Has modern technology made us lazy daters?

I recently realised why modern technology is turning me, and probably quite a few other women insane, it’s making men lazy, especially when it comes to dating.

I recently came out of what I can only describe as a ‘text message based’ relationship.

He text me to ask me out, he text to tell me he’d had a great time, he text me to wish me a happy Valentines (yes a card would have worked)…..in fact I don’t think I even heard his phone voice until he was drunk and he probably phoned me by accident.

And if any of you know me you’ll know I’m not exactly a technophobe, I’m glued to my phone like a chocoholic who’s lost her Mars bar, but when it comes to something big like cancelling on someone, or even breaking up with them, surely a text message isn’t sufficient?

‘Sorry but can we re-arrange our date tonight?’ was the text message I received from him, on a SATURDAY night, just three hours before he was supposed to see me. Before text messaging was invented a guy probably would have phoned a girl and sweet talked her before saying ‘Hey, so I know I was going to see you tonight, but is it okay if I go out with the boys instead?’ Now all we get is a lazy text telling us we’ve been stood up – not really the stuff of fairytales, is it?

This really should have been a big sign that I should get out now, go, run, leave, or just you'know dump him, but no I lived through at least another 6 weeks or torturous bad text message usage from him.

And it isn’t just Mr ‘text message’ who is guilty of this – I’ve been wooed by all sorts of social media – a quick poke on facebook, a couple of flirty tweets and lots of ‘internet’ winking – is this really all they’ve got? These forms of communicating were made to make it easy, but men seem to have got the wrong end of the stick – they think they don’t need to communicate with us in the real world, because in the land of twitter, emails and text message the relationship is fine, when really it’s anything but.

And when they do actually make the effort to reach out, behind the window of modern technology, we’re usually so bewildered it knocks us for six. I gasped when a friend told me about a guy she’d JUST met that actually phoned her to ask her out. I wasn’t sure if I was scared by the prospect of speaking to a guy on the phone before an actual date, or just so shell shocked that he’d actually been able to pick up the phone and use it for its main purpose.

And I may not have minded if ‘text message’ guy’s texts had been anything but dull. I could have put up with a text message based relationship if he’d had me in stitches from the word ‘hi’ or even ‘sext’ me occasionally – but he never, ever did. It was like he’d read a book entitled ‘how to lose friends and alienate dates….by text message!’

And while this one seemed to keep it short and sweet, with I may add NO kisses to signal the end of his texts, (isn’t that just a crime against all humanity when it comes to texting?!) another guy I dated sent text messages like he was sending me an essay on his life – whenever his name popped up in my inbox I would be delighted, only to be bored by the third paragraph of him detailing his day of ironing, hoovering and washing his pants!

The last straw with Mr ‘text message’ was a text explaining why he hadn’t been in touch for three days, ‘Sorry, I was on a two day bender with my friends!’. I was so mad at that poor little text I just had to delete it before I smashed my phone into a billion little pieces. There was no ‘I’ll make it up to you’ phone call – just a lazy text message which signalled the end to me putting up with Mr ‘text message’.

The funniest thing was when I broke up with him (not over text message) I didn’t even get a text to say goodbye – now that is lazy!

Once upon a time…..

Whether we admit it or not every girl wants the fairytale. Whether it's our man scooping us up and telling us what we want to hear, proposing while the sun is setting or taking the initiative to kiss us when we’re least expecting it - we're all hoping for that magical fairytale moment.

Unrealistic it maybe, and it would probably get a tad dull if our knight in shining armour did and said all the right things every hour of every day, but most of us would like to know that one time in our lives we may just get our very own ‘nobody puts baby in the corner’ moment.

But of course it has to be with the right guy. If a guy that we dated and dumped, because he snorted when he laughed, tried to win us back by serenading us or proposing to us in front of our family we’d probably just die of embarrassment. A while ago an ex was so desperate to get back with me he told me he was going to leave a rose on my door, every day for the next month – he thought it would prove as romantic and I’d fall back into his arms. Now don’t get me wrong, with the right guy it would have been great, but just the thought of him doing it scared the hell out of me.

Basically if we’re not with the right guy their acts of kindness or gentlemanly behaviour will make us feel like their taking away our independence or indeed smothering us. Take Mr Nice guy, who I had been on a few dates with recently - he walked me to my train station, he didn’t even attempt to kiss me on the first date and he even text me to make sure I got home okay. It was nice, but it felt too good to be true.

