A widower friend of mine recently decided to jump back into the dating pool. He wanted to spruce up his Match.com profile in hopes of receiving a better response from women. He made one small mistake: He came to me for help.

Recently, a longtime widower friend of mine concluded he’d been alone and lonely for too long. He decided to take the plunge and get back into the dating pool. He created his Match.com profile, with several photos and posted them. Alas, he’s not been thrilled with the response he’s received thus far.

He told me he’d seen far too many similar, lame profiles posted by other men seeking female companionship who annoyingly employ the same hackneyed profile lines, like “I enjoy yoga, Pilates, hiking, walks along the beach, a playful French wine, the feel of the salt air in my hair, or whatever else it is you chicks are looking for these days.”

He knew that as a humor writer, I have a certain way with words. So, perhaps against his better judgment, he asked if I could assist him. Being notoriously generous by nature, I told him I’d be happy to help him out. He thought that I might be able to come up with a few attention-grabbing starter lines to make his profile stand out from the crowd.

My friend went on to explain that Match.com offers starter phrases for you to fill out to paint an appealing picture of you for prospective matches. Below, before the ellipsis dots (…) are actual starter phrases provided by Match.com. My friend (for the moment at least) shared these with me, and I took it from there. After the ellipsis dots are the responses I’ve come up with so far:

I spend my free time…. searching for a cure for cancer. I’m THIS CLOSE. Soon the Nobel Prize will be mine. All mine!

I would never ever… join Al-Qaeda or ISIS. I hope I don’t have to explain why. If you ask me, the reasons should be obvious.

My happy place… is my 7,000 sq. ft. mansion on the shore of Italy’s Lake Como – just as soon as I can convince George Clooney to sell it to me in a swap for my 850 sq. ft. mobile home.

Things I’m thankful for…. include the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, I’m not on ANY major airline’s No Fly List. (I don’t consider Spirit Airlines a major airline.)

The most influential person in my life… is probably my parole officer. He holds my freedom’s fate in the palm of his hand.

A dream I would like to come true… would be to win People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. Heck, I’d be honored just to make it to one of the top five finalists.

If I am in a bad mood… I know it will usually quickly pass – unless you stole my chocolate chip ice cream, in which case, you are dead to me.

The one thing that always cheers me up… is seeing high school classmates who thought they were better than me get convicted and sent off to prison. 

If I need advice, I’m calling… the Psychic Hotline. They have never steered me wrong – if you don’t count that one time they advised me to put all my retirement savings into Blockbuster Video. That one stung, I’m not going to lie.

Something that always makes me laugh… is when a rambunctious cat bats a priceless vase off a table, and it crashes into a thousand pieces – especially if the vase belonged to someone I don’t particularly care for, like my one of my four ex-wives.

An odd habit of mine… is that I sometimes have this uncontrollable urge to press all the buttons for every floor just as I’m exiting the elevator – but I only do that when I’m off my meds.

Five years from now… if everything goes as planned, and I get that raise I’m overdue for at McDonald‘s, I will be just six years from paying off the last of my graduate school student loans.

A perfect day for me… starts and ends with a bowl of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream while falling asleep on the recliner after having watched the film Caddyshack for the 125^th time. (That movie never gets old to me.)

I should do this more often… I’d have to go with remembering to brake for pedestrians in crosswalks. Come to think of it, I probably shouldn’t be driving so much anymore, now that my driver’s license has been revoked – for almost running over pedestrians in crosswalks. 

My most unforgettable travel story… was when, as a young child, Somali terrorists kidnapped me while on a family vacation and I was taken to their hideout deep in the Ugandan jungle. My parents debated for two weeks whether to pay the $500 ransom. Now, that was a CA-RAZY vacation! 

I spend much of my free time… trying to beat my record time at Rubik’s Cube. My personal best: 5 days, 4 hours, 11 minutes.

I would really like to meet in person… Homer Simpson because everybody keeps telling me he reminds them of me. Or maybe Jesus. But I doubt I’ll ever meet Jesus in my lifetime – unless I can work out the kinks in the time machine I’ve been building in my basement since 2^nd grade. 

The first thing people often notice about me… is that I’m not wearing pants. Don’t worry. I almost  always wear them on the first date – and always at work – unless I’m working from home, which is most of the time now… ever since my employer insisted I stop coming into the office… because I forgot to wear pants.

Well, what do you think? I believe there’s a good chance, thanks to my creative suggestions, that my friend is going to receive more responses than he ever imagined from scores of women. Of course, it’s possible some of those responses might be along the lines of, “Whoever you are, NEVER EVER contact me again.” Or maybe, just maybe, he’ll find the love of his life. The way I see it, it could go either way.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.PS: If you enjoyed this week’s post, let me know by posting a comment, giving it a Like or sharing this post on Facebook. 

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