A London Girl's Guide to Dating in London

Think you’ve done it all when it comes to dating in London? Of course you haven’t! If like me you’ve been on a trillion and one dates in London town and get bored of the conventional pub dates – why not impress them with your knowledge of some of London’s more different spots...

The messy date

@ Burger and Lobster

Bib – check. Lobster flying across the room – check.

If you’re more ‘prim and proper’ when it comes to food than ‘getting stuck in’ for fear of looking silly in front of your date then STOP and avoid this date at all costs – because things are about to get a little bit messy!

Lobster can never be eaten without a bib – and Burger and Lobster proves this fact. Pick a date who won’t judge you, blindfold them so they can’t see how messy you are or if all else fails just take your Mum.

Burger and Lobster is ideal for a sneaky lunch date or a fun second date where you can really get to know each other. They’re probably not going to fall ridiculously in love with you just because of this place, but just look on the bright side - at least you won’t go hungry!

The ‘doing’ date

@ London Zoo

If a ‘doing date’ is your bag and your memories of London zoo consist of getting lost on a school trip, then it’s time to make some better ones.

Roam around London’s best known zoo, while you flirt with your date and quiz each other on all those important date questions – like ‘why do giraffes have such long necks?’ and ‘why are zebras so stripey?’ or maybe something more intellectual. Pack a flask, some sandwiches with the crusts cut off* and voila you have yourself the perfect little date.

*Just don’t go near the monkeys with those sandwiches

The wine lovers’ date

@ Vinopolis

What better way to find out if your date prefers a South African red or a Chilean white while you chat the night away than at a wine tasting session? You’ll both be wine connoisseurs by the end – you’ll learn how to smell, taste and appreciate the wine, and the most important part – the poshest way to hold your wine glass!

And even if the date doesn’t work out at least you’ve got something to take away with you – a transferable skill. Then sit back as you wow your next date, add ‘wine tasting’ to your list of hobbies, or just impress everyone at that next party with your amazing wine knowledge.

The ‘not for the faint-hearted’ date

@ Dans le noir

How brave are you? Could you sit in a darkened room with the potential ‘one’ not knowing what you’re eating? Nope, it’s not some sort of bush tucker trial – welcome to Dans le Noir, a restaurant where you’ll be plunged into darkness and the blind waiters will be the only people guiding you! Yep it’s as weird as it sounds, but in a cool way.

As you enter, choose from three menus – vegetarian, meat or the scariest ‘surprise’ menu, then wince as you’re lead into complete darkness (think Thorpe Park on Halloween) while you imagine if your date has a) done a runner b) spilt wine down themselves yet or c) realised you’ve abolished all your table manners and started eating with your hands.

Just check your date doesn’t have a fear of the dark first.

The ‘cute and cosy’ date

@ Gordon’s wine bar

If your aim is to impress, then head to this little hidden gem, right near Embankment. You’ll be greeted with a movie-esque scene - underground cave ceilings, French style set up and a candlelit atmosphere.

Bask in the snugness while you share a bottle of wine and wonder if you’re in some sort of rom-com with Jude Law (sadly no movie stars will be provided). Great if you’re looking for brownie points, want to eat cheese all evening (they have a deli counter) or just if you’ve had enough of London’s ridiculously cold temperatures. 

Originally written for UK match.com:  http://advice.uk.match.com/uk-dating/london-dating/london-girls-guide-dating-london

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!

Loves and Life of a London girl in a magazine....

I recently appeared in Look magazine....talking about how fabulous being single is!!

Loves and Life of a London girl speaks......

I recently shared the stage with Comedian Richard Herring and gossip blogger Perez Hilton, at the First Direct Festival to talk about my dating life! Thankfully I got a few laughs.......

The good, the bad and the famous.....

‘Would you like to speed date on top of the Sydney Harbour bridge?’ the email said. It was closing in on valentine’s day, this year, when I was based in Sydney. Yes I was single, no I didn’t have any particular plans, but did I want to scale a bridge to find love? Well, not really no.

But that didn’t stop me considering it, ‘What if the Australian hunk I’ve been looking for is up there?’ I said to my flatmate. ‘You hate speed dating, you’re not that great with heights – is it worth it?’ she replied. Sure I could have fainted up there, suffered from a panic attack and been stumped with a load of losers with no get out clause, but what if I was missing out on Mr Right by turning it down? They say dating is all about being outside your comfort zone, but this was pushing it way past any sort of zone I’d found myself in before.

The problem is that dating today is so complicated – if we’re not logged on to at least 5 dating websites, if we haven’t chatted up a man in our local supermarket or re read the rules for the billionth time then we’re made to feel like dating failures. The same goes with dating events – today just plain old speed dating is so ‘old school’. If you haven’t spent the best part of an evening abusing your date at speed hating, doing your best Picasso impression at doodle dating or sweating your socks off at fitness dating then how, oh how, will you ever meet a man?

I surprisingly found myself saying no to speed dating on top of the Sydney harbour bridge, even though according to stats, over the last 12 years, 4,000 couples have become engaged whilst climbing the bridge. Yes, I could be engaged by now. So when I got home of course I had to say a big fat yes to every other dating opportunity that came my way.

First up was speed dating karaoke. Yep I had to do my best warbling impression to impress a guy. I loved karaoke and dating, seperately, but I wasn’t sure if I’d like the two together. I was totally wrong, the thing with karaoke is it attracts confident men i.e. loser/shy guys need not apply. But while my friend got matched with four guys, yes FOUR, I ended up with NO matches. Was my singing voice that bad? Obviously. I decided that applying for this year’s X factor probably wasn’t a good idea.

Then I was asked to date a fellow dating/burrito blogger. He’d been writing a blog for the last year, and having won a burrito meal once a week for a year he thought he’d incorporate it into finding a girlfriend. Now the first qualm was of course being blogged about. What if he hated me? What if he said mean things? Would I be getting a nasty taste of my own medicine?