But of course that all changes when it’s with the right guy, anything which is deemed fairytale worthy we’d see as sweet and a ‘melt in their arms’ moment. I remember gushing about boyfriends who had looked after me while I had the flu, held my hair back when I was sick or even saved me in my hour of need. But when it’s not the right guy we may as well be wearing a t-shirt saying ‘I’m a princess, but I’ll save myself thanks’.

And all those movie moments are great – Danny and Sandy singing ‘you’re the one that I want’ and Patrick Swayze coming back from the dead to give Demi just one more kiss. But if they actually happened to us, whether there’s dramatic music on in the background or not, we may just be a little freaked out! A prime example is High School musical, it seems like a great idea when were watching it and we’d die for a guy like Zac Effron to declare his love to us through song. But in reality if our man broke into song and dance, half way through a night out, we’d either think they were gay or some sort of closet musical fan!

So do these so called fairytale moments, with the right men, just happen to the likes of Cinderella and ‘Pretty women’? Or can we expect it now and again too?

I’ve had my share of fairytale moments – watching the sunrise, picnics on a summer’s day and romantic gestures which would make the romantics amongst us sigh in delight and cynics curl their toes and scowl, but I suppose I’m still waiting for that ultimate one. The one which knocks me off my feet, takes my breath away, makes me smile at the thought of it and without any doubt makes me believe I’ve picked my Mr Right.

And on the flip side, of course sometimes we don’t need saving. Ever since I’ve become single I’ve learnt that I don’t necessarily need a man to make me happy. Whether we save ourselves, our friends come to our rescue or our so called prince charming fails to materialise. Sometimes not having someone there is a blessing in disguise – it teaches us things, makes us better people, and whether we believe it at the time or not, makes us stronger and happier people.

And even if we do manage to have that fairytale moment – where the prince saves us from a world of gloom or Matt Damon beats up the bad guys for us ( yep, my own personal fantasy) I suppose it’s what happens afterwards that matters - after all we’re all looking for a happily ever after….aren’t we?

TMI (too much information) syndrome

Sex with your ex girlfriends, how many notches you’ve got on your bed post and definitely your toilet troubles – they are all classic cases of too much information.

When we’re dating, or even in a relationship us girls can be a little inquisitive, okay just plain nosey. But sometimes you boys don’t know when to stop when you start revealing the ins and outs of your past behaviour, or even current behaviour when we’re not around.We may ask about your previous sex life and you may have visited strip clubs, dated underwear models or dipped your toe in the threesome dating pool but we really don’t want to know about it – however much we quiz you.

Like the saying goes - what we don’t know won’t hurt us. Not that I’m giving you a free pass to go all John Terry or Ashley Cole on us but when it comes to your past sex life it’s usually best left in the cupboard marked ‘Do not open’. And if we do delve into it we usually regret what we find out. After lots of drunken questioning once I found out that a boyfriend had had a threesome with another guy –the other guy being his best friend. It was a classic mistake of too much information and one which made me not able to even look in the direction of his best friend again without a weird image in my head.

Sadly it didn’t stop there either – I’ve had guys I’ve dated revealing sex positions their exes have preferred, how good a one night stand was and how many women they’ve managed to seduce into their bed.

And a couple of mentions about an ex girlfriend is fine, but when you start delving into your past relationships like we’re your therapist - along the lines of ‘I just don’t know where it all went wrong…’ we’re going to start worrying if you’re with the right person. And the more you moan and slag off an ex girlfriend the more we’re going to wonder how much of a decent person you are – if you can slag her off and make her sound like the bitch from hell then what will you be saying about us in six months time?

But it’s not just your sex lives where you’re revealing things that make us want to cringe. After a series of emails on a dating website recently I got a bit more than I bargained for in one email. Things were going swimmingly – the emails were funny, we were getting on famously and then he just had to delve into an area which us girls just don’t want to talk about. I’d asked him if he’d felt hung over from his previous nights antics but wasn’t quite prepared for his reply of: “I’m not actually feeling too bad, but my bottom feels like its been blown off after the curry I had last night,” – eek!!! We hadn’t even shared our first date but already I was getting a play by play account of his daily toilet habits – nice.

