Last week I turned 27. It is quite a dangerous age: not old enough to be called ma'am, not young enough to be called "a hot chick". I just yearned for some adventures before settling down and being dead for the dating world. So I registered on a dating site and started to hunt some suitable men. Most men there were barely teens, or married guys with children. I just wanted an eligible bachelor around 30, good looking and with no strings attached, nor wishing to attach them to me. So, after much bantering and reckoning, I decided to go on a date with a guy proffessing to be a fan of metal rock. Good, he's got some spirit of adventure in him. The first look at him had a dampening effect on me: where was the long hair? Where was the leather jacket and faded, tight jeans? The boots? I was looking at a guy who could be an accountant or a revenue officer. OK, maybe he's an undercover rocker, hiding from his high class parents and uptight boss. I promised myself I'd be fair and not let myself be prejudiced by the first impression. I suggested going to a club, known to be the hideout of all metal fans in Bucharest. "That lousy dump?" my brave rocker retorted shocked. Instead, he suggested a posh bar, with fancy decorations and very expensive beer. I was hardly dressed for that place: a T-shirt with RAMMSTEIN and a burning cross on the front side, and a clenched fist giving the middle finger on the back side. It would have been quite suitable for the rock hideout. The blind date went from bad to worse. Apparently, my undercover rocker wasn't quite a rocker, he appreciated this music from a philosophic point of view, which I failed to see, no matter how hard I tried. And then again, he was looking for that perfect kind of love, deep, binding, uniting... I fled from the posh bar and ran for my dear life. At home, after the first (natural) wave of anger, I started to meditate on the purpose of this system, the blind date. What do we really expect from it? When you're online, safely hidden behind the annonimity of a user name and a password, you can be and can say whatever you want. You can picture yourself not as you are, but as what you would like to be, but are not. You can tell someome what they want to hear, even if it doesn't mean tuppence to you. You can say that Paulo Coelho is a great witer, even if you're in doubt whether he's a writer or a Brazilian soccer player. You can talk about Leonardo for two hours with a girl and finally realize that, while you were discussing da Vinci, she was discussing di Caprio. Or you can see a photo, scanned from a magazine instead of the real person's face. And caveat when you finally meet the guy! So, I'm through with blind dates. I'll prepare a list of questions, approved by the CIA, the Vatican and a board of psychologists and only if the guy answers each and every one of them correctly will I go on a date with him. After all, I can still call one of my exes and say I want to hang around for a bit, no strings attached.