Where does the time go?

So the Sunday evening date was, well, easy. Like having a drink with a friend. Relaxed, funny. Interesting guy. I can see I run the risk of being too laid back about dating: I should be worrying about more than my shoe choice for the evening ahead. A healthy dose of trepidation/ anticipation is necessary to keep me on my toes, I think. Tomorrow I have a dinner date (with the charming guy from last week) in the West Village, although I’m starting to wonder from where I will carve out the time.

Suddenly we are half way through March, I leave for LAX in exactly two weeks and there is so much for me to do that my head is spinning. I think I’m going to have to go cold turkey from Twitter & Bloglines for a few days if I am to have any hope of getting up to speed.

I have to burrow through my storage container for my summer clothes to sort & wash, finish a draft of the first four chapters of my novel, lose ten lbs, get a mani/pedi, earn some money, and tie up all my writing commissions for California. (No, I’m not just lotos eating for a month on the West Coast, I’ll be wearing my journalist’s hat for a fair part of the trip. Need any stories from CA? I'm your gal. Email me!)

I have at least booked a one way flight to Los Angeles, ($128!), and reserved a car for an initial month. My itinerary is both set & fluid enough for me to feel relaxed about my plans out there. I have a few chunks of time with no plans or places to stay, but I can’t get that over-excited about it: things always work out, and there is so much to explore. I keep pulling up maps of California & Nevada on my laptop and gloating to myself. Death Valley! Joshua Tree! Canyons! The Getty Center! Redwoods! Hot springs! Frank Gehry!

I am seriously considering extending my trip to spend the first fortnight of May in Los Angeles and have been scanning Craigslist for a suitable sublet/house sitting gig/god knows what. It’s tricky tho when I have only the broadest brush stroke sense of LA’s geography. Still, I guess I’ll have more of an idea once I get there and if the worst comes to the worst, there’s a sofabed with my name on it in the house of one of my best friends from school. (I know I could start harassing friends of friends to put me up but, even after two years in Manhattan, I am way, way too English to go down that route.)

Sunday night dating

It has been forcefully pointed out to me that the reason that so many of my dates do not work out is because I am dating guys who have approached me, rather than the other way round. I trot off to the dates intrigued but not excited and with little or no expectation of anything clicking. After all, it is their interest which is driving the date, not my own, so it’s no surprise that I feel little or no investment in the process and am usually disappointed romantically, however much I enjoy their company.

I, like most women on-line dating, receive so many emails that it’s just simpler to engage with the already interested. In addition, I very rarely find profiles when I browse that interest me and, if I were to be brutally honest, the very, very few men I have reached out to have not got back to me bar one or two. So, I take the passive route.

Anyway, browsing away on-line for odd usernames for a previous blog post whilst watching CSI the other night, a photo jumped out at me. Good looking man, witty, engaging profile, compatible job, right age and lots of similar interests. This probably happens once every two months. So I emailed him, with absolutely no expectation of hearing from him.

And then he emailed me back. So far, so good: can spell, is funny, likes jumping around at gigs. Still, although I pretty much like what I’ve seen so far, I am finding it hard to summon up any enthusiasm. I think I am just so jaded by dating men who don’t interest me that the whole process has lost its sparkle.

But I am trying hard to engage.The bar he has suggested for our date tonight is a particular favourite, and I like Sunday evening as there’s no pressure to truss myself up like a Christmas turkey. My main dilemma right now is trivial in the extreme: 90% of my clothing is in storage so outfit choices are limited. I’ll prob wear my leather biker jacket with a little dress & Wolfords underneath and a huge knitted cashmere scarf wrapped over all.

But: shoes? Heels feel over the top (I only have leopard print, platform strappy suede things, suede & patent ankle boots (maybe?) or Azagury suede courts (too grown up) and flats are either MBTs (yeah, right), Minnetonka moccasins (def not ), ballerines (too fey), or 3cm heel thigh high black suede boots which I adore but maybe a little risqué for a Sunday night…(they did go down EXTREMELY well on a date last week tho). Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Dating post mortem

Well, what a turn up for the books. After gibbering away on Twitter all afternoon about my lack of sleep the night before (insomnia not partying) and subsequent drained Skin of Death, I was persuaded not to cancel the date and to turn to expensive face cream, Champagne and good old Blitz Spirit to get me there. India had pointed out quite rightly that often one enjoys most the events that one was most tempted to scratch and, in this case, she was absolutely correct.

