He had been to university, lived abroad and his sailing pictures implied he could be the alluringly adventurous partner I was looking for.
And his professionally-taken black and white profile photo on match.com stood out from the crowd.
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Most men surfing for love seem to be utterly clueless when it comes to submitting a decent picture of themselves.
Logically, if they are clicking through a catalogue of smiling faces for the tastiest bit of virtual crumpet, surely they must realise the importance of posting up an attractive snap?
What in heaven's name do they think we are perusing more than 50 Hampshire webpages for? Sparkling sentence structure with tidy punctuation?
If only there was a cyber soapbox to stand on, this message could be conveyed to Mr Pint-swiller, Mr Can't-find-the-flash and Mr Took-this-myself-with-my-outstretched-arm.
I digress.
After a few weeks of exchanging small talk e-mails with my sailor, I chose a bar at Ocean Village for the initial encounter.
It would be apt for both of us.
He would be comfortable overlooking the bobbing boats as the sun set, and I could avoid having to parallel park in a skirt and stilettos.
Conversation was a little stilted at first but flowed with ease after the usual awkward pleasantries.
We had the same relaxed attitude to life and wanted similar things for the future, but there is more to this dating malarkey than ticking all the right boxes.
Although I enjoyed his company and our profiles matched well, chemistry was again the essential missing ingredient.
It is a strange phenomenon with internet dating.
Someone can appear absolutely tailor-made on the shelf but in the changing rooms no matter how hard you wriggle, ultimately you have to accept the fit is not quite right.
Maybe somewhere in a parallel universe - the one my mother prefers - we can continue our amorous pursuit to its natural conclusion.
Namely, a little house near the water populated by a family of four mischievous young sailors.
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