Up close and personals: Joshua Solomon
Name: Joshua Solomon
Age: 29
Occupation: teacher
Area: London
Looking for: "Someone fun and kind, who can read on a bus and likes to cycle"
In his own words: "I like to have adventures, and I have a tendency to say yes to ill-thought-out ideas"


I've spent years travelling all over the world teaching English – in recent years I've lived in Montenegro, where I ran a school, and Italy, where I was a substitute teacher and I started writing a novel. It was an amazing time, but I haven't been meeting people and I've been quite lonely.
I've been online dating since last July. It started off quite successfully – I went out with the first girl I met for about a month. Then she started saying things like: "Do you really like me, or is it just because I put out?" Next she was upset because I was quiet in the morning, and it was: "Are you going off me?" I thought: Stop asking me so many questions! We went in too quickly, I think. In the end she texted me: "Let's give this fauxmance a rest."
I didn't used to read the profiles properly, I just glossed over them. Everyone always says the same thing: "I'm looking for an intelligent, kind man, blah blah…" Then I organised to meet a girl and when she turned up she had cerebral palsy. It was a bit of a surprise. We actually got on pretty well in the end.
Before signing up online I hadn't dated anyone in a couple of years. My last relationship was with a Bosnian who had been learning English at a language school I worked at in London. We went out for two and a half years and I was totally in love with her – when she went home to Bosnia I sent her a poem and a ring and we got engaged. But she wouldn't tell her parents; in the end it all fell through.
I've had some terrible dating experiences in my life, frankly. Once I took this girl to a musical. At the interval I went to hand her a drink and the zip on my flies broke and my trousers completely split open. I was just stood there, hanging. Nothing was said.
The thing I find hard online is the email banter – I'm no good at it. I try to ask girls out for a coffee straightaway so we can get to know each other instead. If they say, "Music is my life", I'm not interested. I don't even have an iPod. "I love travel" is my real turn-off though. I've done that, and I don't want to do it any more. I don't mind a nice holiday, but I don't want someone who wants to run around "finding" themselves. I'm happy here.


To contact Joshua, go to guardiansoulmates.co.uk (profile name: gilgamesh). If you'd like to appear in this column, email upcloseandpersonals@observer.co.uk