Boston's Most Eligible Bachelor (?)

One of the delights of being married (aside from companionship, tax benefits, etc.) is to hear about all the details and silliness of the dating game without suffering any emotional ups and downs. So it was that Bostonist was recently regaled by a friend with the tale of her date with one James Mitchell, a middle-aged gentleman who throws fabulous parties around town, and apparently fancies himself quite the catch (a notion with which our friend did not agree – she refers to him as "Frog Prince," owing to a particularly ungainly and unwanted kiss). We failed to comprehend fully just how much of a herb unique this Mr. Mitchell was, though, until our friend dug up from her e-mail the URL of his personal website. We urge all of our readers to peruse this site at length, because it is absolutely not to be believed – we were impressed that a man could list quite so many requirements for his would-be girlfriends without including anywhere on his multi-page website a single picture of himself. (Also, he offers for public edification an essay on how to draft a good personal ad, which advises strongly against typos, but contains at least three.)

Upon telling one of our Bostonist colleagues about this guy over lunch last week, we learned that she had received more than one e-mail invitation to his fancy parties, although she had never met him in person. She also directed our attention to a profile of him in last month's Boston Magazine, from which we learned that, although James Mitchell holds himself out as a successful corporate financier with higher degrees from Harvard and MIT, he is actually a complete fraud, having been booted from both institutions and making his living from a large inheritance. That same day, when we related this story to another friend, she informed us that she, too, had crossed paths with Mitchell: He had contacted her via Match.com about a year ago with several lengthy, slightly creepy e-mails, portions of which were actually cut and pasted from his website. (He also charmingly shared his opinion of our friend's home state: "I love Hawaii! My sense is that there was not much intellecualism [sic] on the Islands.")

So it appears that in addition to being a self-made, self-proclaimed, A-list party host and gadabout (as the Boston Magazine article makes clear), James Mitchell is also the most prolifically unsuccessful bachelor we have ever encountered, and seems to have hit on practically every single woman we know, almost always in a comically inartful way. In fact, a source reports that just last night he was alone at a local upscale bar, hitting on a woman who was waiting for her date. This makes us wonder: Dear readers, have any of you chanced to meet or be romanced by this man? Will anyone defend him, not in his capacity as toastmaster (a job he seems to do well), but in the role of Romeo?