2015 may be the Chinese Year of The Goat, but it’s the Year of The Supportive Ginger Husband for Jonathan O’Sullivan.

“You’re hiding boyfriends from me, aren’t you?” was the accusation hurled across the table at me this Christmas. My mother folded her arms, her paper cracker-crown perfectly regal. “I simply can’t believe you’ve been single this long,” she added with a petulant note. Wanting the Noel to remain joyful, I point-blank refused to get into the conversation and changed the subject. But now, with 2014 well behind me, I realise it’s time to dust off my genitals and re-enter the time-consuming and frankly expensive world of dating.

2015 might be the Year of The Goat for the Chinese, but for me it’s going to be The Year of The Supportive Ginger Husband. If Stephen Fry can lock that tasty bit of jailbait into marriage after 11 months, surely it won’t take me that long to entrap – I mean entrance – a ginger lover? I’ve been a gingerphile for quite some time now. Most of my Facebook friends openly mock me about this, but when I finally bag my Supportive Ginger Husband, I’ll have the last laugh.

Even my real-life friends think my red obsession has gone too far. They once staged a gingervention, trying to force me to date outside the one hair colour. I’ve tried my best to explain to them that it’s so much more than hair colour. The pale, almost translucent skin, the freckles, the adorable round eyes, the vulnerability… It’s all just too cute to be ignored!

Thanks to the constant taunting from friends, I never miss a Tumblr or blog link pertaining to hot red headed men, but sometimes mockery can be a great source of insight. Of course, they all secretly fancy gingers too. Let’s face it, who in their right mind wouldn’t?

A more recent link sent to me was for a ginger dating website – HotForGinger.com (I’m not making it up!). The website caters for gingers and their dark haired admirers. Perfect for my new mission.

In a mere three minutes my HotForGinger dating profile was set up. Four pictures of me in various states of undress and sobriety followed by a short bio that read: “I’m not a ginger-lover. I’m a ginger-lover’s son. I’m only loving gingers ‘til the ginger-lover cums.” Quirky with a hint of filth – perfect.

Next up, I had to fill in more about myself and my interests. I realised things have moved on since I last filled out online dating forms. Pierced? No, sorry. Shaved? ‘Natural’, ‘Smooth’ or ‘Shaped’ were my options and I refused to imagine what shaped pubic hair looks like as I selected it. My favourite intrusive question was ‘Preferred Sexual Position’ – a real conversation starter, I’m sure. ‘Deep Stick’ hovered awkwardly over ‘Reverse Cowgirl’, leaving me truly spoilt for choice. I began to think HotForGinger might be a parody dating website when I was greeted with ‘Fun with Food’ and ‘Water Sports’ as serious options in the ‘Other Interests’ category. I sometimes like to carve my age into my mashed potato and I once tried windsurfing during a school tour to Wexford in the ’90s, so I ticked both with gay abandon.

It wasn’t long before my profile attracted its first flame-haired admirer, Paul/41/Wiggan (names have been changed to protect the ginger). His profile photo drew the eye in. He sported a rather large pair of red lace women’s knickers which had an impressive gut hanging over the waistband. The delicacy of the lace knickers and the harsh protruding beer gut complimented each other quite well, I thought. He was direct in his approach: “Dick Size?” he asked, with no greeting or sign off. Again, I like the fact that he presumed I’d be interested, but sadly he wasn’t my type.

Another ginger who found me attractive was ‘Lisa’, 31 from Shropshire. Lisa wore red fishnet stockings that had a furious looking erection trapped in the gusset. Her foreskin appeared crushed against the tight netting, much like a battery hen squished into a tight cage, begging for release. Her message pleaded: “Whaling to be had for the first time, want a virgin?” I gave her some fashion advice about balancing style with comfort, along with a polite “no thanks”. If a Venn diagram of gingers and cross-dressers existed, this dating website would be smack-bang in the overlap.

There were a few non cross-dressers who winked at my profile. Rick, 36 from Luton stood at five foot tall and described his body type as ‘Cuddly’. His bio read: “Hello, I’m Rick and I’m a ginger hobbit. I am looking for anything I can get my ginger lil’ hands on, really.” Rick said he was ginger but in his photos, he’s sadly bald. I only had his bushy red eyebrows and freckled shoulders left for proof. Seconds later, a guy called Matt also winked. Matt was 25 from Clapham, six foot with nice eyes. His profile told me he likes dogging, adult movies and visiting special shops. I liked how refreshingly up-front everyone was on this site. Redheads have no time to waste seems.

Bored with the peculiar nature of HotForGinger, I went on the hunt for more laidback ginger dating apps. It was disappointing to find that Gingr was not a specialised Grindr-type app designed to direct you to the nearest ring of fire, but instead an electronic payments app. A Google search found TopCarrots.co.uk, which is another ginger dating site. It describes itself as ‘The world’s leading agency to find that special red head’. The welcome page looked far classier than HotForGinger but I was appalled to see that my only two registration options were Guy Looking for Girl or Girl Looking for Guy. For a moment I was tempted to take a leaf out of Lisa’s book and don a pair of fishnets, but I’m not going to catfish my way into bagging an unattainable straight ginger.

Suitably horrified for one evening I closed the lid of my laptop, finished my beer and rang a friend. “Want to head out this evening?” I asked desperately. “No gingers online then?” was the deadpan response. “None I could bring home to Mother.”

Chat to Jonathan about his search for a ginger husband on Twitter @Jonathanthinks #RedHot