Please match me a match!

Through these programs, everybody seems to get their 15 minutes of fame, although not necessarily in the way they want it. Take the case of İhsan Alkan, who participated in one of the several marriage programs. The program was going just fine when Alkan’s daughter called and announced that his father was married. "My father has been married to my mother for 29 years," said the daughter. The presenter cut the program short, saying that married men were "disqualified."

Turns out that Mr. Alkan had actually volunteered to go on the program to make his estranged wife of 29 years jealous!

If television is too public, just try the Web. Turkey’s largest virtual dating service, Siberalem, is where tens of thousands of Turks enter every day to find friendship, short-term relationships or marriage.

Just tune in and select a sample: Let us call him "adamgibiadam" (directly translated, it means a true, or earnest, man) and check into his detailed profile: "Adamgibiadam" is looking for a "true" woman who would make him comfortably in his twilight years. He is 47, a high school graduate and gives his profession as "manager." He earns between 2,000 to 3,000 Turkish liras. É It is a constant wonder to your columnist how people adhere to managerial positions without a university degree, but who am I to disagree? Adamgibiadam has been married and divorced, has a child and enjoys traveling. He hardly travels outside because "everything worth seeing is in our beautiful country," and he reads autobiographies, but would never dream of reading "Pamuk and other traitors."

And that, gentle reader, is the sort of men you would find on the screen and in the virtual world.

But do not worry, the next section will show you how to make silk purses out of sow’s ears!

. . . and make him a catch!

Take note of a very necessary improvement program: the most recent addition to the high-rating, times-are-a-changing programs is one that many women would like to see, or even participate in: "Leave your husband in our hands."

Unlike what the name indicates, it is not an open call to adultery. Couples come to the program and, in line with the desires of the wives, husbands are "re-modeled" with dancing, etiquette and conversation courses, not totally unlike Moliere’s "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme."

The women who participate in the program bring along their husbands and give some clear instructions: "Get rid of the belly," "Learn to dress," "Stop making funny sounds as you eat" and "Just talk to me, babe!"

The last one is indeed the top request.

A case of reversed identities can be compared to the Turkish movies of the 1970s, when the female lead turns from an ugly, awkward duckling to the swan.

In my mind’s eye, I see a certain woman who gives an anonymous call to the program: "Yes, I would really like you to take over my husband. Make him get rid of the belly and the temper he has. Rid him of his obsessions with the color white, or AK, as we call it in Turkish. Get him to use a more positive vocabulary, twitch less around the face. No, I cannot give names as he is likely to sue, but please understand that it would be a great service to me and to the whole world."

Oh, yes!