Yesterday I found a brilliant (read: not brilliant) article on HuffPo giving dating advice to women. You all know how much I love (read: don’t love) both HuffPo and ill-thought-out dating articles. You know the ones –  they all seem to be entitled ‘Top 10 tips for women dating’, or ‘Top 5 ways to impress a lady if you’re a man’, or occasionally even ‘Top 10 search-engine-optimised sex manoevres with which to confuse your partner.’

These articles are clearly bloody difficult to write, and the writers frequently fall into a number of traps. To prevent this happening again, and causing me to spit cider over my phone and exclaim “WHAT?! You want me to do WHAT on a first date, HuffPo?!” I have written a guide for dating writers:

Top 5 tips for writing a top 10 dating tips article

1. Try to avoid assuming we’re all stupid. Tips such as ‘post a recent photo on the dating website’ and ‘don’t play with your iPhone during the date’ rest on the rather gargantuan assumption that your readers are a herd of cackling incompetents. You might as well tell us to not to punch the waiter, or ensure we turn up wearing shoes.

2. Before you set pen to paper, try your hand at some research. If that is too tricky, why not simply haul yourself outside for five minutes and meet a real human? This might prevent you from giving tips in which you make gargantuan, sweeping proclamations about the behaviour of the entire species. Clangers such as: ‘if you’re looking to hook up on a first date, that’s fine. Just don’t expect this to lead to a real relationship’ can be easily avoided by speaking to one of the countless thousands of people who have done exactly that.

3. When editing your tips, read them with the eye of someone compiling a 1950’s guide on how to be a Good Heterosexual Partner. Tips such as ‘if you want an over 50’s man in your life, you’d better give him the ability to feel needed by taking care of things for you’ will no doubt have that particular editor smiling with delight. This is a sign that you should cut them. Immediately.

4. Consider whether your advice applies to everyone, or just to you. Advice like ‘don’t wear flattering underwear’ or ‘don’t try to suggest changes to your partner’ only apply to a very specific subset of people – the sort of people who wear flattering underwear, for instance. Or the sort of poisonous critics who are likely to explain – on a first date, no less – exactly which things their potential partner might need to change about themselves. I don’t know any of these people myself, but if you’re writing this tip down, you are probably one of them.

5. Remember that dating is neither a war nor a job interview. When I read these articles there’s an overwhelming sense that the sole purpose of going on a date is for the person you’re dating to accept you. As if the best possible thing that can happen is that they don either a Donald Trump hairpiece or an Alan Sugar beard and magnanimously announce that ‘you’re hired!’

Dating tips writers – I appreciate that on the surface your job might appear to be one of a coach – cheering your team on until they win a shiny prize, and ensnare the man or woman they’re meeting. But actually your role is far more important than that: you’re there to help people have successful dates. By encouraging people to think only about whether they’ll be accepted by their partner, you miss out the rather crucial point that they need to accept their partner too.

Every minute they spend worrying about whether their underwear is too flattering or whether they’re making their date feel ‘needed’ enough is a minute not spent finding out whether the person they’re dating is actually someone they’re interested in.

My top dating tips

1. Talk to your date

2. Listen to your date

3. Decide whether you like them

4. Find out whether they like you

5. If, by the end of the date, you know the answer to both 3 + 4, then no matter what the answers are, you’ve had a successful date.

UPDATE March 2016: if you enjoyed this extract check out my new book – How A Bad Girl Fell In Love. 

I’m not very well today. Thumping headaches do not make great blog posts, and I’m feeling about as sexy as a box of rocks. So instead of a blog post, here’s an extract from my book. If you like it, you can buy it from a variety of good internet bookshops. If you’ve already read it, please do review it on Amazon. For reasons I am slightly hazy on, this is important.

Dear all the men on the internet: you complete me

I was recently singled out at a comedy night, during that part of the show where the compère chats to audience members in order to make hilarious jokes about their lives. He asked how long I’d been with the boy next to me, and where we initially met.

‘On the internet,’ I replied, and the audience pissed themselves laughing.