Thankfully he blogged nice things about me. But being his last date after one year of dating a girl every week he seemed like more of a pro than me and was obviously bored of dating. So after a burrito and a couple of drinks - 2 hours later and he was waving goodbye to me! Really? Had I eaten my burrito the wrong way? Was he just dating me so he could, shock horror, write about me? I felt so used!

Then there was the zoo. No, I didn’t have to speed date with the monkeys, it was actually my choice of date after meeting a guy on dating website Doing Something. I’m not sure why I thought the zoo would be cool as a first date, but I would advise against it – unless the meerkats are offering you a glass of wine, that is. I felt like I was on a school trip, while I feigned an interest in the next animal I was wondering where the nearest bar was.

I also said yes to dating a guy from twitter recently. Now, my normal rule is that I don’t date guys from the social networking world. It can all get a bit well ‘weird and complicated’ when a first date doesn’t work out. But call me shallow - he was verging on the slightly ‘famous side’ – or maybe it was his ex girlfriends that were the famous ones....sorry I forget.

Anyway, after months of him asking me out and never actually setting a date we finally met for a few drinks in Covent Garden. He was a nice guy and I actually quite liked him, but he did have a tendency to talk about his exes. It’s normally weird to talk about exes on a first date anyway, never mind exes who are famous, and that are readily available to view on google. They were singers, glamour models and TV presenters. I unfollowed him on twitter a few weeks later.

To be honest with you even though I’m up for new dating concepts, I really like the old way of meeting men. My mum met my dad in the pub, my grandma met my grandad while out riding her bicycle. It just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, telling your kids you met while daddy was ‘trying’ to buy his weekly shop and mummy chased him round the fruit and vegetable aisle until he gave in and decided to date the ‘supermarket nutter’.

Sometimes I wish for a simpler dating life. But until then I suppose I’ll have to explore the weird and wonderful - Next? Well let’s just say I won’t be able to see my date until they turn the lights on 2 hours later – no doubt I’ll have the contents of my dinner down my outfit, so he’ll probably run a million miles. Wish me luck.....

Something borrowed....

I thought there was something vaguely familiar about my friends latest date but couldn’t quite put my finger on it! Then I realised, yes that was it, I’d dated him once.

‘You just don’t buy the same clothes as each other’, my friend said to me last year as we both turned up to the gym in the same top, and frankly looked a bit silly side by side on the cross trainers. ‘It’s an unwritten rule,’ she carried on with, ‘no the unwritten rule is that you don’t date a friend’s ex’ I said to her, ‘if you like the top, you buy the top’.

So when the same friend asked me if she could date one of my exes recently I really had hoped she was joking. ‘But he winked at me,’ she argued. Not in person of course, in the good old world of online dating, where you can wink at hundreds of strangers all night and not even get eye ache. ‘So am I allowed to wink back,’ she’d asked?

He wasn’t technically an ex – I’d had a brief two month ‘fling’ with him but in his trail of destruction he’d left me wondering ‘what if?’ – I ended up stressing and questioning about every last detail of our encounters over the next year – did he still like me? Should I ask him out again? What did that last message mean? You could say I was a little bit hung up on him.

‘I suppose you still like him’, she’d said, giving me a reason to why I stated in very loud and clear language as to why she couldn’t date him. But it wasn’t even that. I was over him, okay maybe not totally – but when you have a history with someone isn’t that enough reason to stop a friend from dating them? Apparently not.

So have the rules about dating a friends ex changed, or been slightly altered and no one told me about it? According to my friends, if you decided you no longer wanted to be with them and tossed them back out into the ‘single wilderness’ then your friends are free to roam around with them too. But what does that extend to - someone you went on a few dates with, a six month relationship, a marriage?

I’m not very good at sharing my wine, let alone men I’ve dated. But maybe this where I’ve been going wrong all along - should I have been waiting in the wings as my friends shed tears about their latest break up? And should I be setting up all my friends with guys that just didn’t quite do it for me? I’m not sure if it’s a slightly weird or sensible ‘dating’ strategy.

In reality dating one of your friend’s exes probably isn’t such a hot idea. No doubt it will come back to haunt both of you. Just like the time the school heart throb asked me out, when I was 14. The problem? He’d just dumped my sister. Of course I couldn’t date him, it would just be cruel, right? ‘It’s fine,’ my sister had said, ‘he obviously likes you more’. So against my better judgement I started to date him. But of course it wasn’t okay for me to date him. What sane individual is okay with you dating someone that has literally just dumped them. I blame the school heart throb. My sister will probably ALWAYS hold it against me.

And what are the rules if your friend actually starts dating an ex? Are you allowed to compare notes? Are they allowed to reveal to you his reasons for breaking up with you? Will there be a point where you’ll have to stick your fingers in your ears and hope she doesn’t reveal too much information?

And what if the roles were reversed? ‘I’d be fine about you dating ones of my exes,’ my friend had said - but would she really? What would her reaction be if I walked into a bar tomorrow with her ex on my arm, the one she has two years history with, the one she used to moan to me about and yes the one she’d got naked with on a regular basis. Would she squirm as I talked about sex with him, would she say ‘I told you so’ when I moaned about his habits and would she ultimately secretly hold a deep desire to smack me round the face and say ‘put down my ex and find your own man’?

My friend never did date ‘that’ ex. She did date another one though, one which I’d thrown out into the dating wilderness after only three dates. I tried to pretend I was okay with it – I mean its selfish to stop two people dating isn’t it? Even if his last date had been you. Yes, like I said, I’m not very good at sharing – I’ll just make sure to drink all HER wine next time she’s not looking!

I now pronounce you......single!

Everyone loves a good wedding. And its’ even more fun when you’re single. ­Will there be any hot ushers? Will the bride (or groom) suddenly decide they can’t make that type of commitment and not turn up? And will nosey family members ever realise it’s not polite to ask a single girl where her boyfriend is?!

But when it’s someone closest to you saying the ‘I do’s’ it goes into that slightly scary territory. So when my twin sister screamed down the phone last February, ‘I’m engaged,’ I momentarily went into shock. She was what? But, she can’t be, she’s only been dating him, oh yes - two and a half years. I was speechless, as well as being my twin sister – she’s my best friend and she was engaged while I was still single.

