Byline: MARY CARR
HAVING lashed out [euro]600 on a matchmaker, Annmarie Mc-Brearty expected male pickings slightly superior to what she'd encounter on an average night out in the fleshpots of Letterkenny. How wrong was that.
According to the evidence produced during her court case against Mary Mitchell, owner of The Happy Matchmaker, Annmarie was 'groped, assaulted and battered without lawful excuse' during the course of four very unhappy dates.
Don't worry, she - or her legal team - exaggerated a bit but her experience of the coarse behaviour, presumptuousness and reticence of the Irish male when it comes to matters of the heart will certainly chime with any woman who has walked in Annmarie's lovelorn boots.
One chap was in such a hurry for female company that he invited Annmarie back to his place for the weekend 'to get to know her better', while another mistook her farewell peck on the cheek as an invitation to lunge at her and stick his tongue down her throat.
'I was disgusted,' recalled Annmarie contemptuously. 'It was not that we were going to start snogging in a shopping centre in the middle of the day.'
The third man to waste Annmarie's time rudely told her he'd be back to her if he could get no one better, while her final potential suitor was so dumbstruck and socially inept that he uttered only two sentences during their entire time together. And he - a quiet farming type - was arguably the best of the bunch.
POOR Annmarie - she had the entire spectrum of dating horror stories condensed into just a few weeks. If she could only add the married man fiasco, then she'd qualify for a chick-lit deal or a spot on Loose Women.
The desperation of 30-something female singletons as characterised by popular heroines such as Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw has become almost a truism, spawning a high-grossing industry based on fear, guilt and schadenfreude.
But Annmarie's brave stand in court this week shows the fallacy of that point of view.
If the 35-year-old careworker had really no expectation of finding a decent male companion, a man with at the very least the facility for making small talk while treating her with some respect, then she wouldn't have kicked up such a fuss.
She'd have simply grabbed on to the first man who displayed a spark of interest - she'd probably be engaged by now and inwardly rejoicing at how she had achieved the ultimate female ideal of finally being plucked from the shelf.
That's what desperate women do. Instead, she was appalled that the service she spent time and money on had nothing to offer her but a succession of village idiots, who in normal circumstances she would struggle to give the time of day.
The trouble is that both the judge who presided over the case and Miss Mitchell, who vetted these men as potential suitors for Annmarie, seemed oblivious to the men's shortcomings and to the rank incompatibility of this clearly articulate, enterprising and self-respecting woman with a gallery of country bumpkins, whose idea of seduction seems to be throwing a woman over their shoulder and dragging her back to their cave.
Miss Mitchell, who has since thankfully turned her business acumen to speed dating, seemed to demand little more from her male clients than that they hold pristine gardai records.
THE judge in the case, Kevin Kilrane, also seemed to suggest that the fact none of them were actual sexual predators turned them into God's gift to women. Could he set the bar any lower?
Judge Kilrane, who dismissed Annmarie's action, variously excused the men's pathetic behaviour as the natural outcome of over-exuberance or bashfulness, and then went on to opine that they 'all appeared to be within her range of compatibility'.
How insensitive is that? The suggestion that a tongue-tied man, who could only respond that 'times are hard' to Annmarie's every enquiry, would be a runner in the romantic stakes? Or that she'd be so hard up for a boyfriend, she'd be tempted by the sort of gurrier who called her a 'f****** b****' on their first blind date?
Popular opinion is slowly erasing the stigma of dating agencies and the internet as the last outpost for the truly desperate or the not-quite-right.
But there is still a residue of belief that says it's preferable to stumble over the love of your life in some grotty disco in Dun Laoghaire than in the civility of some cyberspace chat room or mediated by a third party, like Miss Mitchell.
These are the people who will sneer at Annmarie's going to a dating agency for help with her personal life and at her broadcasting her grievances about the service she received.
They should be more exercised about the motley crew of men she encountered during her misadventures, and their unsuitability to become any woman's Mr Right, particularly in this day and age.
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