How quaint. I felt like turning round to them and asking just which century they were living in. Perhaps people’s squeamishness about internet dating is a hangover from a time when, in the infancy of the internet, those brave enough to use it to meet potential partners were people of a slightly pervy persuasion, who’d find it hard to meet a match anywhere else. For these people, patiently waiting for a dial-up connection seemed a hell of a lot easier than polling everyone in their local pub to find out who had a matching balloon fetish. But internet dating, while perhaps a novelty ten years ago, is now not only an acceptable way to meet someone but a borderline necessity, especially in a city like London where people you meet on the street are as likely to spit on you as chat you up. Laughing at someone for meeting their squeeze online is like laughing at commuters who trust the mysterious forces that power tube trains, or refusing to visit a doctor in case they might be a witch.

Where else does one possibly meet people? There’s work, I guess, but the idea of having loud, angry, jizz-dripping sex with a colleague then subsequently having to take them seriously in meetings brings me out in a cold sweat. What’s more, you can never quite guarantee that when you break up with each other—as you almost inevitably will—they won’t go showing Dave in IT those photos you took in the bathroom.

How about on the way to or from work? After all, American sitcoms are teeming with people who are willing to stride nonchalantly up to an attractive stranger and ask them for coffee. It’s something I’ve considered before, particularly when there’s been a guy on the tube wearing a tight t-shirt and sporting tattoos that I just want to lick. But this sort of behaviour will probably have to remain in America, at least until we have a huge cultural revolution. Approaching an English person on public transport is not the best way to kick-start a sexual relationship: they assume you’ll either rob them or introduce them to Christ.

So how about a pub? English people are at their most gregarious and cheerful when ever so slightly pissed. But unfortunately with drunkenness comes a serious lack of coordination, making even the most graceful people look like clumsy chimps. More importantly, being drunk affects your own judgement, making you more likely to cop off with people your sober self wouldn’t look twice at. I’ve attempted pub chat-ups before, but the vast majority of them have ended either in someone backing away, terrified, as I regale them with tales of my previous fucks, or red in the face as I rail at them having realised that the Man of My Dreams is vaguely pretentious, worryingly rude or, on one notable occasion, racist.

Nightclubs are barely worth mentioning: the possibility that you’ll accidentally screw a bigot is much higher, given that you are unable to hear a bloody word anyone’s saying. Moreover, the only nightclub approaches I’ve witnessed have involved one person dancing seductively towards another and attempting to rub their genitals on their leg. This is exactly as sexy as it sounds, i.e.: not.

So where else but the internet? The internet is by far and away the best place to locate people who seem like your type. What’s more, it’s useful for screening out those who definitely aren’t your type, those who’d either annoy or terrify you. No more bombshells at 2 a.m., when you’ve been chatting up what seems like a hot person for an hour only to hear them say, ‘I actually find sex hotter when neither of us orgasms.’ Or ‘You know, I think it’s important that the man retains the role as head of the household,’ or even ‘You know, you’d be really pretty if you lost a bit of weight.’

You can cull people without having to go through the tedium of an initial conversation. Did you shorten ‘your’ to ‘ur’? We’re probably not going to get on. Listed ‘clubbing’ as one of your hobbies? No thanks. Included a hilarious joke about how ‘fat chicks need not apply’? Even if I’m not having a fat day, you’re definitely on the ‘no’ list. Sure, I’ve probably ended up ditching a few potential partners with whom things could have worked out, but there’s nothing like a search list full of new opportunities to make one realise that there are plenty more hot nerdy guys in the sea.

And, of course, the same is true from their point of view as well. No man I meet online need worry about whether I’m too tall, too loud, or, as one guy rather excellently put it, too ‘drinky’—I most definitely am all of those things, and I state it up front in my profile so as to avoid that awkward moment when we meet in a bar and he looks around for a discreet window to escape through.

I’ve always wanted to be good at finding romantic gifts. Small yet exquisitely formed tokens of affection that have my other half either weeping with joy or laughing in ecstatic delight.

But unfortunately, I suck. I umm and err if I have to buy a guy a birthday present, caught between something expensive, tasteful and brilliant and something expensive, rubbish, but hilarious.

In the end I usually end up declaring my romantic intentions via the means of drunk text messages or half-formed sonnets written in fridge magnets. But still. Very very occasionally I’ve bought, made or done things that have had the desired effect. Here are the top five romantic gifts that I have generously bestowed upon gentlemen I have known:

A blue rose

We’d had a row about whether or not blue roses existed. So, when I spent ages hunting down a blue rose, and triumphantly presenting it to him, it had the benefit that it was not only pretty cool-looking and unique, but it also harked back to a shared in-joke. If I hadn’t handed it to him while shouting “HA! In your FACE, Mr WRONG” it might well have got me laid.