Of course I was happy for her – her boyfriend (sorry, now husband!) is not only one of her better choices of boyfriends in the last few years but also quite a decent guy. And after the amount of love rats, losers and downright idiots she’s dated I’m pleased she’s found a guy I know will look after her.

But being the ‘single’ twin sister of a girl who was getting married, and with my other sister bordering on marriage territory I of course had to put up with the concerns of family and friends about my single status. Cue tilted heads and sympathy voices saying - ‘Are you okay?’ poor you - I bet you just want to go and hide under a duvet don’t you?’ and ‘Aww I bet you feel a bit left on the shelf?’ Erm, no actually. Sorry, for a moment I actually thought it was my sister who had got engaged, not a celebration of my spinsterhood?!

And then it made me wonder - was that just a warm up before the big day? Would I have great Aunt Gertrude enquiring about my lesbian girlfriend while we ate canapes? A letchy old uncle asking to dance with me ‘just’ because he feels sorry for me, or the ultimate embarrassment - my future brother in law auctioning ‘the single sister’ off to the highest bidder – while he does his wedding speech!

And it’s not that I am in any way ready to get married, (I keep reminding people that I actually need to date someone for more than three dates, at least, before I should consider marriage) but I suppose, being her twin, I’d envisaged us two getting married at the same time. And if my Mum had had anything to do with it, we would have married twin brothers, and have a brood full of twin babies by now (sorry Mum!).

And when I’m invited to other weddings I do wonder why friends bother to give me a plus one. They really should know better by now, or do they hope, beyond hope, that I’ll have a man by the time their wedding comes around? At least my sister was honest with her invite, when I asked her why I didn’t get a plus one she piped up with ‘you won’t have a boyfriend by then’ and laughed at even the thought of it!

Before my sister’s wedding I was thinking about maybe making up a boyfriend. Well desperate times call for desperate measures and all. My best line was going to be that my ‘boyfriend’ really wanted to make it but had been offered a modelling shoot in Milan and he really couldn’t let Versace down ......again.

Thankfully the wedding went smoothly - the day was lovely, the bride looked gorgeous, the groom didn’t even utter the words single or Sarah in the same sentence, and no one knew of any reason why the two of them couldn’t be joined in matrimony (aka me – ‘No you can’t steal my sister from me’). And amazingly I was only asked once if I had a boyfriend, well along with the usual sympathy sighs I got for being the ‘only’ single bridesmaid of course! And if my sisters now mother-in-law has anything to do with it I’ll probably be married in no time – she was trying to set me up with every guy who came within a two-step radius to me.

But seriously I wonder if I’ll ever be ready to get married? (i.e not scared shitless about the whole prospect). I suppose I shouldn’t worry too much, at least I’m not over the hill quite yet – I still have a few years to meet someone, settle down and plead with them to marry me before I’m officially labelled as a spinster. But until then maybe I’ll have to up my internet dating habit by say 500%, speed date my way into the Guinness book of world records, or just poke a couple of randoms on facebook – surely if my sister can find a husband that way then it can work for me. No?! Erm...anyone up for some twirting? (That’s twitter flirting for you non twitter people).

Recyclable dating

I’m not going to lie, adjusting back to the London way of life has been pretty hard. And I’m not just talking about the weather.

As I touched down on Heathrow’s tarmac and shivered my way home I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t date until the summer! Sorry, but who dates in the winter? I couldn’t possibly go from dates by the beach and overlooking Sydney Harbour (yes...I know I’m boasting) to dates without the tan I achingly spent a good 50 days perfecting and dates where my hair was so windswept that I looked like a hedgehog on steroids.

But who was I kidding? No dating for a dating enthusiast is bordering on just plain stupidness. So before I knew it I was logging on to a dating site - ‘What’s the harm in just having a quick surf?' (less Bondi, more laptop!).

Now, when someone says to me ‘Oh you’re doing THAT Internet dating thing are you?’ I give a little chuckle.

Because I’m not JUST doing that Internet dating thing, I’m actually a veteran of Internet dating. FACT. If someone could hold a world record for the amount of dating websites they’d signed up to I would probably be the clear winner. I know about winks, nudges, email rejections and the 60 year old men who think it’s acceptable to email 29 year olds and ask for a date. Stop it. I will never say yes.

And because I’ve been Internet dating since I was 12 (well it seems like it!) I think I’m actually now, shamefully, recycling the men on them.

I sent a cheeky email to a guy on a dating website the other day, only to be horrified when he emailed me back saying ‘Didn’t we date before?’ Of course not, you’re thinking. Out of the possible thousands of men on Internet dating sites, how could it humanly be possible for me to stumble across the same guy twice? Believe me it’s actually possible....so possible that I’m sure it will happen again!

And I nearly even dated a friends ‘now’ boyfriend. He recognised me from her facebook pictures recently as the girl that never emailed him back on a dating website. I’m just glad that we never actually dated – now that would be an awkward type of date recycling.

So have I got to the point, where I’ve been single for so long that I’ll just have to start recycling old dates? Should I ring up old boyfriends and tell them it’s their turn to date me again? ‘What, you have a girlfriend? Well as long as she doesn’t mind I suppose!’

And because of my veteran status, does this terrifyingly also mean my judgement about whether a potential date is ‘dateable’ or not is slightly misconstrued now?

I should have really known from his user name (it referred to food) but I was pretty annoyed when I turned up to a date recently and he didn’t quite match his profile photos. Call it what you like - false advertising, lying or just plain skillful with the old photoshop tool, but it doesn’t do you much good when you realise you have to spend the best part of the evening with a ‘different to the Internet’ version of your date.