After raiding the beauty bucket under the bed (I’m not an ex-beauty ed for nothing), I resorted to a killer combination of Sisley Eclat Tenseur, Clarins Beauty Flash Balm and MAC Strobe Cream under my RMK Foundation, which managed to raise the morgue like pallor of my skin to something approximating a youthful glow. I eschewed the Champagne for a reviving pot of Earl Grey and hopped it to the date feeling that I was, at the very least, earning dating karma points for Making An Effort and Showing Willing.

This time the date looked exactly like his photographs (very good looking in a sort of clean cut, actor-y way; not my type but appealing nonetheless), was not a midget, made me laugh & did not overstay his welcome. And, even more impressive, emailed within a few hours to ask me out for dinner. Of course I am ridiculously flattered by this and am going to say yes without having to resort to an opinion poll.

My Manhattan Dating Odyssey Continues.

Od⋅ys⋅sey
   /ˈɒdəsi/ –noun, plural -seys for 2.
1. (italics) an epic poem attributed to Homer, describing Odysseus's adventures in his ten-year attempt to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
2. (often lowercase) a long series of wanderings or adventures, esp. when filled with notable experiences, hardships, etc.

I did go on a second date with the unappealing man. I weighed up all your opinions and came to the conclusion that everyone deserves a second chance. But, to all those who said I was bonkers even considering it as he sounded so boorish, you were indeed correct as to our incompatibility.

We met at eight for supper, and were done by nine thirty as the tumbleweeds of our conversation gently rolled off into the dark. I don't flatter myself: I suspect we were equally unentranced. Still, the food was excellent, I was home in time to watch CSI, and had proved a point to myself: don’t flog a dating dead horse.

I have my fifth date of the year tomorrow with a man about whom I know very little, apart from an amusing online dating profile and his age (45). He has plenty of full face photographs, is over 6ft (rare in this town of vertically challenged men) and can spell. I feel that this is plenty to be going on with. We are meeting for coffee, mid-afternoon, short & sweet. We can size each other up and go our separate ways with no danger of either of us over-staying our welcome.

Dating travails part three hundred

I make no secret of the fact that I use an on-line dating site here in New York. After all, it's not as if I’m ever going to meet an eligible man in the fashion world. When I’m browsing through the site, the usernames make me hoot with laughter. My personal favourite (filed under Not Necessarily Alluring But Damn Funny) is SarcasticJerk. But he has nothing on the following list of usernames:

Swordsman
Jestermike
Monkeyclumps
Mannyloco
Holdenkawfield
Linguistacunning
Flybynight
Sexyluvcharmer
Divvo

Surely they can’t believe these are going to snag them the woman of their dreams, let alone the shag of their dreams? Which of the above do you think wins the Least Likely To Snag The Girl prize?

My dating life. Your opinions, please

My oh so charming companion of Friday night has SMS’d asking to see me again this week. I usually never do this, working on the theory that if I don’t fancy them and am pretty sure I don’t like them, then what would be the point?

However.

Continually unattracted to the men I meet, I write off every single first date I go on. My mother keeps banging on at me about always going on a second date if asked.("Darling they might have nice friends, they may just have been really nervous or maybe they are good work contacts".) And maybe she has a point. Perhaps I should just go on second dates, if asked, as a general policy, instead of always skating briefly across the surface of people's lives.

On the flip side, I hate the idea of leading on anyone who is vulnerable. I wouldn't want it done to me.

But are second dates, rather than the initial blind meeting, where the real decisions to move forward are made? And so therefore no one would be that annoyed if I then decided they weren't a runner? Growing up in a country where dating doesn't really exist means this whole game is still pretty confusing to me.

