Dot and Mars: You can't stop us, cause we like doing it

I've always considered internet dating the final frontier. Basically, if there's no one on the internet for you (and let's face it, the whole world's on the internet), then where to from there? You're screwed.

Anyway, Columbo has a friend who has had some success on this website where your friend writes a profile for you, telling the world how great you are... then someone comes along and clicks on your head - next thing you know you've got a house in the suburbs, you drink coffee, you've got a couple of squawkers nipping around your ankles and you're living the dream.

So i figured, for a couple of reasons, that i could probably do this internet dating thing without too much humiliation given that i didn't really know anyone here in Manchester who would stumble upon my profile and send it to my whole office (just ya know, for example... errr) and also, i didn't really know anyone here in Manchester and i could do with meeting some people.

Who else would i ever turn to for a profile? You guessed it, my old friend Dot. She wrote me a wonderful piece testement to all my good points... and i left this profile, along with a picture of my head, on that website for approximately four days... before i shit myself and took it down. Some people had clicked on my head, i had two emails (which i couldn't even read cause i didn't want to pay), but i thought what was written on my profile made me sound a little... well, weird. I deemed it a little bit too in-jokey between Dot and i (what's not in-jokey, eh?) so took it down.

Some time passesd and i thought i might like to try it again but thought Dot might get annoyed if i asked her to write me another profile... so i asked my friend Marge. She took absolutely weeks to come up with it, so i was really expecting great things. I was disappointed at her ineloquent effort which basically said that i was 'quite independent but would like to settle down if someone will have me' in not so many words. I didn't hold this against Marge though, i mean, that's what she did, so she probably thinks it's quite ok. Anyway, that got canned straight away.

Running out of friends to ask, i mentioned to Columbo that i needed a profile. She said she didn't think she knew me well enough and didn't wanna do it... that was until i showed her what Marge had written and she agreed that no, that wouldn't do at all. So she's agreed to write me this profile, however that must have been about three weeks ago now and still, nothing...

Short of getting my mum to write me a bloody profile or writing it myself, i really am losing all faith in the system. If it's this hard to even get 'out there' i dread to think what these 'date' things are going to be like.

Please, just shoot me now.