Although I like writing, I don't want messages with no intent to progress. I'd like to meet someone warm, thoughtful, kind, smart, contemporary, slim, healthy, playful, and aware. Dating 10 years ago was natural and easy but, after the first flush, net-dating became not-dating: largely because of prejudices, food fads, pet-hates, obsessive music niches, too much wine, a suite of emotional luggage packed by an ex ... well, no one's interested in my list. However, if we don't turn off at the next crossroads we'll never know what was there. And why stay on the train looking at other lives out of the window until the train hits the end of the track. I want to do something different ... I'm divorced with a smart affectionate boy of 16, with me every other week. We're good with babies and other kids so if you have kids it would be a bonus. I'm not interested in someone who wants 'me-time', or a pen-pal, or a theatre-date, or a travel-mate, or to be part of a coffee club once a week. Family and a shared home-life are important. I'm artistic, inventive, resourceful, open, liberal, 100% healthy, romantic without being cloying or childish, educated, cultured, eloquent, and sometimes a bit academic and sapiosexual: the performing arts, galleries, eco-issues, nature, sciences, architecture, and trips/holidays. I never get bored or restless. I own a pretty 4-bedroom stand-alone cottage with two garages, a driveway, and a big garden, a dog, and a field of horses behind, near a market town on the river surrounded by forests, beaches, cliffs, and the sea. I have my own internet retail business: flexi-time, so I'm free to do things impulsively. And, of course, I like physical contact, often, at whatever level fits the moment. I've had a vivid life, much of it W. London, but the crush, pollution, traffic, parking, and lack of space (like a big garden) just used up too much time and money. And there was a fine layer of black dust on the white window sills every morning. There seems to be a lot of people on net-dating who just want phone play-time, a new facebook 'friend', or have some personal agenda, and are on line 99 hours a day. Internet dating is about consumers pretending to be normal people.