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Tip # 5: What not to say whilst online dating

“It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be listened to this time.” – Grace Paley

Was he “Jetstream Dreamer –

high-flying, airy, turbulent, quirky, dramatic, tempestuous?”

(Not with that headline deluging adjectives.)

Perhaps he was Bluefooted Booby, Surfguy, Machinewash40, Shipshape, Weatherman, Neptune? She can’t recall –

but she was a green-hearted woman, seeking a soulmate,

& it was a first exchange, him recounting the previous night – Beaufort 9 bludgeoning Bristol, pounding the city like WWII was recurring. On the Harbourside,

gales chucking slops at houseboats, yachts, clinking masts like Chinese businessmen gan bei-ing a deal,

while up at a window, him inhaling the freshness –

he loved a good storm for clearing the air. Yes, she messaged, but here on the Somerset border,

I saw a giant python swallowing the street – just inches from my feet its grey, liquid body tumbling rubbish & a stink of sewage. Then, warming to the theme, she voiced her fear of British rains changing, importing larger inundations.

With hindsight, she can see why he didn’t reply; for a man after romance, her words might have alarmed –

signalled a frigid, hysterical, man-eating Cassandra.

Helen Moore