I tried, I really did try to like him, but as his words came out all I could here was my head saying, ‘Excuse me Mr but I think you may have lied a little bit on your profile.’ And when I did hear him speak most of it was food orientated. Like the time he returned from New York and saved room in his case for a kilos worth of Peanut butter chocolate. And I can’t even describe the expression on his face when I told him that Antony Worrall Thompson cooked me lunch once. I could have fit a whole cheesecake in his open mouth (his favourite food apparently!), that was after he stopped dribbling mind.

I hate people who tell fibs, and fibbing in date land is, well, punishable by no second date I suppose! He was so far off a second date that even if cheesecake was involved I would have said no. Honestly.

And so my London dating resumes.....I suppose it wouldn’t have been a ‘Sarah’ date if it had actually gone well, but please can I stop running into former dates?! Or at this rate there will be no options left and date recycling will be the only way forward.

New years 'dating' resolutions

After meeting all manner of unsuitable men last year, my New Year’s resolution was simple – to embark on a man-detox!

But just like my amazing attempt at a New Year’s resolution in 2010 (to give up wine… I lasted three days) my plan ran into a little problem when a super hot guy grabbed me just after midnight and started kissing me! Well, honestly, if you’d seen him (and if he’d grabbed you) you would have understood…

So after a marathon kissing session with said super hot guy and getting over the hangover from hell (hey, it’s not every day a London girl gets to welcome a new decade in Sydney) I decided to forget about the detox and instead try my luck at speed dating.

Now, I don’t have a great track record when it comes to speed dating. My first attempt was thwarted by my admittedly sky-high expectations. Under no circumstances should you go speed dating if you’ve recently been dumped, you’re pining for another man or you’re desperate to find The One.

Unfortunately, the first time I went speed dating, I had been suffering from all of the above. There had been a sheer lack of men in my life since I’d been dumped a few months previously and dating 15 men in one night sounded like the sort of challenge which would brighten up my love life.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I turned up. I’d expected tall, dark and handsome; I got short, bald and boring. And I was left emotionally drained after not even stumbling across Mr Right-Now.

My second encounter wasn’t any better. I’d been dragged there kicking and screaming and before the dating had even commenced, a fellow dater accidentally spilled her entire martini on my dress. It didn’t dawn on me until afterwards that she may have actually been trying to cut out the competition. That’s how intense speed dating can be.

But I was determined to give speed dating another try – with an open mind. Oh it also helped that it was speed dating whilst wine tasting – ‘if in doubt drink wine’ I always say!!

As luck would have it, the first guy I “dated” was a pilot; things were looking good already. So after about 15 mini dates, some quite hot men, some quite geeky men and enough good wine to quell my nerves, I realised I was actually having fun.

And I realised that speed dating – in fact, all types of dating - in Sydney is somewhat different to London. Nobody has expectations. It’s more like going on a ride in Disneyland than a serious game of chess (that is, there are no winners or losers). And most importantly, the men are much hotter. Especially the pilot...with whom I exchanged numbers!

So what have we learnt here? New Year’s resolutions never last. Date detoxing is a great idea if you want to meet a hot man. And speed dating + Sydney equals lots of fun and possibly a date or two.

Happy New Year!

First published on: http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/my_new_years_dating_resolution.htm

Let's get sweaty.....

For me, dating usually occurs in the safe confines of a bar or restaurant, where alcohol is readily supplied and comfort is key. So when I was asked along to Fit2Date, a dating-meets-fitness class in Sydney’s CBD I was, well, scared.

I’m not the kind of girl to shy away from a bit of exercise – in fact, I’m a Spin class regular and running and I have recently become friends. But exercising and dating: that is definitely new territory for me.

I’m prone to falling over in heels after a few too many wines, so God knows what would happen if you armed me with tennis racket, a surfboard or, God forbid, a dart. More than likely it would end with some sort of embarrassment or my date taking me to hospital – not the best first impression.

But what the hell, I thought, dating is all about being outside your comfort zone, right? So I arrived, Lycra-clad, ready to get all hot and sweaty with strange men. Just a regular Tuesday night.

I hoped I could slip in quietly by arriving late, but Tim, our trainer, had other plans. “This is Sarah, she’s come all the way from England,” he shouted as around 14 other fitness freaks muffled hellos.

After proper introductions and a warm-up the hard work really began: finding a guy who I fancied. Oh, and exercising, of course. Luckily, Trainer Tim seemed to have it all figured out. He ordered us to team up in boy-girl pairs, as we all shuffled along looking at each other as though we were at school and the thought of pairing up with a boy scared the living daylights out of us.

The rest of the class disappeared in a blur of lunges, sprints and sack races; I was trying to catch my breath and flirt at the same time – not the prettiest sight. The truth was, I didn’t fancy any of the guys, but I think that was a blessing in disguise. If there had have been any guys I’d been attracted to, I can’t imagine the aches and pains after showing off my push-up prowess.

I ended the night with no numbers, or dates, or even crushes (well, apart from a tiny one on Trainer Tim!) but one guy did ask me if I'd like to go running with him sometime. And I wondered, in the world of fitness dating, is this the equivalent of being asked on a date?? Well, I liked to think so!

First published on: http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/lets_get_sweaty.htm

First impressions.....

As I arrived in Sydney I beamed with excitement; I think I half expected Aussie surfer guys to be walking round the airport, with surfboards and washboard stomachs, waiting with a big plaque welcoming me with ‘Hi Sarah’.

You can imagine my dissapointment, then, when the first group of guys I met were English. Damn, I’d come over here to avoid them, not be surrounded by them. Plus, at 18, they were just a little bit too young for me. I’ve been there with toyboys and it didn’t exactly turn out pretty!

And as the first week passed and I bumped into Irish, American and all manner of men who definitely weren’t Australian, I became increasingly disappointed. Surely I could have met these guys down at my local pub in London.

That is until I bumped into Aussie Paul* in a club a couple of Saturdays ago. I’d been told that Australian men were quite shy and wouldn’t approach me, but Paul was either a rare breed or had just had one too many beers, because one minute I was with my girlfriends on the dance floor, the next he’d dragged me off to a quiet spot to chat. By chatting I obviously mean kissing**. But I wasn’t so sure about this guy: he was lovely, but after a few half-hearted texts my first Aussie encounter fell flat on its face.