Therefore, although I’m convinced of his complete unsuitability, I am kind of tempted to meet him again to initiate a new policy of always going on second dates.

What do you think?

Friday Night Dating

I do date here. Not with any real hope of it leading to anything but because if I don’t it seems like a cop out. And I rather like the ritual of dressing up – and you really can dress up here & look totally congruous, as opposed to London, where if I turned up to the Lansdowne or the Engineer in a cocktail frock, my date would run a mile.

This brings me to Friday night’s date. Blind, of course, as I am still signed up to my on-line dating service. I arranged to meet him at Soho House. Really, truly, comprehensively lazy of me: it’s a mere two blocks from my front door. Thing is the date called, catching me on the hop and, as I’ve just moved to this bit of town, I can never think of bars in which to meet. I just blurted SH out as a last resort.

He had only had a couple of pictures posted, and his main profile picture was him in Wayfarers, a leather cowboy hat and a gingham shirt. He was 38, had dark auburn hair, stubble and reminded me a bit of Damien Hirst (in a good way). His emails were quite funny, he knew England well and there was enough to risk a drink.

When I arrived I couldn’t find him.

There was however a middle aged man with stringy wavy pale ginger hair, a crap suit and a skew-whiff tie loosely knotted around his neck in the manner of a sales manager after a few after-work drinks. Yup, that was my date. He was so far from what I was expecting that I just plumped myself down, flustered. I’ve been on a lot of blind dates and he is the first on either side of the Atlantic that has been so markedly different from his images.

In my head I was meeting a downtown type (from his photos, & because his profile said that’s where he liked to hang). In reality he was an Uptown type who liked slumming it Downtown. Not the same thing At All. He wasn’t unpleasant, just rather brayingly entitled, reeking of trust fund-ery*, and it grated.

As I sat, I noticed he had both a large glass of red wine and what I thought was a glass of water in front of him. It turned out to be vodka. In under an hour he put away two double vodkas and the wine. Even by lax English drinking standards, I think that’s excessive. By American standards that makes him an alcoholic.

I was supposed to be meeting JK there at 745 for supper before the movies but I could tell that he was the type who would just end up trying to join us, and I’m too English/repressed to successfuly wriggle out of that. So I started to get my stuff together, expecting him to call for the check. He just sat and sat. As he was quite trad, I presumed he was waiting for me to leave, so he could call for the check and then leave himself.

I said goodbye, planning to go to the loo, and then sneak back in again. Peeking through the glass wall ten minutes later, I was horrified to see him that he had moved seats to face the room, was ordering more drinks and settling in for the night. What a feckin cheek: it’s a private member’s club – as my guest he must have known he was expected to leave with me, but he was so bloody entitled he just decided to stay, spread out on the banquette like the King of the World whilst he had the opportunity. Sabotaging my evening. Grr.

Shan’t be seeing him again.

*I'm not engaged in hunting down a meal ticket, now or for life, so this is not a plus in my book.

How I'm avoiding Valentine's Day

So. Dating. As I explained a few weeks ago, I’m still not entirely sure if I’m into the whole relationship thing. Of course this could just be because it’s so long since I met anyone for whom I felt even the vaguest spark of well, anything at all. Maybe if I was continually meeting men who interested me physically I’d be all over dating.

Still, I persevere. At the very least it’s amusing. At best I’m meeting people with whom I like hanging out. The night Mrs. Mad rolled into town I took her for an early supper in the West Village (we went to The Other Place as everywhere else we tried was full – it was Not Good At All), tucked her up in bed, and hopped it to a blind date down the road at 930pm, promising I’d be back in an hour or so.

Me & my good intentions. After two margaritas with a most amusing Scottish gentleman, I rocked up back home at midnight. Next day I got an email suggesting hanging out in the future. Fine by me: There was no romance a-burning from what I cld deduce. Most importantly, I have been so successful in my American integration that I have precisely two British friends left in Manhattan and I need to replenish stocks. (It’s important to have people in one’s life who understand phrases like ‘bun fight’, ‘dog’s dinner’ or ‘mad as a box of frogs’.)

