Date 3

"For message received, loud and clear."

It was now Autumn 2006, and being the glutton for punishment that I am, I went back to Love at Lycos for one more date.

I'd had a lot of contact with this person beforehand via phone and email so I wasn't nervous at all as we seemed to have developed a good rapport, even though we didn't have much in common. We agreed to meet for our first date at a pub on Oxford Street and I was amazed when she came up to me as she looked absolutely nothing like her profile pictures (I think she'd had them professionally done), and if I'm completely honest, as first shallow impressions go, I was a bit disappointed. I feel a bitch for saying this but she was unrecognisable, and although I'm no George Clooney, my profile photographs are always up to date as what's the point in being deceptive about one's appearance when it's going to be the first thing that someone notices (or in my case didn't notice as I didn't know it was her) when you meet them?

Putting all this aside though, we did actually get on very well and I actually really enjoyed the evening so we mutually agreed to meet for a second date.

Date number 2 started off at the London Aquarium, in which I was mesmerised by their wonderful collection of sharks, and it ended back at her place...

She was originally from Essex and a nurse, and lived with one of her colleagues, which made it all the more surprising as to how much her flat resembled an absolute pig-sty. Being in possession of a Psychology A-Level I think that I'm more than well qualified to theorise that this was them rebelling against their workplace being so sanitised and clean. There were discarded pizza boxes, clothes, underwear, full ash-trays and junk just strewn everywhere and they were both so lazy that instead of tidying up, they just made little walkways amongst the rubbish to navigate through.

Despite this, I did enjoy her company as she was a very fun and caring person and we actually went out for a couple of months, taking in the sights of London Zoo, Camden, Southbank and her bedroom along the way. Then one day, after spending the night at hers, we arranged for our next jaunt to involve taking in the London Dungeons. However, when I tried to contact her later, I was met with a wall of silence, so after a week or so of trying to get hold of her and being ignored, I just took the hint, left it and never saw or heard from her again. I also left the world of internet dating for another year until I discovered Guardian Soulmates...