And of course we trust you but when you mention boys and holidays in the same sentence then fear usually spreads through us like a wild fire in a forest. A few years back a former boyfriend couldn’t wait to go on a rugby tour he’d been planning with the boys. But instead of reassuring me that it was a chance to spend some quality time with his males mates and enjoy the sport he loved so much he stupidly revealed the motto which all the boys were standing by – ‘What goes on tour stays on tour’ – how could any sane girl not jump to ‘stripper, bed hopping and one night stand’ conclusions?

So when I met Mr TMI recently I knew it wasn’t going to work out. After he had revealed the amount of girls he’d slept with, how he was up to his eye balls in debt, how he hated his job and the icing on top of the TMI cake – his big ambition to marry a stripper in Vegas one day, I decided that however honest a potential date could be, a little bit of discretion is always a good quality to seek out.

And if you still don’t quite get it – then let me turn the tables on you. If you found out your dream girl had more notches on her bed post than you’d had hot dinners would you still want to take her home to meet the parents? Nope, thought not.

So the next time we ask you how many girls you’ve slept with, if the stripper you were forced to watch on a stag do was hotter than us or if you’ve ever dreamt about that really hot women next door, either keeping tight lipped or bending the truth a little would be a good option. Because after all, what we really want to know is none of that, in any way, compares to dating us….

It’s a Bliiinnndddd Date!

I’ve always frowned upon the concept of blind dates – at least when you’ve met a guy in a bar you sort of have an idea if you fancy them and get on. And the same goes for internet dating – their picture has caught your eye and you’ve had a chance to assess his height, if he’s a smoker and if he can spell correctly.

So when some friends of mine told me they had found me the ‘perfect guy’ I brushed it off. Did they really know my type? What if I didn’t like the look of him – would I hurt their feelings? Would I have to let them down gently, as well as him, if the first date was disastrous?

None of my blind dates have ever been that bad – but I've heard enough horror stories. The one that didn’t even bother to show up, the guy who bored my friend stupid about his ex girlfriend and the guy who was so far from my mates type she thought they chose him for a joke. And then there’s the rejection – before and after the date. When the matchmaker shows them your picture and apparently it’s a no go, when your friend says ‘actually I better not set you up – he’s a bit fussy’, or your date acts fine on the night only to forget you exist after you leave his company.

A friend of mine had a pretty disastrous blind date. She’d met him online only to realise that his profile had forgotten to reveal one small minor detail…..that he was the most boring guy she would ever meet. And once she got past the fact that he was 30 and still living with his parents, she wondered why she had given up a perfectly good night to spend it with Mr Boring Geeky Guy. So she did the only thing she could – she faked an illness! And after her golden globe winning performance, he left and she quickly threw on her dancing shoes and had one of the best girlie nights she’d had in a long time! Who needs men eh?!

And then there’s the guy I dated who had actually been on Blind Date, you know with Cilla and everything. Apart from him boasting about this and thinking he was famous because he had been the ‘picker’, it made me wonder how far my luck would stretch if I had ever got on it. Would I be date number three who went home empty handed and dribbling over the guy who rejected me? Or the one who picked date number one because of our shared interest in Matt Damon and musicals – only to find out the real reason he went on the show - a free holiday and a chance flirt with some Spanish boys?

But of course there are the exceptions. Some people have gone on to meet the love of their lives after an ever so kind friend set them up. I bet Gary Linekar got more than he bargained for when he turned up to meet Danielle Bux on their first date. He probably couldn’t thank his friend enough for setting him up on a blind date with her - and at least she gets free crisps for the rest of her life!

So when I turned up to the date I ‘tried’ not to have any expectations. I’d seen his facebook profile and a few emails had gone back and forth, but he was still virtually a stranger. So I was pleasantly surprised when I turned up to meet him - he wasn’t a loser with a chain smoking habit and neither did he bore me stupid about his Lego collection. In fact, he was pretty damn cute.

And he seemed pretty normal too. No other weird hobbies. No puffing on cigarettes on the way to the next pub. He wasn’t abnormally tall and seemed quite good at making sure the evening didn’t go from ‘good date’ material to potential ‘yep I see a blog in that – but not in a good way’ material. So it was just down to me to f**k it up really.

But I didn’t. Well only if you count how drunk I got and the amount of times I told him it was my birthday soon. But that’s just a normal date, right? And as the night progressed I realised we actually had stuff in common too, we made each other laugh, there were no awkward silences and he even let me share his crisps – what a gentleman!

The conclusion? Maybe I should let my friends pick all my dates in the future – especially when they obviously know my type more than I do.

Are you a Rules girl?

