Author tests dating pools online in pursuit of romance

Author tests dating pools online in pursuit of romance

After six years in an on-again, off-again relationship, author Frances Kuffel, 53 and never married, was sick of the merry-go-round. Determined to find a more reliable partner who would commit to her, she turned to nearly every dating Web site available.

In her new memoir, “Love Sick: A Memoir of Searching for Mr. Good Enough,” she shares her two-year dating journey through a spate of dating sites for woman . Although she’s still single, Kuffel did come to the realization that “being a good date was mostly a matter of behaving like a good date to myself.” Ahead of the book’s June 2 release, she recounts a few of her worst dates for The Post:

1. Danny.

Danny sounded perfect in his Ashley Madison profile — he had the right education, he was a Johns Hopkins graduate, was interested in travel, had a job as an interior designer and [had] a multimillion dollar contract in Benin, a country in West Africa.

TBenin to me — with instructions to forward the goods to him. I returned everything to the companies. At least I learned I can spot a scammer from the subject line of an e-mail.

2. Paul.

It is odd for a gentile woman to have a fedora’d man, tzitzit swinging, heading toward her in a kosher restaurant in Brooklyn. But what he said was odder still: “Arrrrr you Frances” — asked without a question mark. His voice was a flute-y pirate tenor/EKG gone flat.

I was trapped.

Paul wanted to converse, but instead of English, he spoke of life as if it were a series of “Far Side” cartoons. I told him about my writing. He responded with, “Two orrrrrrangutans arrrr in a tree . . .” I squirmed — and decided I should aim for a relationship with someone who has Friday nights and Saturdays free.

3. Patrick.

Twinkies should not be deep-fried. I told Patrick that, but he’d already ordered enough food at the barbecue restaurant to feed Bulgaria. Each time he requested more, he told me I was beautiful. I, on the other hand, felt like a toxic dump of grease and fat.

“Why do we have to eat?” I wondered. There were movies I wanted to see, Caravaggios to contemplate.

By e-mail, Patrick described what he wanted to see. Me. Eating. Getting fatter.

I should have stuck up for what I wanted, which was not to eat so much unhealthy food. I decided to see other men.