Oh Captain, My Captain

In our family, thanks in large part to Daisy May Cooper and her exploits on Instagram, cat fishing men are known as Sea Captains. Most women I know, whatever social media platform they use, will be plagued by a flotilla of Sea Captains. They are related to the deluded men who think that sending you a grotesque snapshot of their wrinkled junk, artfully lit by a ring light like a grotesque Caravaggian experiment in the art of chiaroscuro will cause you to swoon with desire. Both are to be dealt with by a swift, ‘Furniture? No thank you.’

The favourite hunting grounds of the Sea Captain are Facebook and Instagram. Their avatar photos are almost always those of classically handsome, chisel jawed, all American men. Their smiles usually have six to ten acres of prime real estate teeth on show. All their own. A casual bicep bulges as they cross their arms over their wide, manly chests. They usually have some kind of military style haircut. No nonsense, virile, 300% heterosexual haircuts. There may be small groups of multicultural children in the foreground to show that although they look like they know their way around a weapon, they are also nice, family men with no weird racial hang ups that might set the alarm bells ringing too soon.

In their bio, we learn more. Often there will be an American flag fluttering. They come from the land of the free, and the brave, and the rich. Be still my beating heart. They might casually drop in that they are ex-army. The word veteran does a lot of work here. We need to know that like Destiny’s Child, they are a survivor. Unlike Destiny’s Child they are also rugged, manly and entirely heterosexual, but with enough of a history that they are no longer a ‘playah.’ A veteran is stolid and dependable. He has sown his wild oats. You don’t need to fear that even though he knows his way around an Uzi and half the brothels of South-East Asia, he’s going to betray you. He’s now content to sit on his porch, in his rocking chair, polishing his gun collection like a good ole boy.

If you’re lucky, your Sea Captain might have been a surgeon. The best ones are the ex forces surgeons. You get all of the above, plus medical expenses. You can see from the photos that he has capable hands. Hands that might caress your hair gently, because he has learned compassion from his job. It’s also reassuring to know that if you get taken ill, he could perform an emergency tracheotomy on the kitchen table using a biro. Like that time on Neighbours in 1986 when Clive saved Lucy Robinson’s life.

Quite often there is a reference to God. They may be God Fearing. This is good. Nobody is going to hell on their watch. If you stick with them, they’ll protect you in this life and the next. They may put in an alluring bible quotation somewhere. Peter’s Letter to the Corinthians: ‘Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.’

And it’s going to need to, because that bio is doing a lot of creative writing.

They message you. Sometimes they tell you that they have been trying to befriend you for some time but that something has gone wrong, so would you do them the favour of friending them? If an ex special forces, thoracic surgeon with a hotline to God can’t work out how to use the ‘add friend’ button on a social media platform, that should tell you everything you need to know, right there. The best we can surmise here, if we haven’t already figured out that they are a duplicitous, lying, shitweasel is that they might have had a stroke. And we don’t want to have to nurse a broken Sea Captain. Let’s be brutally honest here, because they surely won’t.

Most messages are of the private variety. I have very little experience of what happens after the first message, because I always get the red mist as soon as the words, ‘Hello, dear,’ appear. This is usually followed by, ‘how are you?’ I don’t have the energy to write, ‘Deeply infuriated by your need to refer to me as your ‘dear’.’ So that’s when I block. I have it on good authority though that after this initial shot across the bows, there comes increasingly elaborate tales of how they are absolutely dying to see you and love you more than life itself, but you can’t come over this week because Chicago has been infested by man eating boll weevils or they are out, visiting relations in various far flung countries. For someone who has worked very hard to find you, they seem remarkably incapable of actually meeting you. You just hope they weren’t in the Pathfinders back in the day.

Of course, we all know that they are probably writing to you from a damp basement in some unspeakable hell hole, frantically spinning the yarn that will be their golden ticket out. I would feel sorry for them except that like mosquitos, they are abundant and annoying.

Also, not my type. Literally nothing about a traditional Sea Captain is in the slightest bit appealing to me. When they start creating profiles with photos of Noel Fielding, with notes in the bio about their enduring love of The Cure and ‘biscuits are my religion,’ I may be more softened by what George Michael refers to as their fatal charm. I would even contemplate hitting the town, but you know, they’re out that week. Hitting the town is off. Letters only.

The worst thing about Sea Captains is that they are everywhere. Like rats, you are never more than two feet away from one. I have had to stop playing online Scrabble because of the incessant pestering. They are even on Goodreads. I still use it, because books, but I have had to block at least half a dozen men in the last few months who say they want to talk about books but then get very upset when asked about what they are reading. How dare you, my dear? I dare. I very bloody dare. I double dare and then I block.

I thought Substack might be pest free, but it seems that was wishful thinking. Yesterday a follow by a man who was suspiciously word free. Today a comment that is almost certainly his telephone number.

At least he didn’t call me dear.