Dating

Unexpectedly re-available is a very good phrase. I have often seen it applied to house advertisements and thought how fabulously impertinent it sounds, so I am asking the agents to attach it to the description of my flat now that it is back on the market after a right old hoo-ha with the buyer from hell. Unexpectedly re-available is a grammatical tongue-twister, and a euphemism that manages to be both enigmatic and facetious at the same time. I also like it because it speaks to me on a personal level. I have been unexpectedly re-available countless times and I wish I had thought of saying so whenever I went on one of those dreadful dating websites. Unexpectedly re-available, due to time wasters. Well appointed, in good decorative order. Traditional yet versatile.

“Is she really going out with him?’ asks the old Joe Jackson song about a mixed-attractiveness couple. ‘They say that looks don’t count for much — there goes your proof.’ High society used to abound with couples in which the woman was far more beautiful than the man. But while we can still point to famous aesthetically mismatched partners (pudgy Trump and pulchritudinous Melania anyone?), the mating patterns of the young now mean we are witnessing the death of the mixed-attractiveness couple. This is thanks to the way millennials fall in love — more often than not, online. They flick through potential matches on sites such as Match.com and MySingleFriend with distressing rapidity, discounting anyone they don’t fancy straight away.

“Is she really going out with him?’ asks the old Joe Jackson song about a mixed-attractiveness couple. ‘They say that looks don’t count for much — there goes your proof.’ High society used to abound with couples in which the woman was far more beautiful than the man. But while we can still point to famous aesthetically mismatched partners (pudgy Trump and pulchritudinous Melania anyone?), the mating patterns of the young now mean we are witnessing the death of the mixed-attractiveness couple. This is thanks to the way millennials fall in love — more often than not, online. They flick through potential matches on sites such as Match.com and MySingleFriend with distressing rapidity, discounting anyone they don’t fancy straight away.

When I was 38, I let a drunk pick me up in a bar. You know, just to see if I still had it. It was raining. It was a November evening, and I was somewhere in the backwoods of the Adirondacks. I was driving from Rhode Island to Toronto, staying in motels. Taking my time. Getting lost. His name was Billy Ray and he was from the south. The land of Spanish moss and blurred boundaries and antique sentences delivered in a languid drawl. Beautifully dressed, an elegantly ruined bachelor of 48, he looked 65. He said he was related to the man who had invented Coca-Cola and had never had to work. ‘I really have had the most wonderful life, you know.’ I had started talking to him because he looked more interesting than the book I was reading.

I have a female friend who refuses to let men pay for dinner on dates, no matter how much they insist on picking up the tab. She’s not alone: many women feel that if they want equality and agency, they have to hand over their credit card at the end of a romantic meal. I, on the other hand, feel surprised and a little affronted on the rare occasion when a man expects me to go Dutch, for one simple reason: women spend such a disproportionate amount of time and money getting ready for dates, we shouldn’t be expected to pay extra for dinner. This week, a Twitter hashtag called #HowToGetReadyForADate started trending. Most of the tweets were jokes, but many also referenced the amount of time women take to prepare for a date versus men. From a man: 'Showering is overrated.

[audioplayer src="http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/265889180-the-spectator-podcast-the-lying-game-the-art-of-post.mp3" title="Ariene Sherine and Cosmo Landesman discuss dating" startat=1244] Listen [/audioplayer] I am crouching with a tall paper bag over my head, with holes cut out for eyes, nose and mouth, while sniffing a stranger’s hairy armpit. All the faces around me are equally obscured by paper bags, and each is inhaling the scent of underarms; we look for all the world like a very niche branch of the Ku Klux Klan. This is not a gathering of white supremacists or strange fetishists, but an ultra--modern speed-dating night called Romancing the Armpit, and I am here to find love.

Q. I have a deep crush on an army officer I’ve met through work. He is decisive, practical and doesn’t waste a word. I am charmed. How can I hint that I’m interested and would like to be asked out? We are due to meet in about a month’s time. I am almost 40 and haven’t dated properly for years post a brief marriage. He, I suspect, is mid-to-late forties. My 21-year-old students suggest asking him for a drink. Surely not? Any advice? He is shorter than me by the way. — Name and address withheld A. Virtually all nice men are shy of making passes and will do so only if certain that there is no risk of rebuff. Look for a (short) play or concert local to your meeting, ideally in a small pop-up venue.

Sometimes I sit my nieces down and treat them to tales of dating in the dark ages, before iPhones arrived to save teenkind. Poor nieces. Though they scuff their Uggs on the carpet and stare longingly at the door, I carry on. When I was your age, I say, we had no access to boys. Those of us at mixed schools had a few limp options, and the rest relied on miracles: a hottie met by chance on holiday; a friend’s brother’s friend. There was no social media, no looking someone up, so unless you bagged your hottie sharpish he vanished. Boys surfaced like rare sea-mammals for single sightings before sinking back into the fathomless unknown. No googling! Can you believe it, nieces? They can’t. They’re the Snapchat generation, born as the century turned.

There was once a time when finding a twenty-something on a dating site was as rare as finding a pensioner in a branch of a Hollywood Bowl. Having an online dating profile was a last-ditch attempt at love reserved only for those intent on finding a long-term partner. Match.com, E Harmony, Guardian Soulmates; the clue was in the name. An earnest, humourless amalgamation of abstract nouns promising everlasting love. They were websites that boasted of their high marriage rates and whose users all listed 'the great outdoors' as a hobby. Dating sites were not entered into lightly.