Are you a single woman looking for love in all the wrong places? Can you run, swim, drive a car and ride a bicycle? And crucially, are you miserable with your current life and willing to move to a remote island with a man from the internet for a few months?
If you answered yes to all of these questions, we may have found the perfect man for you - but don’t pack your bags just yet - there are a lot more criteria you still have to meet. We’ll get to those in a bit; but first, who is this Prince Charming?
The basics: according to his custom-made website, ‘The Ideal Woman Project - Searching for the Impossible’, his name is Alan, he is a European male born in 1980 and he is 1.89m tall with a pleasant look and a slender/athletic figure. Alan also has a degree in computer science, has traveled extensively and sees himself as an “all rounder character” who likes to stay healthy.
What made Alan begin his quest for the ideal woman? Bad luck with Tinder? Traumatic break-up? Not quite:
“After facing sudden substantial lifestyle changes, cultural transformations and improvements over different fields, I found myself unsuitable among the masses, so I started to seek for different acknowledgements, higher achievements and abstracts meanings of places and people. I am slowly trying to find my way out of the rat-race and I would like to find a partner who I can share the rest of my existence with.”
If you too find yourself unsuitable among the masses and are seeking a similar male partner, you might be the mystical unicorn that Alan is searching for, the answer to the ‘Ideal Woman Paradox’. This, naturally, is “the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of an attractive female being capable of analytical and abstract thinking at the same time and over-comer of impulses/biological needing, and humanity’s lack of contact with, or evidence for such being.”
As we all know, all attractive women are stupid, incapable of rational thought, and needy. But maybe you are different, Ideal Woman. Maybe you are beautiful and smart AND loving - but only just the right amount, not too much, not too little, could you massage my feet please babe?
If you’re interested, here are a few of the things that Alan needs from you more specifically in five main areas:
1. Aesthetics
Although he is “oriented to seek for an inner beauty”, Alan still “can’t detach [himself] from the terrestrial law of physical attraction”, so he needs you not to be overweight. Style-wise, he prefers classical outfits or “nineties trend with high waist pants”, although I get a sense he’s not into silver puffer jackets or platforms.
2. Age
“Someone who is preferably around my age but not necessarily – I’d rule out more than a 10 year age gap.” Under the age of 27 or over the age of 47, sorry guys, your dreams have been dashed.
3. Communication
You must speak fluent English and also one other language. Presumably Alan will not accept ‘the language of love’.
4. Health
“Although I’m fine with random, exceptional and very recreational use of coffee, smoke and drugs, she must be free from any addiction related to them.” Does Netflix count Alan?
“She should not be overweight and (should be) respectful towards her body, at least trying to eat healthy food and exercising sometimes.” Enjoy a couple of takeaways? You’re not good enough for Alan - sorry we had to break it to you this way.
5. Personality and Experience
Alan is ideally looking for someone who has never been married and neither has nor wants any children, although he is starting to understand “that meeting a certain age in life, each of us is carrying a past”. Well done Alan.
You must not be superficial and into fashion but must rather be “a free thinker, open minded, free from social constrictions or fake morals and OF COURSE [capitals mine] a woman who does not believe in any god but in herself”.
Crucially, you must not care about your career. More than anything, Alan wants your time so that you can both experience different activities like arts, music, reading, and “spending romantic moments indoors and outdoors”. Alan strongly “despise[s] employees” and will not “be able to accept a relationship with a wage-slave of 9-5”. However, he would love to start a business together.
Someone who is “still dreaming a lot and loves her freedom”, although it’s unclear when this freedom will be exercised with his strict schedules for romance, passion, and spending almost every waking minute together.
Old-school values, being well-educated and being from a family with “fine cultural background and values” are also bonuses. You must also be romantic, passionate, open to challenges and adventures, dynamic, playful, fun, focused, serious, able to provide a digital photo, unhappy with your current life, have no male friends, devoted, possessive and crucially, be someone who “personally knows what cosmic pain/indifference is, and has experienced suffering enough to see the meaning of life in depth.”
Ladies, please form an orderly queue.