Desperately seeking ...

Faced with imminent homelessness (don't worry, it's all ok now), I've been surfing the small ads on gumtree.pl trying to find the flat of my dreams (see below). Unfortunately it's not as much fun as you'd think, and after the first twenty 'bezkonfliktowany, sympatyczny' flatmate-hunters, at the point when you realise that it's simply not going to be possible to get a room of your own for under 1000PLN any closer than Katowice, your attention starts to wander...

... to the dating section.

I started with 'chłopak szuka dziewczyny' (boy seeks girl- a logical starting point). After a while- apart from the fact that some adverts were compulsively re-posted over a number of days (what was so persistently wrong with these guys??)- a few common themes emerged.
'Guy over thirty seeks long term relationship'; 'looking for the girl of my dreams'; 'are you The One?' and so on.

I've noticed that Poles settle down early. It seems that if you're not paired off and sprogged up by twenty-eight, people start to think there's something wrong with you and concerned members of your extended family start inviting round eligible parties of the relevant sex to obiad in a not-awfully-subtle attempt to make something happen.
No wonder the dating pages are full of desperate men panicking because the right Magda, Ania or Kasia hasn't yet materialized (if she has any sense she's likely to be found drinking pints and snogging her ESOL teacher).
I was also quite surprised by the number of 'age 21/22/23' posting ads. Although I didn't check the content for fear of cradle-snatching. What's the rush, for heaven's sake? And at 21, how hard can it be to get a cuddle behind the bike stands after your Polonistyka lecture?

I also checked out 'dziewczyna szuka chłopaka' (it's wise to keep your options open). Again, lots of 'seeking stable relationship'. But also, sadly: 'looking for a normal guy'. I guess these are thin on the ground here.

Disheartened, I entered the euphemistically-named 'towarzyskie' (socialising) section.
Instead of going straight to the ads, I was faced with an extra screen urging me to search my conscience (and check my ID card) and to look away now if I happened to be under the age of eighteen. Intrigued, I opened the London gumtree site so I could compare the two.

It was somewhat different. Apart from Yann the Austrian computer scientist, seeking perfect girl to fulfil twelve simple criteria for life-long partnership, the ads were a lot more casual. More 'let's go for a drink and see how we get on' than 'I Want To Find The Girl I Can Take Home To My Mum For Nalewki And Cake Immediately'. As for the 'no strings attached' (which I supposed to be loosely equivalent to 'socialising') section, there was no sign of a prudish screen to protect you from 'overweight Tory from Stoke Newington seeking furry love with two Alsatians in a Toyota'.

How ever would the alsatians type the reply?