I’ve always been impatient. Whether it’s waiting for an egg to boil or for a guy to text me back. But impatience doesn’t bode well if you’re playing by The Rules and waiting for someone to ask you out.

If you’re not familiar with The Rules it’s supposed to be the ultimate dating book for women. Written by two Americans back in the mid 90’s it made women all over the world stampede to the book shops in their attempt to bag Mr Right. Primarily based on playing hard to get - it teaches women in 35 steps, how to go from date material to wife material.

The Rule’s main theme – just like the book He’s not that into you is if he doesn’t ask you out then he’s not worth dating. And some of my friends swear by it.

But I’m not so sure. Not because I don’t believe most of it to be true, but just because sometimes men can be a bit stupid, shy or just downright lazy.

A guy from my gym has been exchanging glances with me for a little over two years! He’s cute, but every time I so much as get 10 metres from him he seems to quicken his pace and vanish. At first it was quite funny, but now it’s slightly irritating – I mean if he likes me then why not just get some balls and talk to me.

And of course it’s great to be asked out, but like us men probably find the whole situation a little daunting too. I knew there was something between me and a potential date recently – but it took numerous text messages and a blatant ‘yes I quite like you’ message in big flashing lights for him to even contemplate asking me out!

Which is why sometimes it’s a real breath of fresh air when someone does actually ask you. So I was quite impressed the other week when a guy I'd met only five minutes previously said out of the blue: “Can I have your number?” There was no beating around the bush, no “I might see you around” and definitely no three hour long conversation before a date materialised.

So maybe The Rules do work. But if you’re playing by the rules does it mean you can’t even approach men? A friend who follows The Rules right down to the last full stop recoiled in horror when I mentioned a flirting seminar I might attend, “A rules girl would never approach a man,” she gasped. But what if he was drop dead gorgeous? What if he didn’t see you and what if he was ‘the one’? Would you just let him go? …just because a book told you to play it cool.

Undoubtedly the rule I love the most is: ‘If he doesn’t call, then he’s not interested. Period.’ We’ve all been there – making excuses for a guy who hasn’t called or text. My dumbest excuse recently, after many unanswered texts, was that the guy I was dating didn’t have the ability to text on his phone - as my sister looked on frowning at my stupidity I knew I was just lying to myself!

Then there are the rules I’m not so keen on. Because there’s playing hard to get then there’s being stupid. The Rules state that a guy who wants to date you on the weekend must ask you out by Wednesday. Sorry, but why? Are you really going to turn down a hot date with him if he asks you out on Thursday? Fair enough if you’re his Saturday evening ‘last resort’ call giving you ten minutes to get ready, but most likely wouldn’t we just be kicking ourselves for turning down a perfectly good date?

Even if The Rules seems like too much hard work and you think game playing isn’t for you – we have to admit that there’s always a certain amount of rules and game playing we live by without even thinking about it. Like the last time we waited for at least a few hours to text him back, or how we painfully waited for him to phone first – just to prove that our life doesn’t revolve around him.

So although slightly old fashioned, the basis of what The Rules implies is true. If he’s not asking you out, whether you think he likes you or not – then can he really be that into you? But whether you decide to play it out rule by rule until you catch a winner, I suppose, is up to you.

We're just not that into you

Sometimes we go off men too, and before we end the relationship we usually treat them quite badly. So here are 15 signs that ‘she’s just not that into you.’

She argues against every opinion you have, and you were so sure she felt the same way about how well Marmite and jam go together.

You haven’t seen any of her mates in ages and every night she does go out, conveniently, it happens to be a girlie night.

When you mention a lad’s night out, a boy’s holiday or a trip to a strip club she vaguely acknowledges your existence then goes back to more important things, like checking her facebook or reading that girlie mag.

When you moan about so and so from work no longer does she comfort you with soothing words and how she hated Dave from accounts anyway, instead she starts playing her imaginary violin and tells you to grow up and start living in the real world.

She treats you like a lost puppy, or her kid brother, “Right, have you remembered your keys? Your wallet? Your backbone?”

She criticises your taste in clothes, food, mates and basically anything that belongs to you or you ever cared about.

When you do go out in a crowd she forgets you’re even there, to the point that she gets a cab home without you, and is asleep before you can even say goodnight.

Texts or emails from her are verging on a military command rather than a loving gesture. Need milk and bread. Get before come home.