So when another Aussie guy, Ben*, offered to buy me a drink at my new local I thought I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I probably should have listened to my flatmate when she told me he was a cocky twat***, but I really saw no reason not to say yes when he asked me out for dinner the following night...

The date didn’t start too well when he asked if he could bring a friend along. Um, really? In England, friends don’t usually tag along on dates! I’m not sure if it was my confused look or the “Err, NO!” which made him realise it was a bad idea.

And after a couple of drinks I wasn’t really getting his Australian sense of humour (or maybe you just weren’t that funny Ben - sorry!) With that and his love of the pokies (yep, while we were on the date) I wondered what I’d got myself into.

The last straw came when I dared to decline his next date invitation, because I really was too busy. He sulked like a 4 year-old! So have I just picked the wrong Aussie men so far, or are they all like this? Let’s hope not!

*All names have been changed
**Or pashing, as you Aussies call it
*** Or complete dickhead, as you Aussies call them

As published on http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/first_impressionsblogdating.htm

This town ain’t big enough for 'all' of us

As I bumped into yet another ex a few weeks ago, yes full of red faced, awkward, cringe worthy moments I would rather forget, I wondered who had it in for me? Seriously, it was as though someone was intent on embarrassing me.

In the last few weeks I’ve seen exes pop up on facebook with shiny new girlfriends and appear out of know where – usually when I’m looking my worst. I’ve also had to completely blank two exes in broad daylight recently, well it was either that or smile through gritted teeth when I’d rather give them a good slap!

And remember the fitness guy that I snogged and thought it was a good idea? Yep, I had to endure a full hour’s fitness class, while I squirmed and pretended that I hadn’t had my tongue down his throat the week before. I just need to bump into the boy I snogged in primary school now and we’d have a full set.

For purely research purposes only, I worked out the other day that I’ve had 22 first dates since I’ve been single, and that’s not even counting the amount of 2nd, 3rd and 4th dates I’ve been on. Then it dawned on me, have I just dated one too many men, or just one too many in one place? It just seems that London is way too small to avoid exes.

Don’t get me wrong, I love London, it’s amazing for dating, and I readily admit to still wanting a first date in London Zoo. Come on, how can the conversation dry up when you have penguins and lions to look at??!!

But the problem with London is that it can be so impersonal. Everyone's so busy. Even if you meet a guy you fancy, once you check your dairies you realise that in 2 weeks you may just be able to fit them in for a coffee. It took me five weeks to meet up with a guy I wanted to date this summer – by the time we met up I’d forgotten what he’d looked like and if I still actually fancied him or not!

So it got me thinking – would a new city be any different? Would the men just be a rehash of London men, but with a different accent? Would they still be players? Still be immature, rude or freak out when you mention anything more than dating? And most importantly would they get round to calling me back after a date?

Well there’s only one way to find out – I’ve said goodbye to London (exes and cold weather) and G’day to Sydney (aka hot, toned beach boys!) – I really haven’t got a clue if I’ll meet the man of my dreams, or any men in fact, but isn’t it just worth a try....??

Playing hard to get – what’s that then?

“It’s called being aloof Sarah, mysterious even,” my friend said to me. But I checked my dating dictionary and it just didn’t seem to be there. Because basically I just can’t do playing hard to get.

If I like a guy then they’ll probably know about it. FACT.

Generally because I’ll be stuck to them like glue, following them around like a lost puppy, or bombarding them with text messages, emails or tweets. Call it having no willpower or being mentally insane, but when I like someone I just can’t help myself.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a ‘boil your bunny’ kind of girl or a scary stalker type who literally won’t bugger off until they’ve agreed to marry me that very night. I’ll just make sure he knows I exist by happening to turn up at the gym when he’s there, appearing next to him at the bar or, you know, just being there whenever he so much as sneezes, oh...'bless you'.

Take Dan* who I met recently. After talking to him and realising I fancied him I may as well have just slapped a sticker on my forehead saying ‘If lost please return to Dan’ - I followed him to the bar, outside when he smoked (I don’t smoke). And I probably would have followed him into the toilets if the toilet attendant hadn’t scowled at me and threatened to chuck me out. Basically I was like a besotted teenager.

Thankfully on this occasion it turned out well – i.e. no restraining order, no cat fights with an angry girlfriend and I went away my dignity intact (well slightly...)and even a date – but, with more booze and a hotter guy, I could foresee my problem getting out of hand one day.

And you’d think it would have something to do with the (large) quantities of alcohol I consume when in a bar and near a man I like, but fear not I still don’t understand the meaning of playing hard to get whilst not intoxicated either. Recently in non-bar surroundings I really did try my hardest to be cool – it isn’t my fault then that he nearly walked past me (and totally ignored me) and I had to shout out his name like some sort of deluded freak – any sort of aloofness went straight out of the window.

And my amazing aloof dating tactics haven’t just stopped there. I’ve added guys on facebook, when they’ve merely just said hello to me (well he was hot!) taken detours on my way home in the hope that I’ll bump into him and generally just gone above and beyond to make sure he ‘notices’ me.

Now let’s be honest, if a guy did any of the above to me, especially if I didn’t like him, I’d probably tell him where to go. “Stop following me around, you’re like my bloody shadow,” I’d scream at him, or snog someone right in front of him – just so he got the picture. I’d feel claustrophobic and scared and probably run very fast in the opposite direction.

And if I was dating you and you weren’t on my potential ‘forever guy’ list you’d probably know about it. Basically because all of a sudden playing hard to get will become easier than ever - I’ll avoid texting you, until I’m either bored or you phone my mum wondering if I’ve died! I’d leave you to plan where we go on our dates and eventually either pretend like I never knew you existed or use a get-out-clause, which is so bad that both you and me know it’s just that!

So why do I find it so hard to be aloof when I like someone? And believe me I’ve tried - but my idea of playing hard to get is waiting 5 minutes to text someone back, rather than the whole week it once took a date to text me back!

