Online love & catastrophes - The Age Online love & catastrophes - The Age

How is it possible to propose to 50 women, or say you're tall when you're really short? You lie, of course. But it's even easier with the help of the net, writes Caroline Overington.

Once upon a time, there was a charming man who claimed to be lonely and misunderstood. He met a woman and quickly seduced her with poetry and romantic notes. She was captivated and started making plans for marriage. Then she found out that her soul mate was, in fact, a heel. He had other girlfriends.

Now, stories like these are not uncommon and yet, when exactly this happened last week, it made the front page of The New York Times.

The reason: there was a modern twist. The cad in question had proposed not to one other woman, or even to two or three. He had 50 paramours, and he met all of them through an internet dating service.

The scheme came unstuck only because the man, Kassem Saleh, was serving overseas as a US army colonel, and one of his many "fiances"agreed to be interviewed by her local TV station about the pain and pride that military spouses feel when their partners are called to duty.

The station put the story on the web, where another of Colonel Saleh's brides-to-be saw it. You can guess what happened next: the women went a-sleuthing and found 48 others just like them. Few of them had ever met Saleh, but some had wedding dresses, packed in boxes, ready for a march down the aisle.


And do you know what really upset these women when, as part of the painful but necessary search for the ugly truth, they started emailing each other? It wasn't so much that Saleh had proposed to so many of them. In fact, once they removed the
rose-coloured glasses, several admitted to being bewildered by their own behaviour. It probably was silly to accept a proposal from a man they had never met, especially one who - just to put another sting in the tale - was already married.

No, what really got their goat was this: Saleh fished for his victims from the pool of women on Tall Personals, a website that advertises itself as a place where "size DOES matter". It is supposed to be for Tall Singles who want equally Tall Mates. (Indeed, it is the dating website of choice for ex-models, basketball players and those lean, friendly looking guys you often see in ads for large clothes.)

But here's the thing: Saleh isn't tall. According to some of the few women who did meet him, he is only 1.73metres or maybe 1.78metres. But, because he was online, and not in person, who could tell? His inadequacy was exposed only when he sought to meet one of the women he romanced. That happened a few weeks ago, when Saleh, who claimed to be either 1.9 or 1.96metres, emailed Sarah Calder, 33, of Maine, to say he was returning from service and wanted to set up a date - and, by the way, he seemed to have shrunk to 1.83metres because of repeated parachute jumps.

"I know that people can injure their backs,"Calder told The New York Times. "But I was very wary."


"Kassem Saleh was serving overseas as a US army colonel, and one of his many "fiances"agreed to be interviewed by her local TV station about the pain military spouses feel"
And also angry. After all, the Tall Personals site is set up for Tall People who want Tall Dates, and the whole thing goes to pieces if people like Saleh invade the space and pretend to be something they are not (or, as one of his victims might put it, "Saying you're single is one thing, but this guy wasn't only married, he was short").

"It was a very disappointing episode,"the chief executive of Tall Personals, Jim Mixon, said this week - for the record, Mixon is 1.98metres, and single.

"We got hundreds of calls about it. We took him off the site. It's not something we want to encourage."

Mixon set up Tall Personals in 1998, plus another dating site called Salt And Pepper (no, not for people who like men with Richard Gere's hair, but for black men who are attracted to white women, and vice versa).

In recent years, he has been amused to see scores of other "niche-dating"sites spring up, offering to help people find their absolutely perfect match. For example, it is now possible to search for a mate who is Jewish and vegan, or celibate before marriage, or brighter than average, or all of that. A quick search of these "niche"dating sites also turns up Animal People Personals (for people who have a good relationship with their cats, but no special human in their life) and Instant Chemistry (for the very bright, or computer literate, which has ads for women who say things like, "I'm looking for someone whose eyes don't glaze over when I mention motherboards").

Then there is Car Talkers (for people who love cars). On this site, everyone placing an ad must answer the question: "If I were a vehicle, what year, make and model would I be?"The site's owner says this "little mechanism is designed to help you avoid the '63 Dodge Darts of the dating world". In response, one single said: "I'm a VW Beetle: short, wide and old."Another was more cocky (and cliched): "Wild Machine! Buckle up tight and get ready for the ride of your life!"Besides that, the web also hosts Date-a-Doc (The Best Way to Meet Health Care and Science Professionals) and the Millionaires' Club (Where Successful Men Go to Find Their Beautiful and Intelligent Wives). Plus, there is Philanderers (where married men brazenly post their desire to take on a mistress). At the other end of the morality scale, there is Singles with Scruples, for people who operate according to a high moral code.

If race or colour is your thing, you can go to Kiss a Ghanian (helping "Ghanians and non-Ghanians around the world find that special Ghanian"). Or maybe you are a single parent? Go to Kids No Problem, where parents seek to "blend"their families. Got a disease? Try Purpledoor, for herpes sufferers. Then there is a May-December site, for people who want a partner who is either much older or much younger than they are, plus Asexual Pals, for people who have a low sex drive, but crave companionship.

Charlie Burnett, 40, of Los Angeles, has a posting on this site. He says he is a "good-looking, successful professional who happens to have a low sex drive"and he is looking for an "attractive woman for a relationship without the pressure of sex".

But, as the women who agreed to marry Saleh found out, these sites - and there are thousands of others - can work only if the people who place ads are honest about themselves.

"That is one of the problems with internet dating,"said Mixon.

"You have to trust people, based on what they tell you. The army guy was a liar. Like all the other bullshit he told these women, he wasn't tall. And that is unfortunate, because people come to us because they have a specific desire for a tall partner. Maybe it's because they are tall women. Or maybe they are a tall man who likes to slow dance with somebody the same height.

"So these people come in good faith and, if we find out somebody is lying about their height, we'll take them off the site. But it seems a bit stupid to me. If these guys ever meet the women, the women will know straight away they are liars, and that's not a good foundation for any relationship."

Caroline Overington is The Age New York correspondent.

June 28 2003 - Online love & catastrophes - The Age

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