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This is Tom. He's a 26-year-old cocktail bartender and self-described writer from the City of Norwich, and he is asking you for £1,300 to help him find love.

Yep, the beardy tattooed bloke is crowdfunding to pay for his dates.

BUT WHY?

Well apparently he's been unlucky in love, and with £1,300 he'll be able to find it. Tom reckons you can find love in 13 dates. If he's lucky they won't fake their own death to get out of a second date...

He has made this slightly awkward video begging for cash, where he reads his own poetry and explains his motives. He's asking for £100 a date - which should get you a nice dinner and few a drinks in London.

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In case you couldn't stomach the whole video, Tom explains that he loves romance and dating but he's got no-one to share it with:

“The problem is I don’t have a lady/partner in crime/personal femme fatale to share all this with me, teach me new things and put me in my place every now and again.”

MORE: 18 things guaranteed to not get you a second date: the worst first date faux-pas

Here he is looking sad on a park bench:

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Planning to sponsor Tom? Here's what you'll get for your money:

If you donate £100 you're guaranteed a date with him, which sounds a *little* bit escorty...

£1: A thank you from Tom

£5: He will send you information about his personal experiences so you can live vicariously through him.

£10: Signed photo of Tom. Sure.

£25: He'll send you a photo of him on a date with a stranger. Which is something no-one would want....

£100: You can have a date with Tom

£500: He'll take you on a date and write you a poem. So his poems are worth £400!

£1000: He'll take you on a romantic day-trip to Paris. This seems pretty expensive, and you're basically paying

Tom hasn't specified what type of person he is looking for in his profile, so he could end up with quite a variety of ages, genders, and sexualities applying...

He'd made £108 last time we looked, you can follow his progress here.

Although, to be honest, if it all turns out to be a scam to find out how gullible the press are about crowd-funding for ridiculous things we won’t be surprised. But we will be a little broken-hearted.