And do I even really want to play games? I mean isn’t playing hard to get boring, people get tired of chasing each other, and game playing never results in anything long term. But I suppose there’s playing hard to get and looking a little desperate – ‘a la moi’. Even a whiff of desperation can scare off the keenest of guys.

So in a bid to not scare off the cute guy I happen to stumble upon next, maybe I should try and leave it at least a few minutes before scrambling for my phone and texting him back, unglue myself from his side and possibly buy a new dating dictionary – one which explains ‘playing hard to get’ in all its glorious detail!

(*that’s not his real name, silly!)

Men I really wish I hadn’t snogged....

I must just love embarrassing myself, because when it comes to men I’m always getting myself into sticky situations. Yep I’m the girl who would attempt to snog her male friend while drunk, who can’t visit some of her local pubs because, well, ‘he’ works there and goes bright red every time her friend mentions 'that' work colleague. I do stuff without thinking and have to deal with the consequences later – usually ending with awkward moments, silences and wishing I really hadn’t gone there.

Honestly, if there was a prize for the ‘biggest date fuck ups’ I’d probably be the esteemed winner. I just can’t seem to help myself. If I actually worked in an office I would probably be ‘that’ girl who everyone talked about. The girl that made a tit out of herself at the Christmas party - snogged the geeky virgin and made photocopies of things she shouldn’t have.

Maybe I feel like I’m missing out somehow, so to almost make up for it the stupidity has crept into my dating life. In the last few months not only have I chatted up a famous singers fiancé, scared a guy off by kiss and telling about our date via twitter, but also chased men that really just weren’t that into me.

And when it comes to picking the wrong men I would definitely get an A* for effort. At the time you think he's a great idea – he’s hot, you’ve had some liquid confidence and the next thing you know you’re snogging like there’s no tomorrow – in front of everyone. Except there is a tomorrow and you’d forgotten that everyone was there, until that is you turn up at (delete as appropriate) work/gym class/friends house.

You know how people say: ‘oh she’ll learn,’ – well they obviously weren’t referring to me. In my brief dating life I’ve dated or snogged a collection of unsuitable men, including two bosses, a guy that worked at my gym, an array of bar men and way too many friends of friends. And I know that if I met a hot guy tomorrow, who happened to be my best friend's brother, worked at my local pub and hung out at my gym I wouldn’t think twice about chatting him up!

And if only to prove this point last weekend I decided to chat up an instructor for a fitness class I go to. At no point did I stop and think ‘Oh this might be slightly awkward next time I go to class.’ Nope, I just carried on my merry way, accepting more booze from him while I fought off other girls for his attention. Of course the evening ended in a very drunken snog. But when I woke up the next day and sense returned I seriously wondered if cancelling my membership was a good idea!

Looking back maybe I was doomed from the start! When I was a mere 18 years old I drunkenly snogged a guy, but not any guy – he was my university flat mate, and it was ONLY the first night of fresher’s week! I was so embarrassed about it I could barely make it out of my room without going a ‘London bus’ shade of red and our other flat mates teasing me about how I wanted to be his girlfriend. The teasing and embarrassment probably would have lasted all year if I hadn’t managed to win him over as my boyfriend.

You’d think that cringe worthy moment would have taught me to watch what I drink and only approach men who had no connection to anything remotely fitness, work or friend orientated – but no - I’m obviously the kind of girl who has to learn by her mistakes – ALL of them.

So I was obviously just learning when I decided that dating my boss last year was a good idea. That awkward moment - when I had to see him at work, knowing that just two weeks previously he had told me, in a ‘he’s just not that into me’ moment, that he was just too busy to see me – was just a test of my character, huh?

And you think after one awful incident with a local bar man I would have thought twice about dating another one. But I just couldn’t help myself – his blonde hair and baby blue eyes just won me over. It’s a shame then that date number two never materialised. I now have to avoid both bars like the plague, much to the annoyance of my friends.

Maybe I’m just never really going to learn – even if my friends do ever so kindly try and physically drag me away from my latest victim! After all I’m sure it’s not just me who can’t visit her local pub anymore and has to be cautious every time she so much as pops her head into the gym......oh it is? DAMN!

My online quest.....to find the ‘one’

I think I’m a little obsessed with online dating. And it’s weird because I don’t even really like it that much. But I find myself secretly logging on every other hour to see how many people have viewed me or to check if Mr ‘online’ Right has emailed me back yet.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with online man hunting. I can go for months without the need to hide behind a computer, in my safe little bubble – but then almost out of nowhere the urge to find out what cyber men have to offer strikes again.

So it didn’t surprise me when last month, while slightly intoxicated, (and thinking it was yet again a good idea) I logged on again. And I was hoping this time would be different – that I wouldn’t get the creepy 44 year olds winking at me, have long, drawn out emails sent to me or be ambushed by men who had no profile picture and thought it was okay to ask me out in the first email. But of course it was no different – stalkers and weirdos obviously see me coming.

And now I’m worried that my addiction will spill over into real life – will my facebook and twitter account be deprived because I’m talking to men who go by the names of – ‘I am the one and only’ ‘me again’ (I can just see this one turning up on my doorstep claiming it’s just ‘me again’) or ‘rusty bin 35’ - I really hope not!

But seriously, internet dating can be a bit rubbish. Especially when men think it’s acceptable to have dating profiles which start with.... ‘I hate writing this stuff and I really don’t know what to put here.....’ errr something a bit more interesting than that please – it’s as though they’re thinking out loud but pressed ‘enter’ by accident.

And of course the cost of true love never comes cheap. Whoever cottoned on to the idea of preying on singles, looking for Mr or Miss Right was a very clever person. The adverts make out as if they’re the cupids of the internet, the Cilla Blacks of the worldwide web – and I might agree if it wasn’t for the hefty fee at the end of it all.

