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By Trevor Davis

When you’re 40, slightly chubby around the waist and dripping gel on the carpet after an ill advised rainstorm, you’re not the most attractive of propositions. Well, after having a date arranged for me by a friend from my office, and then discovering that it had been arranged over the internet, this was the state I was in about 15 feet from my front door.

I elected to turn around, go inside my house and sort myself out a bit. The rain didn’t seem to be abating, so it looked like I was going to have to take an umbrella. Luckily for me, I’d picked up a Micky Mouse one while on holiday in Florida a few years back. It’s a terribly fetching item that would perhaps show my softer side. My red socks had leaked a bit of their die on my trainers, but I gave them a quick wipe and was good to go.

I always like to leave early for dates. I’ve been single for a fair while and my new tactic is to turn up half an hour early and look casual at the venue while reading the Daily Mail. It’s worked in the past at my gentlemen’s club and, although I’ve never successfully wooed one of the lovely bar ladies, it surely is only a matter of time.

The restaurant that was picked for my seminal date wasn’t the subject of negotiation. I like to dine in fine places, where the minimum you pay for a bottle of rouge is eight pounds. No messing about. Tres bon! Mange tout and all that lot. I knew the proprieter of this fine establishment fairly well and he often does me a discount, overall I had high hopes for the evening.

Around five minutes before she was scheduled to arrive, my date called my mobile phone (they give out the number apparently) and asked if I had an umbrella to get her from her taxi. It seemed like a reasonable request. I assured her that that wouldn’t be a problem, so I grabbed the Micky umbrella and headed onto the street.

Now, these trainers are fairly new and somewhat slippy. I’m not sure if they’re designed wrong but clearly there’s something wrong with them. I made an effort to jog with the umbrella across the road, waving to the taxi that I assumed my date was in. However, slipping slightly on the tarmac I fell head over heals into the path of a tourist. I scraped my trousers, my Micky umbrella folded outwards and water went all over me. I looked up, only for the taxi I was aiming for to drive away.

“Close one,” I thought, clearly that wasn’t my date. She’s obviously not here yet and didn’t see that escapade. I rang the mobile number but there didn’t seem to be an answer, looking down the road that taxi was really going for it, what was the rush?

Half an hour went by and still no one arrived. I paid Mr Trouseu for his wine and made my way back to the flat, limping slightly because the umbrella had caught my heel on the way down. The agency rang a few days later; apparently my date had met a taxi driver instead.

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My advice about dating a rock star, from experience, is ‘don’t bother’. It may sound an easy ticket onto the rock and roll superhighway, but it’s rubbish in the end. You may have a good few nights out, get behind the scenes, meet a few famous people, be the envy of other girls and live the highlife for a bit, but Actually scrub that, it is worth it just for a small taste of stardom, but don’t expect the long haul.

For every Paul and Linda, there are ten hundred Paul and Heathers. But a few months, or in my case a few days, you can to live the life of Kate and Pete. But remember, the music comes first!

Now down to the nuts and bolts. There are basically five types of rock star boyfriends to choose from: the ultra famous, the has-been, the wannabe, the up-and-coming and the drummer.

Me, I had the drummer great guy, rich, good connections but no-one really knows his name, kind of half remembering his face.

Well onto the ultra famous, the Robbie, the Liam or the Damon. What you get is, if you are lucky enough, a few great nights out, a face in a tabloid and good memories. Enjoy it while it’s going and because it ain’t going far.

The experience is strange, walk into a restaurant and everyone pretends not to stare. The staff fall over themselves to help the Robbie and politely look down on you. The parties are great, but no-one’s talking to you get used to it and you stand there nodding in the background like a Chihuahua. And when they do try to get pally with you, it’s because you might be able to get them close to the star. Also, you can’t go to the pub with your mates, mainly because they aren’t in Cannes that weekend

What next? The has-been. Just don’t go there.

The wannabe is a dangerous creature, often confused at first glance with the up-and-coming as their markings are similar. However, the swagger of the wannabe is wider and more exaggerated. He tries too hard. In my experience of bagging a few wannabes, they never get far and succeed in losing you friends and causing messy break-ups, without any bonuses of good parties and champagne.

