I last wrote, if not thought, about David Glasheen on little Restoration Island on the 3rd of May 2005 in my travelogue to Thursday Island.
He hasn't had much luck since! As the Sun Herald reported last month:
ROBINSON Crusoe-turned-Romeo believes he may have found and lost his Girl Friday.
Tropical island castaway David Glasheen lives in a palm-fringed paradise. But he can't find a girl. "It gets lonely out here," said the 65-year-old beachcomber.
His home is remote Restoration Island, 2000 km north of Brisbane, in the heart of the northern Great Barrier Reef.
"You've got to have the bait in the water, or you don't catch the fish," the wannabe romeo said yesterday. "Love, it's a numbers game. It's like Lotto. You've got to be in it to win it. My only hope is for a mermaid to turn up on the beach."
The lovelorn Mr Glasheen, who shares his island with Quasi the dog and a shop mannequin dubbed Miranda, said he just wants a soulmate to share the sunsets.
And he made international headlines when he joined an on-line dating agency. He got hundreds of hits when his RSVP profile launched six months ago. Some female admirers lusted after his idyllic lifestyle. One asked if he knew about tantric sex. Another said she liked to cook fish in a tutu.
"It's a big learning curve this dating game," said the former Sydney high-flyer, who lost $10 million in the stock market crash in 1987.
His story featured in newspapers in Australia, China, UK, US, Poland, Mexico, and the Middle East. One women's magazine offered to do a makeover, put him in a suit and take him to the city - "but that's not me". He's appeared on current affairs television, Fox TV and most recently, a French documentary series based on Jules Verne's novel Mysterious Sea.
But of hundreds of hits, he was most drawn to a female version of himself. "She was really keen," he said. "She's lived on an island, sailed halfway around the world on her own, a gorgeous-looking girl." Now Pearl, 50, a former nurse from Perth, has "dropped off the face of the planet".
The heartbroken hermit now believes he may have lost his Girl Friday.
What's wrong with Miranda, Dave? At least she won't talk back!
P.S.
FAST FORWARD TO AUGUST 2012: read the latest news [here].