So it’s Fight Night tomorrow and we have what I would describe as an anti-date. We are avoiding all places that are pink cupid strewn, and/or dark & romantic and heading to a cellar to drink sake instead. I’ve made him promise to hoick me back up if I fall off my bar stool in a sake stupor and he has vaguely threatened to pin a pink bow in my hair when I’m not looking.

Blessing counting

There is one blessing I am counting right now, through my waves of misery & torpor. My younger cousin S gave birth safely to baby Matilda on Sunday, the first infant of our generation. When I was attic rummaging at home, I dug out the wonderful flowery cotton sundresses with smocked fronts that our shared grandmother made for me when I was a baby, and who S never met. I had been saving them for my, hmm, mythical baby, but I'd much rather Matilda wore them. After all, I can always reclaim them if and when.

And, frankly, Little Sister & I are extremely grateful to S for taking off the pressure with Muv who has been known to warble about the lack of grandchildren. She is itching to get stuck in with Matilda.

Although Muv hasn't quite lost hope: I don't think it any mistake that the two English newspapers that she left behind last week both contained huge flagship features on How To Meet A Man. I wouldn't have minded quite so much if the articles weren't about dating when over FORTY. A birthday I assure you, gentle reader, that is quite some way off.

On-line dating in Manhattan...the story continues...

As my old readers know, I believe the stigma that surrounds on-line dating is properly outdated. (Hello mother.)I In a city of single people, perversely it seems harder to meet men, so I'm a big fan of any dating method that means I don't have to catch the eyes of random punters in bars. I have a built in embarrassment meter that goes off the moment I see someone looking at me and, instead of tossing my hair, meeting their gaze and smiling back, I just sort of shuffle, go red, look at my feet, stare at the wall, anywhere except at them and then continually bewail to my girlfriends that no one ever asks for my number.

My other problem in this city is that it seems almost impossible to make male friends. I love my boys in London, and miss them quite extraordinarily. J, C & N are all in long term relationships now, but we’ve been friends since school or university and their girlfriends, wives etc have never been bothered if we want to go down the pub, or have dinner together. Here it’s just not the same. Women seem to get quite cross if you so much as say hello to their partners. It drives me bonkers. After all, I’m hardly likely to jump their (frequently unattractive) catches in the middle of the dance floor. And single men seem generally just to be on the pull here rather than looking for female friends.

So, back to on-line dating. God I've met some shockers here. And, equally, I suspect there's one guy, R, out there who uses me as his on-line dating horror story - I'll divulge at a later date. But, if truth be told, the older I get, the more I wonder if I’m really cut out for being in a proper relationship. Serial dating seems like a convenient bulwark against other people’s expectations that I should be in a relationship, and means I can pretend to myself I am making an effort in that direction, whilst never really having to follow through. And, best of all, it’s a great way to audition men for friendship. Case in point: the first man I ever met on a blind date, The Barrister, is now one of my greatest friends. (And he has a fabulous girlfriend now. In fact they are both on holiday in NY, staying in my apartment.)

Speaking of friendship, I’ve had two on-line dates this week, both bizarrely with men who gave up careers in their thirties to go back to school to train in the same profession. There’s a lot of coincidence in the on-line dating world. X & I closed down the West Village restaurant bar in which we were drinking on Tuesday night. Really great company, funny & smart but none of that elusive sparky attraction between us as far as I could discern. I'd like to be friends.

K, on the other hand, tonight, had shocking halitosis which rather coloured my opinion of him as I could hardly bear to look him full in the face. However, halitosis, or not, he was perfectly pleasant but there was zero connection, nothing at all on any level. The entire date felt like treading water until I'd gladly finished my sole glass of wine and hopped it.

I've emailed X to suggest meeting again, and I'd better come clean about my lack of romantic interest, altho I'm pretty sure it's mutual. I shall not be contacting halitosis boy.

My dating odyssey continues...

I'm not sure what I can add to the following email I received from a 28 yr old guy in Connecticut through my on-line dating service.

