I play this game called 'Treasure Madness' on Facebook. One aspect of the game involves trading in a currency called Museum Dollars. These can be bought with a credit card; alternatively, they can be earned by completing various offers. I am not quite enough of a geek to buy Museum Dollars so I have to spend a lot of time filling out answers to useless surveys or downloading game toolbars that I really don't want. But I bought the Ultimate Shovel Upgrade with my hard-earned Mu$, so it was worth it. Because shovels are very exciting. Anyway, today I noticed that if I signed up to RSVP.com.au, 'where more Australians meet', I would earn 13 Mu$. So I did.
This isn't the first time I've signed up to a dating website. I once got an account with Cupid.com because I'd heard that one of my high-school classmates was on there and I wanted to scare him a bit. Unfortunately I got deleted pretty quickly because they worked out that 'madmickthemonkey' was not a real identity. Having learnt from my errors, I decided that this time I should choose a more believable profile name, but 'chestylarue' was already taken. However, the website kindly suggested 'chestylarue1970', thus solving my dilemma once and for all.
But the question of 'real identity' persisted with me. How could I deceive my fellow RSVP.com.au members by creating a profile that was merely a shallow vessel of empty promises? With the most honourable of intentions, I henceforth proceeded to create a profile based on my ex-husband. Well, if his third marriage ever broke down, he might need a backup plan. I'm nothing if not an altruist. So, for the first few questions at least, chestylarue1970 was a thirty-seven-year-old chronic smoker with lots of nostril hair but very little on his head. Until I began to really get into the spirit of things. It was the website's fault. It wouldn't let me name my country of residence as the US; American Samoa was evidently the closest I could get. Fair enough - American Samoa it was! Having told one lie, I thought it wouldn't matter if I told a few more.
So, for the grand reward of thirteen Museum Dollars, I have successfully created a thirty-seven-year-old American Samoan Buddhist, a chronic smoker with lots of nostril hair, whose mother was an Ewok. He is under five feet tall but will accept potential partners up to six foot eight. He is quite a party animal, listing Def Leppard and Conway Twitty as his musicians of choice; however, he is somewhat restricted in his literary pursuits, declaring 'i don't read books unless they're about the vietnam war god dammit'. His favourite sport is 'riding in a deckchair with a balloon on top'. Everyone loves an individual, after all.
And yes, I know that this is very immature of me but it does offer the possibility that I'll get some interesting responses, which should be a laugh. In the meantime, I'm off to upgrade my shovel some more.