She loves her kitten, puppy or even tiddly-winks, the goldfish, more than you. And tells them on a regular basis. You’re lucky to even get a kiss.

She farts and burps, without so much as a blush, or an apology.

She yawns half way through sex, or says “Just get it over with already.”

She de-tags all the pictures of you and her together on facebook, and when you ask why, she merely shrugs and says ‘dunno’.

Your arguments are more like a one sided conversation. She’s more interested in watching ‘America’s next top model.’

When you ask ‘Where do you think our relationship is going?’ she laughs and says ‘god you’re such a girl’.

And when you mention the idea of marriage, mortgage or kids she screams ‘ARE YOU SERIOUS?’….but not in a good way!

Very, very quick dating

When I signed up to do speed dating I thought it might be fun, but now that it’s only a matter of days away I’m wondering what I’ve let myself in for.

Will it be like an adult version of musical chairs – fun and slightly competitive, or more like prime ministers question time – intimidating and way out of my league?

And doing speed dating in my hometown puts all sorts of fears into my head. What if an old work colleague or the spotty kid from school turns up and starts to flirt with me? It’s not like I can pretend I have a boyfriend, I’m at a bloody speed dating event.

The biggest fear of all is bumping into an ex, or one of their friends. I can just imagine the scene, “So erm….what have you been up to?” I say, as I shift uncomfortably in my seat and the three minutes tick by incredibly slowly, beads of sweat gathering on my forehead as stilted conversation turns into silence and the wall behind them becomes incredibly interesting.

And who came up with the idea of speed dating anyway? I’m going to guess it originated in London or somewhere similarly as busy, by someone who just didn’t have much time to date. I’m not complaining, if you can eliminate half the men in a bar as arrogant twats, boring bankers or ‘not a hope in hell’ in a few hours then that’s fine by me.

Apparently we only have a matter of minutes with each potential love interest. In some cases these minutes will be way too long – mind numbingly, awkwardly, finger tappingly long (and if it’s really bad, a chance to pop to the loo) or just not long enough. It’s like seeing that really cute guy on the tube, you make eye contact, you share a smile and before you know it the doors open and he’s lost in the crowd of London never to be seen again – in this case he’ll be lost in an array of women who’ll gobble him up before my very eyes.

I've also wondered if taking a notepad and using my shorthand would be acceptable. At least I would remember the Tom’s from the Paul’s, and when my friend says ‘I really like Ben, what do you think?’ I could consult my notepad with enthusiasm and either say, ‘hmmm, yes he has a good job, above average looks, laughed at my jokes, yeh go for it’, or vigorously shake my head at her, after all I had only given him three out of ten for GSOH and a big fat zero for marriage material’.

Repetitiveness also springs to mind - will I get bored of saying the same old thing? ‘I’m a 27-year-old journalist, who likes spinning classes and a few glasses of Pinot. NEXT’. Maybe I’ll come up with a different story for each guy I meet – ‘I’m an entrepreneur who made her first million at 12 and is planning to retire at 30’ or ‘ I get bored of saving lives, as a doctor, I do it on a daily basis.’ Then again it may get complicated remembering who I shared my business wisdom and ‘saving lives’ tips with, and I could be outed as a fake before the night is over.

Most importantly my friend and I are wondering, with trepidation, what type of guys we’ll be faced with? I know that my friend and I are braving it, and of course we’re not desperate, losers or anything else that resembles bad date material, but guys aren’t as adventurous as girls when it comes to the dating scene. Are they doing it for a dare? A last resort after five years of failed attempts at finding a woman? And quite possibly I’m worried that half the guys there could just be looking for a night away from the missus.

Maybe I should stop being so cynical, my friend and I may have the night of our lives, meet the men of our dreams and skip happily into the sunset with them. Or does that just happen in the movies?

Realistically the night will probably be more repetitive than a Hollyoaks storyline and I’ll probably go home having had one too many wines, and not remembering what Paul looked like, let alone that Tom was even there.

A men's guide to online dating

Now I don’t want to be patronising or even seem arrogant, but when it comes to internet dating some of you men, and girls I think you will agree with me here, need a tip or two.

So first things first you are actually on a dating website. Like the rest of us you have succumbed to the world of winks, pokes and stalking your prey with every inch of a fine tooth comb, assessing the pictures, salary and how well your possible match made in heaven can spell (sorry but you can't get away with saying you're ‘intelligent’ if you spell it wrong!!).