"I want you to be completely honest...

I have a serious question for you:

I wonder if you can imagine everything it might mean to you, when you're with a guy, and this guy knows you so completely, and is so strong, so capable, so loving, that you absolutely trust him to take care of your happiness for the rest of your life, knowing that your trust is well-founded, and fall so deeply, hopelessly, helplessly in love with him that you just give yourself to him completely, and you know you'll do absolutely anything he asks you to, just to please him.

Have you had this yet?

I will be in your area as of January 01..."

Dating option number three. Round two

I’ve complained before that online dating in America is a minefield. America may be the land of the free, but it’s also the land of the free to lie about your height, weight, looks, career. Most people I meet, with just one exception so far, are fatter, older, shorter, less shiny, less sparkly versions of their on-line personas. I never had this problem in London. I mainly used a site called loveandfriends.com, and every person I met was exactly what I expecting. I made some great friends and always enjoyed the experiences.

My theory is that it's much, much easier to meet people in person when you're out & about in New York than it is in London, where asking random people out is still not the norm. Therefore the people on-line dating in London are more normal, whereas the ones on-line here in Manhattan are often the ones who really find it a challenge to meet dates in the real world. (Plus, of course, out of towners, and shy people.)

The only person I’ve met in New York who didn’t enhance their profile was S, the guy I dated last summer, who didn’t actually write a profile. He just filled his on-line form with non-sequitors and bonkers-ness, his theory being you’d either get it. Or you wouldn’t. And he was exactly what I was expected: sexy, intelligent, amusing, leftfield.

So to dating option number three. So, recap, we never made it on our first date as my friend X ended up in hospital. He then went on holiday for two weeks. Monday afternoon we emailed & he suggesting meeting that evening on his way home from work. That gave me precisely twenty minutes to get ready and to the subway to meet him.

I’ve never, ever gone out in the evening wearing jeans (well not for since pointy high heels, boot cut jeans, & sparkly tops were the last word in hip, and & that’s a looooong while back), but twenty minutes? Not a lot of time for putting together a hot date outfit. So laundry day meant jeans, loose navy cotton dobby top, gold chains, beige suede wedge platforms were just going to have to do.

I saw him from across the street and just thought, yup, another one. Short, plump, geeky. He was kind and sweet, a perfectly pleasant guy with whom to have an early evening drink, but dynamism wasn’t his outstanding characteristic. If we hadn’t had our professions in common, there would have been little to talk about.

He chose a bar round the corner, which is where the evening became more memorable. The guy sitting just inside the door turned out to be a guy from a magazine called ooh, let’s call it Bonfire, with whom I went on a blind date last spring. Of all the bars in Manhattan…

Two days before my date with Bonfire guy, I had been invited to a Bonfire party at Barney’s. I hadn’t wanted to mention it to Bonfire guy in case he hadn’t been invited (magazines don’t always invite all their editors to see & be seen dos) & I didn’t want to embarrass him or be seen to be showing off

Turns out I needn't have been so thoughtful of his feelings as he was all about the showing off, as he was exceptionally pleased with himself for working at Bonfire. (He'd mentioned it in his very first email to me. I never tell people my name or who I work for.) Anyway he was there at the party, & we both recognized each other. The first question he asked me was why I was there. Because I was invited, I replied.

Fast forward to our date. Two minutes in he started heavily interrogating me as to why I was at the party, & who I knew to get invited. This really, really pissed me off. I really didn’t see why I had to play that game. Friendship or relationships should be based on chemistry & compatibility not social usefulness. Anyway, eventually I just cut it off with a raised eyebrow and an ironic ‘because I’m just very, very important’. He let it drop. We sat & chatted and went our separate ways.

We’ve had no contact since but what made me chuckle was that he was obviously on a blind date too. And whenever he thought I was looking over at him, he started leaning into to her across the table, and then relaxing back when he thought our attention had strayed. I’m afraid I ignored him. Very mature, LLG.

