WELLS, Maine — Are you a female between the ages of 23 and 43, an outdoor type with a sense of humor, and looking for love? And, oh yes, could you use $5,000?
Charles Haeberle could be looking for you.
The 39-year-old Key West, Fla., transplant has been in Maine for six years, hoping to meet Ms. Right.
"I dated a few girls here and there. They were very nice, but they weren't the girl. I'm just searching for what everyone's searching for — a girl I can spend the rest of my life with."
Now he's ready to put his money where is heart is. Haeberle, a Wells resident and general manager of the Lodge at Kennebunk, took out an ad last week in the York Weekly offering $5,000 to the woman he marries.
Actually, he will pay $400 after the fourth successful date, $1,100 at the engagement and $3,500 at the wedding.
"Everybody needs money and I have money, so I figured what the heck," said Haeberle. "I know it sounds silly. But really, it costs no more than it costs for an online dating service. And I haven't had much luck with them. So I figured why not cut out the middle man?"
Haeberle came to Maine at the urging of his mother, who, as the ad states, told him, "Go to Maine. You will find a nice girl."
"When I first moved here, where did she send me but Ogunquit," he said with a laugh, referring to the fact that many gay and lesbian people vacation there. After going to a couple of different bars, "I said, 'Mom, I don't think this is where I belong.'"
He said he loves Maine and has grown very fond of his adopted home.
"If you live somewhere else in the country, the rumor is that people from Maine and New England are standoffish and cold. I realized once I lived here, that Mainers started that rumor so people won't move here," he said. "It's not true. It's a very warm and accepting place. The people are so nice. But it is cold."
He said after several years of getting nowhere on the dating scene, three years ago he wrote a poem about his "perfect girl" that he put in a local paper, but he didn't include a way for anyone to reach him.
"Maybe I watched (the movie) 'Message in a Bottle' too much," he said. "I actually put the poem in the bottle and threw it in the ocean. I never heard back from anyone."
He describes himself as 5-feet, 9-inches tall, weighing less than 190 pounds. "I am not Brad Pitt but I am not the elephant man, either," he wrote in his ad. He travels widely, and says he's physically active, hiking, kayaking, whitewater rafting and such.
What kind of person is he looking for?
"She has to laugh, because I like to make things funny all the time. She has to love to travel. No grandmother or on the verge of becoming one. But she either wants kids or has them. I really want a family. She has to love restaurants and I have two dogs, so she has to like dogs," he said.
He said he knows offering a reward for a future wife is a bit odd, but he said he doesn't know what else to do.
"I don't drink, so I don't go to bars very often. And I've been to churches, but I haven't had luck there, either," he said. "This is my way of being proactive. I know there are so many nice girls who are lonely just like I am."
According to his ad, he already has a four-carat engagement ring, "and I even have our one-year anniversary gift."
So far, the York Weekly ad has generated only four responses. He also put the ad on www.craigslist.org, and is having more success there, although "we're just in the e-mail stage now."
He said if this latest effort doesn't work, he'll probably leave Maine.
"I love Maine, but I can't stand this 15 feet of snow without my soul mate," he said
PORTSMOUTH HERALD
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