So when it comes to your profile please don’t say things like, "God I really don’t know what to say here" or "I don’t usually do this kind of thing". Yes, we would rather not be reminded we’re single, still looking for love and on a dating website either but hey ho that’s how it goes.

And whatever happened to an icebreaker??? If you met a girl in a pub would you really approach her and tell her your life story without so much as a breath? The first email should be an introduction, not an autobiographical account since your complicated birth. So no, I don’t want to hear about how your pet goldfish was gobbled up by the toilet bowl when you were 6, and why would I want to know that you have trust issues because your last girlfriend turned out to be a stripper at Stringfellows? If we really want to get to know you better we’ll ask!

Make us laugh, be cheeky, surprise us. Whatever you do make it count, don’t ramble on about your day at work or how you’re feeling really miserable. Would you want to date someone who sounded boring, arrogant or a bit of a loser?

Personality does count, and if you sound like a decent kind of guy we may take note. But anyone without a picture will get us wondering. You’re either stuck on a desert Island with no means of taking a photo or so god damn ugly that you don’t want us to see what you look like.

And lastly, take it like a man. If we haven’t got back to you that’s usually it. Sending us ‘a few more’ emails is annoying, finding us on Facebook is just plain creepy and stalking us to our nearest coffee shop/place of work/pub will scare the living daylights out of us.

So no pressure men, but most of us girls, if you haven’t realised yet, have quite high expectations when it comes to dating!

Can we really date Mr Perfect?

As he uttered the words, “I won £50,000 on a game show once,” my mouth fell open in utter amazement. Here I was standing with a guy, who not only had the guts to appear on a game show, but was intelligent enough to actually win thousands of pounds on it too.

And that was just the icing on the cake, for me it was like all my dreams had come true - because I was dating Mr Perfect.

We’ve all met Mr Perfect. He’s the one that girls flock around, even if they have a boyfriend. The guy who’s willing to do a sponsored run, in the rain or with a hangover, just so he can save the lives of thousands, and the guy that your family seems to like more than you.

And I had the pleasure of being the girlfriend of Mr Perfect, for six whole months, but unfortunately it didn’t really finish in the happy ending I’d read about in fairy tales.

My Mr Perfect was gorgeous, or as my Mum put it he looked like he’d just stepped off an LA beach, tanned and toned, with blonde hair and blue eyes, he’d got my attention straight away.

His jobs were pretty perfect too, yes he didn’t just have one job, but two. By night he served every women’s fantasy by saving cats, old ladies and people from burning buildings and by day he had the patience and know-how to teach children how to swim.

But it didn’t stop there, unlike my ex, who thought that one trip to the gym was enough to give him biceps the same as Arnies, he actually visited the gym more than once a month. He did spinning classes, abs work outs and swam like a fish, and all this was just preparation for the three hour bike rides, 10k races and triathlons he did.

The rest of his life was quite perfect too, he was a genuinely nice guy, but he also had the car, the house, a good selection of friends, a family that thought the world of him and work colleagues that loved him. Basically he ticked all the boxes, the guy of my dreams, he was my Mr Perfect.

Of course when I met him I wasn’t even looking for Mr right, I was on the look out for Mr right now, someone to have a bit of fun with, to spoil me and help me get over my latest break-up. I was happy to be selfish, find my independence, and concentrate on my career. But out of the blue he swaggered, shining with confidence and perfection and like many of the other girls before me (there had been a lot) I instantly thought he was ‘the one’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been the commitment sort, marriage, babies and things like mortgages just send a shiver down my spine. When past boyfriends had even mentioned moving in with them I shrugged it off with lame excuses like money and timing. But when I met Mr Perfect I was ready to hang up my dating shoes, jump into his perfect world and make compromises and decisions that I never would have made before I met him.

And the most exciting part was that he was into me too. From the moment he met me my phone didn’t know what had hit it, he was a serial texter, and if it wasn’t my phone which was popular it was my inbox with sweet messages and ideas of dates three, four and five. His facebook status wasn’t deprived either, Mr Perfect was announcing to his facebook world that he couldn’t wait to be with me again, and after a month he even committed to a relationship with me on facebook, a done deal, or so I thought.

And for the first few months we played happy families, I was the girl who Mr Perfect would tell his friends and family about with a smile on his face, the one who he’d plant sneaky kisses on at the gym, spend lazy Sundays with and the one who he would rescue in her hour of need.

But just when it all seemed too good to be true, it was, and cracks started to appear in the perfection. The first dent was my friend’s opinions of him.