Dating Option Number Three

DN3 has invited me to play Connect Four tomorrow, so I've picked a bar Downtown. I'm slightly regretting arranging to meet him as I looked at his profile again today and I'm pretty sure I don't fancy him. But he wrote me a brilliant (ie blush makingly complimentary) email, and made me laugh so I over ruled my inner voice and agreed to a date, thinking I should give him - and me - a chance. And maybe I'll make a friend, if not a boyfriend.

Which is more than I'm going to do with the film director who asked me for a drink after a few emails. I replied back suggesting a day & time, and never heard back. Bloody rude. He got back in touch a week later saying could I do the next Friday instead. Obviously I ignored it: we're all busy but courtesy doesn't take much time, & if he can't even be bothered to email to reschedule because he's busy it doesn't bode well. The penny has obviously dropped as he emailed again to finally apologise for virtually standing me up, asked me out a third time and then started talking about interviews I'd done recently.

Except I've never told him my surname or who I write for, bar that I broadcast for the BBC. He's obviously done a comprehensive Google & Lexus Nexus search on me. Creepy.

If someone provides their full name then I think they are fair game for a spot of Googling, but I don't tell people my surname on purpose as I want to preserve some anonymity, and neither do I want people meeting me because they want to network. (It's happened before). Whatever, he's a flake and he's invaded my privacy. Game over mate.

Dating Option Number two

So Dating Option no 2. I left you with me getting tipsy at the Versace party. Only problem was that at 8pm I was due to meet D02. He had suggested PDT, but it's one of my locals, so plumped for Midtown as he worked there and I wld be at Barney’s.

His pick was the bar at Quality Meats. Controversial choice of venue to take a vegetarian (it's listed on my dating profile). For all he knew I cld have been a militant vegan - had he bothered to check. Turns out it's below his office. Nice of you to make a real effort there mate.

Still, I'm always interested to see inside restaurants, and this one is designed by AvroKo, New York's restaurant design mavens. Cool.

I called from Barney’s as arranged, giving myself five minutes to get to the bar. I didn't cover myself in glory by turning up a good ten minutes later: I was wearing four inch black patent heels, and a tight black leather pencil skirt so I wasn't moving fast, plus I took a few minutes to sit on a bench in the square outside The Plaza, surrounded by the lit up skyscrapers to have an, ‘Oh my God, I’m in New York’ moment. Yup. I was definitely quite tipsy. Late & tipsy. My bad.

First impressions: Propped against a pillar, suit, open shirt, nursing a straight shot of whisky, he actually looked like his photo, which is always a good start.

The date wasn’t exactly bad (like this one), & he was reasonably interesting but there no spark whatsoever. However, I’d sum it up as a long series of textbook how not to impress a girl moments. But then maybe he wasn’t trying to.

Took him five minutes to offer me a drink. I asked for water. He called me a cheap date. He spent the next ten minutes eyeballing my body. Must have scanned every inch, with particular, loving attention paid to my breasts.

My feet were killing me, so I suggested we sit. He ineffectually gazed around, so eventually I went off to find us a banquette. When he called the waitress over to order another a drink, he didn’t ask or offer me anything. I had to call her back.

We talked easily, but he was a bit shouty so I found it difficult to concentrate and my attention was wandering. I was suddenly sober, starving, & wondering when it would be polite to leave. As I was thinking greedily of a burrito on the way home, he suddenly said he was extremely hungry, & suggested supper. I had thought maybe he was uninterested/wanted to go home too, (the stunningly ineffectual behaviour), but obviously not. So, I think what the hell, might as well have some food here as anywhere. He calls for menus at the low bar table where we are sitting and, after staring at the carte he says, so expensive, but hey. And I’m thinking: you know the venue well, love. It can’t be a surprise to you.

Surprisingly, the menu is great for vegetarians. I mull over corn crème brûlé, cheese gnocchi and cipollini onions. He orders a $40 hunk of filet and I go for the mushroom pot pie from the $10 New Classics list, with a side of very good sautéed spinach. The mushroom filling is delicious, heavily enriched with cream, but the puff pastry lid is obviously pre-made and just attached for warming through. He hasn’t bothered to order any sides so eats half my food too.

