

There is, however, compensation in all of this – despite 'average' being seen as a dirty word in modern times, it stands simply to represent the median. If qualities hold true for the levels above and below average, it the same must be true for the median. If the median holds true, it is real for all of us.

Taken to a logical conclusion, this can only be a comfort for us all – so for the singletons out there, don't go rushing to save for the luxury yacht just yet... there's something here for us.