“He’s really lovely but how can you trust him? He’s far too good looking,” my friend Emily said.

“Don’t you just want to slob out with him?” Another friend said, “You must get bored of the constant spinning classes and healthy food.”

My sister’s boyfriend went as far as to give him a nickname for his perfect ways. After about a month of me dating him he started to refer to him as ‘Perfect Bob’, because being the same age as him he was slightly annoyed that Mr Perfect, with his ‘I save life’s’ job and fitness track record, was frankly, just showing him up.

My Mum even committed the cardinal sin, that any Mum can make when you're dating someone, to tell me she didn’t think he was ‘the one’. At first I thought she was joking "Don’t be silly he’s far too perfect Sarah, how could you marry someone who’s that perfect?" she’d said. When I realised her seriousness I declared my hate to her like a spoilt brat, “Oh my god your soooo wrong,” I screamed off in a strop “I’ll show you.”

But soon I started to see what she meant. Being a perfect girlfriend around Mr Perfect wasn’t easy. I loved the fact that he knew what the inside of a gym looked like but when he was leaving my bed, with me naked in it, at 6am for swimming sessions you could say I was more than slightly miffed.

He’s culinary skills also put mine to shame, although I was no Nigella in the kitchen I was definitely more than a microwave meal kind of girl. But all of a sudden I was aware that maybe I was cutting an onion the wrong way, and why was I asking his opinion on how to drain spaghetti and make scrambled eggs? I’m sure I’d got it right when I’d been single just a few months ago.

The green-eyed monster also struck when it dawned on me that he probably had more ‘girl’ friends than most guys could account for. His friendly nature meant that most of the women he came in contact with, whether they were work colleagues, mums of the kids he taught, or just any woman with a pulse, would text him on a daily basis, comment on his facebook statuses or come over all giggly when they just happened to bump into him. Most of them were just that – friends, and I tried to let it not bother me, but after about four months paranoia set in and I spent hours trying to decipher what girls ‘actually’ meant when they wrote on his facebook wall.

Independence in a man is attractive. And Mr Perfect’s independence was one of the things that attracted me to him. But too much of good thing is quite plainly – a bit weird. It’s very rare to find a man who actually knows what an iron does, let alone how to use it. But Mr Perfect had nights when he would do just that – iron. Also his washing machine was constantly in use, he hated leaving the pots and pans for tomorrow and never once did I have to remind him to send a birthday card to a relative. It was as though I had been introduced to a super new ‘Perfect’ breed of man, and while my friends were moaning about how their boyfriends didn’t do so and so, I was left wondering if he was thinking the same about me.

Towards the end of the relationship he also made me feel like my life, next to his, was more like an episode of Coronation street, boring and a bit pointless, where as his could have come straight off an action-filled episode of Lost or Prison Break. My job meant I spent a lot of time alone, in front a computer, his job meant action, stories and being a hero. And compared to him my life was far from sorted, while he moaned about a measly £500 overdraft I tried my hardest to hide my credit card debts, I was no closer to owning my own house or car than I had been when I’d left primary school, and however hard I tried my stomach never would have been as flat as his.

In a word, he was just too perfect.

So when he ended it with me I wouldn’t say I breathed a sigh of relief, it was more like a small weight had been removed from my life. I was glad that I no longer had to worry about looking perfect in the mornings and or have that ‘please don’t dump me’ money talk with him, but I was also slightly gutted.

It’s hard to get over a normal break-up, but being dumped by Mr Perfect is so much worse. It’s like winning the lottery and being told that you can’t claim your prize. Basically, a big disappointment. How could my Mr Perfect not have been perfect for me? Was I a loser that needed to sort her life out before I was good enough for him?

Of course not, but it did make me think that maybe the reality of our perfect guy will never actually live up to our expectations. If by some miracle, in real life, we happened to bag our dream man, say George Clooney, would it be so great? Or would it just make us jealous, insecure and unhappy? Reality would set in and anyone, next to a movie star who had millions of women falling over him, would pale in comparison. So perhaps we all just need to stop chasing perfection and be happy with what we’ve got.

Dating Mr Perfect was an experience, of course it had its upsides, I got some pretty nice meals cooked for me, he made me care more about my fitness and I got to kiss my Mr Perfect for six months. But if another potential date lists game shows, 6am swimming or putting out fires as his hobbies I may just have to run in the opposite direction.