When the check comes, I do the intention reach – the one where I lean for my handbag but don’t really expect him to take me up on it, (he chose a very expensive restaurant to meet in, suggested we eat there, and his share of the check was at least four times my own) when he comes up with a real winning statement, “Of course I’ll get this: unless you have an expense account too?”

Needless to say, there will be no second date.

Dating Option Number two

I am meeting Dating Option number two, a property business bloke, tomorrow. (I realised that the fact that I let DO One's enthusiastic follow up call go to voicemail, and then took six hrs to text him back meant I wasn't enormously enagaged with the idea of a return match. Great company but I don't think I fancy him. Not that he's followed through on asking me out again yet.)

I'm off to Barney's in the evening to meet the bling-tastic Donatella at a cocktail Howard Sogol is throwing to launch Versace Menswear in the store. BA is my date so that we can view the eye candy together (although we fully accept that most of it will be gay).

DO Two is meeting me for a cocktail afterwards. For, as my (male) friend L so memorably put it tonight, "You don't bring your own food to an open buffet".

On-line dating

So on-line dating does kind of resemble a smorgasbord of men. I lack the energy to trawl through the site I'm on, so my MO is simply to post a profile, and then sit back and see who comes to visit. I've been inundated with winks & emails this week, and now I'm weeding out the nutters, vertically challenged, perverted, geriatric, tantrically inclined and hippy from the possibly eligibles.

After all on-line dating is about dating by specifics, not about giving people you wldn't normally date a chance. Plus at my advanced age, I know that I find a very specific type of man sexually attractive in the real world, and I doubt my taste is going to change any time soon.

My personal preferences are for height - 5'8" & above only, (I'm 5'10" in heels, & looking down at the top of someone's head is not a personal turn on), build - preferably skinny (I grew up with a picture of Morrissey on my wall), no students, slackers or indigents (I've subbed one too many boyfriends in my time), no Paulo Coelho readers (get a life), no pictures in a car or on a motorcycle (so you have a tiny penis then), and an ability to construct a sentence (so you're not illiterate then).

And any man who writes an email which says, "Look at my profile. If you like what you see, write back", gets null points for effort.

Blind date no 1: The report

The date was completed with minimal embarrassment (apart from the bit where I got lost looking for the sodding bar - when you come out of subways here it is often impossible to work out which way is north and I always feel emminently muggable if I ask random strangers. After all, my accent is very English and I'm generally dressed up, rather than blending in.) Anyway, he came to find me on the Greenpoint street corner on which I was trying not to solicit business. Was so pleased to see that the leather jacket with zips and tassels he had told me to look for had been a joke, that I didn't really take in much bar the fact that he passed the not-looking-like-an-axe-murderer test.

Since I was ill at Christmas I seem to have lost my previous meagre immunity to alcohol. One round can get me giggly, and I always get a hangover. Very tedious. Still, I managed not to make a complete prat of myself over two glasses of merlot, and we wandered off (me trying to avoid tripping over the cracked pavements in my platformed heels) to eat at Paloma . (I had to agree to supper. I was going to fall asleep on the subway home otherwise).

Greenpoint isn't exactly the most bustling part of Brooklyn, and the restaurant is on a desolate, post-industrial street. It looks shut - until you push open a huge wooden door, to find a concrete floored, high ceilinged space with splashy artworks, skinny jeaned youth, DJ decks and The Smiths on the sound system.

The menu is an interesting read, with lots of seasonal, market driven dishes, mixed with standard bistro grub (skirt steak, fries, roast chicken, pork chops), poncily billing itself as 'American Nouveau' but which is, frankly, standard simple modern English/American - delete as applicable.

