I, Marcus A.B. of Melbourne, Australia, thoroughly enjoy being single and unencumbered. It’s great! I can work when I want, play when I want, come and go as I please, and I answer to no-one.
However, companionship is not without its own rewards. With this in mind, I would consider disrupting my pleasant life and obtaining a husband should he possess the following characteristics:-
He must be a person aged between 20 and 65, good tempered, intelligent, honest, truthful, free of harmful addictions and financial difficulties, and not especially focused on appearance or fashion. He must be capable of industriousness, comfortable with idleness, moderately educated, and a lover of dogs, cats and simple home life.
Above all he must possess an excellent sense of humour combined with an ability to take aspects of life seriously. He should combine that quality with the good sense to realise that it is ultimately absurd (albeit useful) to take life seriously.
Please note that those of a conservative political inclination, or who deny the immediacy of the global climate & biosphere emergency, need not apply. Anti-science, anti-vaccine and other assorted conspiracy-theory followers also need not apply. You are not for me.
Any friendly and well-intentioned person, who can, from what they know of a friend or acquaintance, recommend that person as my potential husband, will receive my sincere thanks. Should a partnership ensue, the reward of one fine book of my choosing will be given to that person.
This website might be thought by many to be an unusual or even unlikely way of finding a husband. I am aware that they may not take this, or me, seriously. I cannot blame them for suffering the irony fatigue common among good people in our time.
The thoughtful reader, however, will not think this unusual, absurd or offensive. After all, it is no easy thing to find a decent man ‘out there’, wherever ‘there’ might be. This is just one way of many to go about it.
A sympathetic reader may understand that one of the worst things in life is a bad relationship entered into for its own sake, just as one of the best is a solid, un-spectacular relationship, based on simple companionship and mutual respect.
I acknowledge that most relationships commence after a chance meeting, through friends or in the workplace. This is all well and good, but neither my friends nor my workplace are delivering the goods in this regard. I am capable of both stoicism and patience, but I also believe that good luck is made – not dropped into one’s lap.
So I am making my own luck, with this website. I approach the problem of finding a husband in what I hope is a practical and interesting way. Subsequently I have no hesitation in advertising myself through this website.
Many members of the Australian community, particularly those who are around 50 years of age and single, as I am, will be familiar with the rules of internet dating. Please understand that this is not a dating website, but a site specifically designed to step around all that. It is an attempt to cheat the system.
As such, you will find no asinine description of my body or my interests here; suffice to say that I am relatively well educated; professionally accomplished enough to make a decent living; occasionally clever dealing with subtleties but a bit dumb about the more obvious stuff (a minor failing); neither wealthy nor poor; in generally acceptable state of health (more or less) and not suffering from any personal or emotional baggage that would detract from sharing happy companionship with the right man.
In short, I have as many faults, challenges, flaws and virtues as most other people. I certainly don’t exercise enough: that is my principal failing. Working on it: my new puppy Bunty demands daily walks.
I firmly believe our lives are short, and that to take one’s career too seriously is a terrible, and terribly common, mistake. I made that mistake in the past. Now I do not do this. Instead I have filled my life with great friends, loving pets and things that interest me and prevent me from suffering that most terrible fate – boredom.
To the casual observer my life could be mistaken for earnest industry: in fact, it is merely diverting play.
WILL THIS WORK?
Who knows? I don’t really care either way. Not being focused on a given outcome is like a superpower, and keeps things relaxed.
Single life is pretty damn good.
Companionship might be nice, but I won’t embark on a partnership for its own sake, or if it means losing the best parts of my current single life. I will continue to need regular, if not extreme, solitude in order to work. In particular, I won’t relinquish the quality of the time I have for personal creative work just for the sake of a mediocre relationship. Harsh, perhaps, but I value my time spent writing, drawing, musing, reading, thinking. Again, solitude (which is NOT loneliness - I have only experienced loneliness a few times in 50 years, and only then when dining alone and bored with my own conversation; the feeling passes rapidly) is a necessary and excellent precondition of the best creative work. If one is to produce, one has to have time alone.
Anyway, drop me a line and if we have any chemistry, great. If not, I wish you well. No harm will be done: we may both go on in peace.
Obligatory mugshot to prove that my face doesn’t frighten little children.
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I am confident that those men who read this and can think for themselves will learn all they need to know from the few words above.
Please address any correspondence to
The strictest of confidence is guaranteed to all correspondents.
About the domain name
This domain name was first registered by me more than five years before the passing of Australian marriage equality legislation. History has caught up with it, and with me - suddenly I am no longer single, I find myself unmarried. For a bit of harmless fun I updated, edited and relaunched the site in late 2021.
Once I have obtained a suitable husband:
will be freely given to another man aged between 20 and 65, who, for obvious reasons, is not at that time my husband, but seeking a companion for himself. I hope that this will happen sooner rather than later.
It is my fond hope that this domain name will then be freely given in a generous and thoughtful manner by successive men seeking, and subsequently finding, husbands through their ownership of the site. This is my wish, but I will not make any attempt to control the fate of the domain after I have given it to its next custodian.
If you would like to apply to become the next owner of the domain, please contact me via the address above.
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WHERE THIS ALL CAME FROM
I am indebted to E.W. Cole, who was 43 years old when, on 3 July 1875, he advertised in the Melbourne newspaper The Herald, for a wife. He, like me, was very busy being as creative and industrious as possible day to day (running the astonishing Coles Book Arcade on Bourke Street: A million books! Look it up), and didn’t want to waste time on the tiring dance of social convention in the procurement of a spouse.
He had one applicant to his advertisement, whom he cordially met and went on to marry.
They were very happy together for many years.
Now there was a thinking man’s man.
