"Go on, just suck it. You might like it." I roll my eyes. Yet another date who confuses sleaze and innuendo with flirtation. For me, they're uneasy bedfellows. I'm sitting in the park on an unseasonably warm day for the time of year. Before me is a mini banquet of all manner of romantic foods.

Online dating is like a takeaway menu for the chronically obese ( and I don't mean to offend with that statement because there is most probably an online dating site for the 'chronically obese'). What I mean is that the choice and possibilities are endless. You could have Asian on a Monday, 'Suited & Booted' on a Tuesday, Naughty Nurses on a Wednesday and 'Big and Buxom' by Thursday.

We've all been there. You wake up, slightly disoriented, amid bed linen which feels unfamiliar. Strange sounds emanate from a mass not too far from you. As you open each eye slowly, cursing them for the amount of time they're taking to adjust to the light, you realise you've done it again - you're back at theirs, for the first time. It's the morning after the night before.

Getting a first date is fairly easy. Or so they tell me. But getting a first date and going on a first date are nowhere near as big a deal as the ultimate prize, the holy grail of dating, the BIG ONE: securing date number two.

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...

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.

There are still some romantic buzzkills out there just waiting to spoil your fun, break your heart and drink all the milk in your fridge.

1. "So having weighed up all the evidence and considering the fact that I was quite drunk at the time and I didn't technically put it all the way in, do you think my ex was right to say that it was cheating?" 2. "What do you think of the coalition government?" 3. "I have been on soooo many dates this week..."

Breaking up is hard to do. I know; I've done it. Relationships can be a long, languorous drive around winding country roads. The break-up is the huge tractor or speeding idiot who appears from nowhere, slicing through your cosy hatchback of coupledom.

Mr Popular Who is he? He's got oodles of friends and everybody knows his name. Going out with him is like being with a lesser celebrity, but without cameras following you round. Why you think you want him: Congratulations, you're a localised Kardashian!

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.

Commuting is a dull, necessary evil only a few of us can avoid. Usually, I work from home, the full journey from bed to office via bathroom taking around 90 seconds. But, on landing myself a new contract in a suburb of London, I am to rejoin the rat race I'd so fondly missed.

Going for dinner is a perfectly pleasant experience most of the time, but food on a first date is an absolute no-no for me, even if I'm feeling supremely confident about my table manners.

Punctuality is the politeness of kings, my grandmother always used to say, and while I'm not particularly regal, I do believe the least you can do on a date is get there on time. 'Fashionably late' is a flawed, dangerous concept. One man's height of style is another's fashion faux-pas. You mustn't leave anything to chance.

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.

There are so many good guys out there -- you almost need two hands to count them. But in among the gold, is the tin. The sand in your sandwiches, the rain on your parade. The world is full of men you shouldn't date, for every kind of reason.

I have a rule: no food on a first date. It can only end in disaster, really. Sauces slop down your front a whole lot more eagerly if you're dining opposite somebody you're desperate to impress and vegetable-induced farts are all the more enthusiastic if they know you're sharing crudités with a stranger.

It becomes clear why I don't fancy him at all, why the fireworks failed to materialise - he looks like me. Like, spookily. His hair, the same kind of dishwater brown and even greying in similar spots as mine, is styled as if he used me for a mirror. I'm on a date with myself.

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.

If your beau isn't doing his best to turn up at a date on time, imagine how self-centred and lacklustre he'll be when taking up space on your king-size mattress.

The true cross that every anonymous blogger has to bear is that most people don't know (or indeed care) who they are. For some bloggers, this adds to the mystery and appeal and so they value their anonymity (yes, I'm talking about me now), but others regret that their face sits behind a paywall that nobody is going to shell out the pennies to peek behind.

My date leans on the bar and looks me over, before telling me he's glad he messaged me. I thank him, and then ask him why he did in the first place. I don't generally seek approval or security by asking dates why they're interested in me, but he is a genuine puzzle.

He is taller than I thought he would be, his dirty-blond hair slicked into a side parting, and wearing a white T-shirt with a wide crew neck which grazes his collar bone. He beams as he sees me and walks over to me. I stand and put out my hand for him to shake. Ridiculously, pathetically, I puff out my chest.

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.