Whatever the reason, sometimes we say yes when we should be raising the drawbridge in an emphatic no. Johnny, 28, is such a no. But his square jaw and icy blue eyes draw me in, and he pets my vanity like I'm a cat drunk on all the milk in the world...

I slink over to the kitchen and scour the worktops for a tipple. I settle on a big bottle of Plymouth gin and glug as much as decency will allow into the nearest clean glass, before peeking around the kitchen, like a meerkat, on the search for tonic. I soon see a bottle, which is attached to the hand of God, or his nearest approximation on Earth.

In his faltering English, he tells me he wants to take me out for coffee. I've loads of work to do and look like I've been sleeping on the backseat of a bus for a week, but when I cast my mind back to the bubbles, I remembering liking what I saw. Let's see how he holds up without the taps digging into his back.

I thrive on flirtation on dates; it's the plutonium I need to get me to the end of the night. From him, however, there is none. Usually I'd put this down to nervousness or shyness, but that's not the case here. He exudes a kind of bland confidence; he's not brash or assertive, just, well, a bit boring.

It's 7.30pm, it's a Thursday evening and I am sitting scratching my name into a wooden table outside the Queen Elizabeth Hall while my date enters his twentieth minute talking about his job. Oh, this happens. The problem with asking people what they do for a living is that they tell you.

We have slept together only twice, the last time such an amazing display of sexual incompatibility it should have been sketched for a textbook on how not to do it. I was left with merely an aching arm and a throb I had to alleviate alone.

When your lake becomes devoid of fish - or you're sick of catching the same old ones - you must cast your net farther. To the sea, even. And so I find myself in a seaside town, firing up a dating app (allow me the indulgence of fooling myself that the men on this app are only looking for dates and nothing more intimate) and seeing who's available.