A week later, as the water in the vase started to turn blue as well, I got the sneaking suspicion I’d been had.

A hand-drawn cartoon card

This one was FUCKING AMAZING, OK? Just, honestly. Ignore the fact that I draw about as well as a dog licking an inkwell. Forget that I had essentially drawn pictures of the two of us engaged in one of our numerous fights. It was pretty and big and took time and effort – I’d even coloured it in! And hardly gone over the lines!

Pizza and a blow job

What can I say? Sometimes I’m just a mind reader.

A limerick about his cock

This one actually counts for about fifty, because that is how many limericks I have written about this one boy’s cock. Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships, he has a penis that inspires a thousand poets.

Top tip if you’re thinking of recreating this, though – should you feel inspired to write a birthday limerick about your loved-one’s genitals, be sure to write it somewhere other than in their actual birthday card. Otherwise you might find yourself having to dive across the room to whip it out of his mother’s hands when she loudly exclaims ‘oh, how sweet, do you mind if I read it?’

A games console

Now I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking “hey, Gotn, I thought the message of this blog was going to be about how you don’t have to spend loads of money in order to make romantic gestures!”

Well, you don’t. But that’s not to say that spending money can’t sometimes be a really bloody romantic gesture. Especially if it’s money you don’t really have, that you’re selflessly spending just because the love of your life wants something bizarre and out of your budget range.

The most romantic present I ever gave someone was a games console. Not an Xbox or a Playstation: this was much much better. Months before this boy’s birthday, we’d been watching the shopping channel with friends when an utterly amazing product came on. It was an old-fashioned plug-directly-into-the-telly console that had modern copies of ancient games. Heavily pixellated, retro-awesome tat. Needless to say, he was excited:

“It’s even got a gun! You can do clay pigeon shooting!”
“With blocky, clunky clay pigeons?”
“EXACTLY.”

So. It was settled. I’d save up the pitiful amount of money that I had (I was poor enough at the time that the 40-odd quid this thing cost was a serious budgetary commitment) and ordered one. As his birthday neared, I was quivering with nervous anticipation. I worried that he might hear me whispering the secret in my sleep. Every time he mentioned his birthday, and the fun we were going to have in the evening, I almost exploded with the desire to say “and we can play with your birthday present because it’s AMAZING.”

As the day dawned, I could barely speak for excitement, imagining the look of pure, squirming love on his face as he’d open it, turn to me, and beg me to stay with him forever. This was no ordinary love gift: it was the One True Gift that would cement me forever in his heart.

Have you guessed the ending yet? Because I certainly didn’t. When I met him in the morning, babbling excitedly about his party at which I’d get to present him with The Gift, he hit me with a conversational bombshell:

“So I met this girl over the weekend. We’re going out now.”
“But… you’re shagging me!”
“I know. But… we’re not really going out, are we?”
“Aren’t we?”

So there you are, kids – there’s the moral. It’s not that ‘love costs nothing’, it’s ‘beware of forking out too much on expensive trinkets, because if your partner is going to dump you then no amount of consumer electronics will stop them.’

I gave him the console anyway. Turns out it was quite shit.

Here are two apparently conflicting statements. I would like you to read both of them and decide which one is true:

• Heterosexual women are incredibly complex and almost impossible for men to understand.
• Heterosexual women all share an identical dream of the man they would like to be with.

Well done to anyone who said ‘neither’.

I don’t like dealing in absolutes. Unless we’re talking about pure mathematics, we’re pretty much bound to be wrong. All women are not X, and all men are not Y. Yes, we’re all pretty complex, but pretending that one particular gender is impossible to understand is like claiming we can never know what someone’s favourite colour is.

The only way you could go through life believing the opposite sex (or, indeed, any arbitrary subset of human beings) to be incomprehensible is if you refuse to ever speak to any of them.

So that’s number 1 dealt with. On to number 2 – the ‘ideal man’ scenario.

