Since his divorce a year and a half ago, Tom Kraemer has dated a fair share, but the pickings, he sighs, have been truly slim. All that changed in February, when the Boise, Idaho, auto detailer fell in love. “She’s really funny, and really fun to be with,” he says, describing the object of his affection. “She has a great personality, and she can cook and clean.”

The only problem is that Tom’s dream girl doesn’t have a name, a body, or a voice. In fact, she lacks everything but a two-dimensional static bust. That’s because Tom created her using a computer-design technology called Supergoo.

Prompted by boredom, the 41-year-old Pygmalion hit the computer and started selecting the perfect eyes, cheeks, teeth, hair, and ears to assemble his ideal package. After toying around for only two hours, he came up with his final product, which can be viewed at www.crankymediaguy.com.

It was love at first click. “The night that I was putting it all together, I started fantasizing about her — her moods and everything that a person has,” Tom gushes. And that’s when he embarked on the oddest part of this whole affair — trying to find a real woman to match his computer-generated love object. Tom’s friend Bob Pagani, who originally loaned him the computer program, has joined the quest by posting the above-mentioned page, which includes a message board for leads to similar-looking women.

Though he’s convinced that his Dream Girl’s living counterpart exists, the only tips he’s followed have been disappointing dead ends. “They’ve all been alcoholics,” he complains. In the past few months, Tom’s put 25,000 miles on his truck (which has a print-out picture of Dream Girl posted on the back window), and spent over $6000 traveling all over the country — with no results.

Just about everyone on the message board is stumped by his mission — because they find Dream Girl pretty ugly. “Why does Tom’s dream girl have such crap teeth?” asks Sknoof. And S. Redman likens her to “Alfred E. Neuman with a wig.” But Tom’s not getting too worked up about people dissing his woman. “I coulda made her a knockout, but just wanted an average girl,” he explains.

And there’s no chance he’s going to give up looking for the flesh-and-blood likeness of his computer-generated image. “I’ll travel anywhere,” he says. Tipped off that many on the message board say she bears a strong resemblance to Meadow Soprano, from the popular HBO series The Sopranos, Tom gets momentarily excited. “Yeah? Well, how could I meet someone with that stature?” he wonders aloud.

When gently reminded that Meadow is fictional and one can’t meet her, Tom says softly: “Yeah, I know.”

Issue Date: May 3 - 10, 2001