Then there are the emails - which we always open with hope. But sometimes they stop us in our tracks. Recently a friend had what I can only describe as a pornographic message via a dating site. Erm...sorry?! We’re on here to find love, Mr Right, our soul mates – it’s not called findmealocalshag.com (which believe it or not actually exists!). So please log off and stop sending us indecent proposals via a dating website!

The other emails don’t get much better either – Dave from Southport emailed me asking ‘I know I’m not very clever or good looking – but will you date me anyway?’ while Brian from London emailed me for the fifth time wondering why I hadn’t replied to him (erm...get the hint mate!). And what’s with men from Scotland, or even Finland emailing me? I don’t mind travelling a few miles to find my soul mate – but you’re stretching it a bit far if you expect me to meet you for a coffee in Madrid!

And why does everyone assume, just because I‘m a journalist that I’m going to be writing about them in some sort of dating column?!? Honestly.

So when you’ve deleted the odd emails, said no to the guy in Madrid and reported the men for stalking you, you may just be lucky enough to stumble on a few ‘decent men’ – well that’s what you think before you meet them anyway.

Step up number one. He seemed nice – he was intense but I fancied him like crazy so ignored those little ‘warning signs’ which I really should have picked up on. That was until I received a text saying ‘I love you – do you love me?’ WHAT???

And number two was just as bad – just in a more camp way. In his picture he’d looked gorgeous – good height, nice features and not the least bit gay! By the end of the night I felt like I was gossiping with my best mate. So imagine my shock when he tried to kiss me – I fled like Cinderella at midnight (minus the shoe mishap!).

And most recent was number three. Who I’d been delightfully surprised about when I met up with him. He’d been honest about his height, his photos and his age – always a good start. And apart from his slightly sarcastic attitude I could see myself dating him again. It’s a shame I mucked it up then. I have a habit of tweeting about my dates – so when he did the inevitable googling of me and stumbled across my twitter account he wasn’t happy! He couldn’t believe I’d kissed and told! Damn google!

I really do wonder why I keep logging on? I’m hoping my online dating addiction will come to an end one day, or maybe my subscription will just run out! Either way I’m sure I won’t find ‘the one’ online – unless I suppose I fancy a date with ‘me again’. Now where did I save his email?

'He was abducted by aliens' and other reasons why he didn’t call

I know I shouldn’t admit it, but when I’m waiting for a guy to text me about how well that first date, encounter or snog was for him – it’s a pretty painful experience. It’s like waiting for home time on a Friday or Santa to turn up when you're a kid – it’s either going to be a painfully slow process, or, however much you wait, it just isn’t going to happen!

And the annoying part of it all is that my Mum seems to have some sort of psychic ability, and knows when I’m waiting for a guy to text me. Just at that pivotal point where I’ve lost all hope and I’m on the verge of smashing my phone into a million little pieces, my phone beeps like a proud owner of a new boyfriend. Only to disappoint me with my Mum’s gabble about something unimportant like new shoes. Gah!

I’m not stupid, I know how it works, if a guy doesn’t call, or even just text you back, blah, blah, blah – then he’s probably just not that into me. I’ve made the excuses, I’ve trawled through the elaborate ideas in my head. But I really did think this situation was different, i.e – I was in control. He was young, eager and literally tripping over himself to see me.

So when my new toyboy stood me up last week, with no god damn awful excuse text as to why, I couldn’t be bothered with analysing it – yes his friends may have spooked him with stories of older women wanting commitment, or maybe he met up with his ex and they reconciled their differences, and I could even stretch to the explanation that he lost his phone, dropped it in the toilet or a dog ate it! But I may as well just rely on the good old excuse that he’s been abducted by aliens – because let’s be honest it’s probably as viable as any other explanation.

Or if I was to listen to a certain, sympathetic, male friend I could look at the harsh reality of the situation, that he just didn’t like me.

But that’s just plain old, mean rejection rearing his ugly head – and who wants to admit to that? I would rather think that the impossible has happened – some green dudes from a planet far, far away scooped him up (just before he was about to text me, obviously!) and are doing weird tests on him at this very moment, instead of the reality that he decided he didn’t fancy me anymore! Who wouldn’t?

But before you sigh and say, oh don’t worry Mr Right is out there for you somewhere, I would like to beg to differ! He’s not – he’s with his hot new girlfriend, married with kids or has a boyfriend. And it’s not like I’m not looking. But my dating history this year seems to have gone from one unsuitable encounter to the next. Apart from the unsuccessful toy boy encounter I just seem to be treading in already taken territory.

I got excited the other day when a friend of mine turned up to meet me and told me she’d found my perfect man on the coach down to London. Apparently he was gorgeous, tall, had a lovely personality and he seemed interested in me. The only problem was convincing his 'boyfriend' that dating me would be a good idea!

Then there was the time when I got the guts up to approach a table full of eight men – surely one of them must be single, I thought, as I pushed any doubts to the back of my head and used a cheeky one liner to ask them if I could join them. Flabbergasted they quickly shuffled up and banter commenced. It was all going swimmingly until I asked where they knew each other from, I nearly choked on my wine when one of them piped up with “From antenatal class,” I realised they weren’t kidding when they pulled out pictures of their kids and flashed wedding rings at me. I definitely hadn’t seen that one coming.

I think my problem is that I give guys too much credit – ‘oh you didn’t phone me for five days because you died, then miraculously came back to life, yeh okay I’ll go out with you this Friday then.’ And ‘why are you snogging me round the corner from all your friends? Oh you’re just shy, nothing to do with the fact that you have a girlfriend then? No, oh okay then that’s cool!’

Maybe I should be a little harsher on men in the future, and look out for those tell-tale signs that I have no hope - like wedding rings, baby prams and boyfriends lurking at the sidelines. But of course if it all goes horribly wrong again and he fails to even acknowledge my existence with a polite ‘rejection’ text, at least I have two things to look forward to: my Mum, ever so lovingly filling up my inbox with texts about reality shows and family get togethers and of course the ultimate one - knowing that my dating disasters are all gathered in the same place – with little green men on Mars!

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?

Do I date to blog, or blog to date?