Every woman’s dream

Today the Sunday Times published a list entitled ‘Every woman’s dream‘ – a handy checklist for straight men on what sort of person they needed to be in order to proudly wear their ‘Mr Right’ badge. I should point out that the addition of words such as ‘straight’ and ‘heterosexual’ are mine, and added for clarity. According to this Sunday Times list, women who identify as anything other than ‘straight’ either don’t exist or were not consulted when their clearly thorough and painstaking research was conducted.

Here’s what the Sunday Times thinks ‘every woman’s dream’ man does:

“He has a well-developed protective instinct, as in the arm flung across the passenger seat in the event of a sudden stop.”

Protective? Or just a bit odd? If he was both protective and sensible he’d have checked that I was wearing a seatbelt in the first place. Moreover, I have survived for twenty nine years on this planet without men flinging their arms around me, shepherding me across the road, or cutting up my fish before I eat it lest I choke on a stray bone – I can protect myself fairly well, thanks.

“He can carry off fur trims, designer flip-flops, hair ties and hairbands, jewellery, cashmere hoodies and a man bag.”

There might be some women who dream of a man with a honed sense of fashion, but some of us couldn’t give a Fcuk. I’m happy if a boy is capable of putting his trousers on before we leave the house, and sensible enough to wear a coat if it looks like it might rain. And as for carrying a ‘man-bag’ – I despise the arbitrary inclusion of gender with this particular accessory. He does not eat with a ‘man-fork’ or wash in a special ‘man-bath’. My dream man just carries a ‘bag’.

“He is not scared to buy you underwear in M&S in an emergency – but will not step inside Farrow & Ball in any circs.”

I don’t know what Farrow & Ball is, but my dream man certainly doesn’t use the word ‘circs’.

“He considers the dustbins his department, but can also put flowers in a vase in a crisis.”

A man who considers the dustbins ‘his department’ is likely to be the sort of man who considers the hoovering to be ‘my department’, and is therefore probably an utter prick. My actual dream man considers all household chores to be a tedious waste of both of our time, but something we might as well do together to finish them quickly.

“He can buy presents without consulting his secretary/sister.”

Interesting. That’s true – my dream man is capable of doing that. But I wonder, dear readers, why the word ‘secretary’ was so casually thrown in here. Could it be possible that the author is assuming a) quite a few men have secretaries, because we are after all still living in the 1950s and b) all secretaries are women, hence why a man might turn to one in order to seek help with a gift?

In reality, men are perfectly capable of choosing gifts for people they know. Present-selection is a simple task, along the lines of ‘buying one’s own clothes’ and ‘paying the gas bill’ – it is not a rare skill possessed only by women and the crème de la crème of masculinity.

“He can look after three kids on his own.”

This, Sunday Times, is not ‘dream man’ material. This is ‘absolutely fucking basic’ material. If you have three children with someone and they are incapable of looking after them without you there to supervise, it’s not a shame: it’s an outright tragedy and one on which you should probably seek advice. Men are not bumbling, child-fearing buffoons – they are grown adults. And, like women, they produce and rear children.

“He drinks but never gets drunk.”

This dream man has a liver that surpasses our current expectations of human biology.

“He is open to yoga and meditation, Pilates and hypnotherapy…”

Because women are, naturally, obsessed with exercise techniques and borderline woo.

“He can do basic DIY and plumbing.”

Fair enough on this one, to be honest. My dream man can do this. But that’s because my dream man is a human, and I think it’s quite important that humans are capable of carrying out basic household tasks without crying in a corner.

“He finds strong women sexy.”

I’ll finish on this point, because it’s the most outrageously contradictory of the lot.

My own ‘dream man’, as it happens, does find strong women sexy. But then I’d bloody well hope he would because I am a strong woman, and if he didn’t find me sexy then he’d no more be my dream than he’d be a carton of cottage cheese. Clearly what this means is ‘your dream man should find you sexy’. A tautological statement if ever I heard one.

But if he finds strong women so sexy, why on earth is he insisting that the bins are ‘his department’? If he thinks I’m strong, he should realistically understand that I’m capable of emptying a dustbin without being permanently traumatised. I’ll be honest, Sunday Times, not only does the notion of a ‘dream man’ belong firmly in the dustbin that is ‘his department’, but the guy you’re describing sounds like an incomparable, inconsistent prick.