I had a distinctly under-whelming three vegetable plate ($14). A heap of unseasoned crescents of roasted squash and one (one!) very infant beet just weren't good enough, but the plate was redeemed by the only edible treatment of Brussels sprouts on record; shredded and mixed with roasted garlic cloves, they avoided the more traditional budgie head appearance and sulphorous reek. The acompanying dish of crispy white beans was exceptional, with canellini beans braised with lettuce and then fried, notable as much for the combination of wet & dry textures as the taste. My main gripe: I do wish self consciously cool restaurants would stop trying to be clever for the sake of it and just serve normal fries or even home made chunky ones, rather than ones with the skin on, which just makes them chewy & flabby and not at all moreish. Although I still ate most of the bowl. I blame the alcohol.

We walked companionably arm in arm in the freezing rain to the subway round 2330hrs. Four hours without annoying the beejesus out of each other is as much as one can hope from a blind date, and we certainly had plenty to talk about. He's called today to suggest round two. Maybe.

Dressing dilemmas

For a fashion editor, or maybe because I am one, I am mighty indecisive about what to wear. I need to feel comfortable and together before I leave the house, otherwise I twitch all evening, regarding other women who've got it right with envy tinged with a little venom. If I get it right I never think about my outfit again.

I also have a terrible habit of only wearing one or two looks for a month or so, convinced that nothing else in my wardrobe works. Then I get bored and start putting together the next great go anywhere outfit.

At the moment I'm wedded to very, very short, cuffed hem flannel shorts from Gap of all places, in charcoal grey & in black. I wear the grey ones with patent platform Mary Janes in burgundy with paler grey wool Levante tights and an oversized grey/blue cashmere V neck cardi, or purple tights and the same shoes in French Navy, with a poloka dot chiffon blouse underneath the cardi. The black ones go with opaque black Wolfords, black suede & patent ankle boots and an oversized tux.

I have a date tonight, so I'm thinking the grey shorts - lots & lots of leg, but minimal cleavage (I have a lot going on up there, so even a peek is an eyeful). Only thing is that I have a plan B lined up for tonight if I get to the point where I wld rather stick pins in my eyes from boredom/horror/disgust than stay a moment longer on the date: the Whitney Biennial and a drink after at The Carlyle with my girlfriends. This outing requires less sassy and more sexy, ideally a cocktail frock & stilettos. I suppose I cld shove the frock & heels in a bag just in case, but it's a right pain to have to lug a spare outfit around with me.

Goodness, dating is complicated.

The distance I'll travel for a date...even to Greenpoint

My Friday date emailed to ask if I wanted him to meet me at Bedford Avenue so he could walk me to the bar, to avoid making a change on the subway. I pointed out that I am from London, where ANY journey takes a minimum of 50 minutes and will doubtless employ a 15 minute walk, a bus, three tubes and a rainstorm to get anywhere.

I think I can probably cope with a journey consisting of a mere four stops and one change. (Although charming & thoughtful of him to consider it a trek.) Although as I am leaving Manhattan, & crossing the East River to get to Greenpoint, I shall be packing a compass, iron rations and spare flat shoes just in case.

Taking the dating plunge

New York may be the dating capital of America, but it tends to pass me by as I am truly useless at flirting with random men and making eye contact is not an art I've ever mastered. Generally I just look scary and unapproachable when I'm out & about, or so I've been told one too many times for my liking, (actually I'm just shy & embarrassed), so at the weekend I signed up for an on-line dating site here in New York. I figure that at the worst I'll get good copy, at best - well, watch this space...

The drawback: I'm paranoid about being recognised. This is not a faint possibility. Through looking at male profiles I have already discovered why my mate X always seem to be going on dates ("I met this smashing bird on the subway". Yeah right. That'll be the on-line subway then), and been emailed today by a man I last saw wearing lederhosen & trying to proposition my girlfriend in a legendarily slimy manner at the Soho House Hallowe'en party. I can't work out if I am offended or relieved that he didn't recognise me.

I have my first date on Friday with a TV news journalist who seems relatively normal. He's suggested a bar with fireplaces & board games in Greenpoint (Brooklyn). Sounds promising: I like this game idea - if he's a 'mare I can just concentrate on thrashing him at Scrabble, & that should ensure I never hear from him again. (Such an optimist, me.)