And Cambridge is, though lovely, a barking-mad-rather-too-close-to-Norfolk kind of place.

Hey, Alex, leave Norfolk alone. Dating capital of Europe. Farmers by the dozen.

A friend of mine killed a bit of time on some dating chat boards one evening to take the piss out of the sad losers. His piss-taking back-fired horribly when a woman who was on there doing exactly the same thing as him suddenly married him.

I think it’s all perfectly normal. When people fall in love over the internet, they get to know each other first, like the person’s character (assuming both parties are being honest, of course), see a photo or two, and then fall in love.

In the offline world, usually people fall into bed first then spend the next 10 years trying to get to know each other.

There must be something very compelling about strangers. I know at least 4 people whose marriages or other long term relationships have collapsed catastrophically in favour of an attraction to somebody they’ve never actually met but who somehow understands them much better than their former real partner.

Maybe ideal partners are more to do with how well we get on projecting something of ourselves onto a candidate than anything else. Perhaps we’re all very adept at filling the gaps in the character of a stranger with rose tinted fluff. Another variant of the thinking that the other man’s grass is greener maybe.

Seriously though, it is a very strange, very modern phenomenon that strikes me as being unnaturally common.

Did you catch this article in the Guardian recently? http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1733547,00.html
Seems there are others who sympathise with a man’s lot in the dating game and some of them are female!

I gave up on men in South Africa and moved to London 7 years ago, determined to stay single. A year later I met my man from Colombia - another improbable union!

Despite your really good article, it still remains a mystery to me why the girls aren’t banging your door down, but I’m sure as soon as you’re not looking, some really lucky girl is going to become a big part of your life.

The next morning I woke up, thought better of it, and deleted the evidence - but when I checked my e-mail I found I’d already had a reply. So I thought “what the hell” and emailed back. We turned out to have exactly the same sense of humour. After a week of two or three emails a day we switched to the phone. A week after that we met face to face. By October I’d moved in with her, by early November we were engaged - and last year we celebrated both our third wedding anniversary and the birth of our second child. (I also got the perfect job only a few months after we met: there’s no obvious connection, but I suspect a vastly sunnier and more optimistic outlook on life in general probably didn’t hurt).

But I can’t even begin to imagine the odds against us meeting - basically, they’d have been nonexistent if it hadn’t been for that moment of madness (and not just mine…).

On the other hand, am I correct in thinking that the majority of your irritating experiences were suffered in Cambridge? And Cambridge is, though lovely, a barking-mad-rather-too-close-to-Norfolk kind of place.

Hell, I don’t know. All a damn mystery. I texting to say “sorry, my dog ate my dress” worse than not turning up at all? Moot, I’d say.

I give up.

Between the appeals for help appearing on other blogs and the increasing impression that my original post was some kind fishing operation, this is all getting horribly out of control.

Obviously I’m not at it like a rabbit, but I’m still a happy bunny, people.

Yes, I am convinced that if it wasn’t for alcohol, the English would not procreate; it’s impossible to get into a woman’s pants, otherwise!

(Speaking as a Yank happily married to an English Rose he had met at a party he had crashed.)

There’s no need for sympathy; people should be in awe of your hassle-free lifestyle.

(And, on a different matter: yes, I’ve cracked. Well, I actually cracked on Monday. Alright, alright—I cracked on Sunday*. Geez, what’s with the third degree?!)

* By “Sunday”, I mean Saturday.

So far the only semi offer I have is from a guy. But I think he is looking for an endorsement that he is more worthy (desperate) a case than Damian.

So if you want to go on a crazy date with Damian (you know the sort where you both turn up and actually talk to each other) then let me know.*

(*No, this does not mean I am acting as Damian’s pimp under the Government’s new Prostitution Guidelines - but thanks for your concern.)

“Pre-emptive dating - the only solution.”

George, despite my neo-conservative leanings, I must disagree: in today’s delicately balanced, highly factionalized conflict zones, bilateral dating is the way forward—you know: dating where you show up and so does the other person.

In that context, I’m happy to endorse Kerron’s attempts to find a date for Damian - even if he’s “not quite that desperate—yet.” Experience suggests that by the time you’re desperate enough to take action, it’s already too late to do anything about it.

Pre-emptive dating - the only solution.

When I was single, I had a lot of the same trouble as you. As soon as I hooked up, it was easy. And it works the other way, too: it’s much easier to pull a woman who already has a boyfriend. It’s surprising how many people turn out to be looking for a better option. So, at a push, have a word with one of your closest female friends and ask her to pretend to be your girlfriend!

Another problem I identified in my single years was that I wasn’t meeting the right women because I wasn’t going to the right places. I never quite cracked the “arty” type, but I did discover that you do meet a lot of nice women if you take a course – part- or full-time – in something that interests you at least a little bit.

The Pootergeek takes to his blog to discuss and complain about dating, Englishwomen the of. An extremely wise idea really, certainly worked for this bloke. Although he did damage his back on a trip to Paris. On the train, so…