Being a dating blogger can have its downsides. Namely when you don’t have any dates. And after a few months of being dateless I was starting to get worried – for me having a date every week became as normal as people getting up and going to work. So had I lost my touch or merely just dated all the single men in London?

And when I wasn’t dating it was like everyone was rubbing it in by going on dates instead. Two of my best friends both casually mentioned how they were going on dates and most of my other single friends were being set up around me, chatting up cute bar men or talking about their latest conquest. Even my Mum was on the net setting up dates.

Maybe I was getting too picky or was I just being lazy? I couldn’t be bothered with internet dating – it was just too much effort to email yet another ‘potential’ and rehash the same old details. I had stopped bugging friends to set me up and men on nights out just weren’t blog worthy enough.

So I sighed a breath of fresh air when I finally got a date last week – I was officially back in the game. And I realised I’d actually missed going on first dates. The classic first date nerves, the awkwardness that comes with it, the free drinks (only kidding…well kind of!) - I had missed the whole shebang of it. So much so that when a friend of mine told me she had a first date planned I almost turned up in her place. Don’t worry I didn’t!

And when potential dates find out you’re a dating blogger it can have its downsides too. Google is great but I merely have to mention my name and men know about my dating history before I’ve even sipped on my first glass of wine with them. The first date to uncover my little secret pretended for all of ten minutes that I wasn’t a dating blogger while I reeled off all the other work I did. Of course I tried to deny it, but when he claimed he knew where my last date had taken place he had either been stalking me in person or on the net – and I was hoping it was the latter.

And another date, who knew about my blog, told me he had read it in detail, written down notes and thought he was fully prepared to see me. I wondered if he was expecting me to give him a pub-style quiz at the end or hand out tasks throughout. He was dating me, not appearing on mastermind.

So if potential dates know about my dating past and trip-ups, will it put them off? I’ve had guys running for the hills when they’ve found out they may appear on the net. Even when I’ve clarified that I only write a dating blog. So after my dating drought I wasn’t surprised when my recent date, after stumbling across my blog, emailed me to let me know I wasn’t quite the right ‘dating material’ for him. Maybe if I hadn’t revealed his toilet habits in a previous blog we’d be married by now. Damn.

But if the tables were turned then I admit I may be a little reluctant go on a date too - especially if I knew he’d be analyzing my every move. If I drunk too many vino’s would I be an alcoholic? If I didn’t make him laugh would I be known as the moody cow he’d been lumbered with for the entire night?? Or worse - would I be classed as a no-go cougar or the girl who he officially went on his worst date with?

I suppose there’s always a downside to everything. But in my bid to get more dates I suppose I’m going to have to stop being so lazy, picky and possibly googleable. And as for blogging about the dates I go on – well that’s not stopping, for at least a while yet. Maybe I’ll just have to change my tack. My dating ad will have to say in big red letters - Please apply within – dates who have a GSOH.

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….

My stuttering, blubbering dating techniques

In normal life my mouth rarely gets me into trouble – I’m polite, friendly and have a way of getting people to open up to me. But when it comes to dating it’s as though I suffer from Jekyll and Hyde syndrome.

I embarrassingly have something programmed into the dating part of my brain which means when I like someone I just have to say something stupid, irrelevant or just downright dumb. You know, one of those – ‘I’m just going to bang my head against a wall now’ moments.

I either pick up a bout of verbal diarrhoea – with something along the lines of ‘Did I tell you about the time my cat pooed on my bed?’ or reel off a joke which I’ve forgotten the punch line to. In special circumstances, usually when I really like someone my mouth goes dry, my hands start to get clammy, my head starts moving like one of those nodding dogs and I splutter out something which even my14 year-old self would have cringed at. And in both situations my potential love interest usually leaves looking at me oddly and wondering who the freak he just spoke to was.

And being the flappable idiot I become when a guy that I like is anything but a two mile radius from me I wouldn’t be surprised if I actually started spouting off things which were on my mind like – ‘Can I snog you please?’ or ‘I wonder how your surname sounds with my first name?’ – they’d be running scared before I’d even attempted to bag myself a date with them.

So you’d think if I had time to plan what I wanted to say I’d come up with a cute, sassy one liner which would make them think, ‘Wow this girl is cool,’ – but no I’ve managed to kill my street cred when it comes to e –flirting too. Like the time I was sharing flirty email banter with a minor celeb (okay he was just a reality TV star) and he asked if I wanted to watch him DJ one Thursday night. My reply? “I don’t think I can, it’s a school night,” I thought I was being funny – he obviously thought I was some sort of nerd who had a 9pm curfew. Funnily enough I never got a reply back from him.

So it’s always great when friends share the ‘dumb dating talk’ limelight with you. One revealed the moment she became speechless when she saw the object of her desire at the gym, then proceeded to walk head first into a weights machine. And when a hottie walked into another friend’s work place all she could utter was a squeak, before she dropped her newly made hot chocolate over her keyboard. She tried to dab away the choccy mess like it didn’t matter – when the reality was she had totally short circuited it.

And I can’t quite decide if alcohol helps matters. On the one hand it gives you the confidence to think what you’re saying sounds like you’re not an over-excited school girl, but in reality it’s probably doing more harm than good. After one glass you’ve got the confidence to steam roll the flirting, after two you’ll probably say something you wouldn’t dare say if you were sober. And don’t get me started on a whole bottle worth of wine induced confidence – it’s got me into trouble more times than I can remember.

And rest assured if you’re of the male species and the conversation flows like wine into my glass - if us girls are comfortable in your presence and we can have a good old natter with you it usually means we see you as a brother, a mate or even a father figure – sorry!

So it really is a surprise that I’ve been on any dates, at all, in the past year – have men just felt sorry for me after my blabbermouth has tripped into their lives? Or have I just dated guys who I wasn’t really that into? Whatever it is I’m sure the embarrassing encounters will continue long into my dating years and beyond. Life might be so much simpler if I was one of those girls who said all the right things at all the right times - but wouldn’t that be boring? I’d rather be the girl who trips up any day.