However, the up-and-coming is well worth finding. Even if he never makes it, it’s worth the ride. You get to live the dream of gigs in front of crowds of seven, the drama of not getting a record contract, the launch parties etc etc. Actually it can be tiresome. My friend spent five years holding on to an up-and-coming, he even proposed. But in the end the music came first. Would he leave London with her? Would he f***? The band comes first.

But that didn’t get her in the end. It was him coming back from tours and pausing before saying how it was, like there was something he was hiding. And then the band mates stopping talking and looking when she came in and the flash of eye contact between them signalling that they had to change subjects and be careful not to land their mate in the s***.

The one bonus she did get was that there is a song just missed the top 20 about how she broke with him.

This leaves the drummer. My brush with fame and I still reckon best of the five. I’m not going to name names, let’s just say a world famous band everyone has one of their records and it isn’t U2 with a front man who everybody knows and basically an anonymous band.

I meet the drummer in a bar in New York a shopping trip and we got chatting and he said he was coming to London in a two week’s time. Now, after a couple of vodka martinis yes, I was trying to be sophisticated I gave him my number, my reasoning being that either he was actually coming to London and it would be a laugh to play tour guide or he was lying and I’d never see him again so it didn’t matter.

Well, he came to London and called me up. He suggested a stupidly expensive restaurant and I laughed at him for being a hopeless American tourist looking to get ripped off. When we met up outside his hotel Claridge’s no less I worked out that he had a few dollars in the bank. I asked him why he was in London and he said business, a banker with a good stylist, I guessed. He didn’t mention that he was working at Wembley in front of 70,000 people.

So we had a good night out. I decided that a rich American needed to go down the pub. I took him to the John Snow in Soho and that’s where the problems started. Bloody blokes know music too well and just one had to ask, “Are you” My American denied it, but in his accent it was hard to hide. He came out later and I said it didn’t matter. But of course it did. I started to look at him differently.

It didn’t stop me calling in sick for a week and hanging out with him in London’s best restaurants, heading to the invitation only warm-up gig where everyone was not just famous but a legend and in the end almost get sacked when I was snapped by the paparazzi and ended up in the Metro.

And what happened, I never kiss and tell!

My advice. Avoid them all! Start your own band, be famous, have people stare at you, have your choice of blokes and check into rehab before it all goes Pete Tong.

Trevor Field offers some reflections on the dating game during the festive period.

It’s not easy, being ‘in love’ at Christmas. Well, that’s not strictly true: it can be easy, but not if you’ve been in the relationship for only a few months. One of the most difficult things to cope with at Christmas is a new romance. I mean, as if you don’t have enough to think about at the festive time of year!

Getting together with someone in mid to late November might seem like a good idea at the time – everyone needs something to get them through the winter – doing so just before Christmas can put such pressure on the relationship that it will die before it has even started. First of all, there are all the parties you have to attend. If you go alone, people ask where she is and make their own conclusions. If she joins you, then you are immediately cemented as an item forevermore.

Plus there’s all that mistletoe at Christmas parties. Any harmless flirting or even just friendly banter with female friends becomes strictly off-limits when you’ve got a new girl with you, no matter what time of year it is. But at Christmas the abundance of mistletoe means that you are even less likely to negotiate a party without getting close with a female friend. And that won’t go down well with the new girlfriend, no matter how understanding she might appear to be.

But perhaps the biggest pressure comes with the need to buy presents for the new partner. If you get together in November it won’t be long before family and friends start asking what you’re going to get her for Christmas.

My answer to this particular question a few years ago was simply ‘Er, I don’t know, some socks or something I suppose, we’ve only been together a few weeks.’ Unfortunately, it seems this was the wrong answer and my friends treated me with scorn for such a suggestion. Apparently, to show her that I was the ‘genuine article’ (whatever that is) and that I was serious about this relationship, I had to impress her with some massively overblown gesture. Like a helicopter ride over London or a romantic weekend away for two to Marrakech. Why not go the whole hog and get a mortgage, joint bank account and life insurance?

As it turned out, we didn’t make it until Christmas. I probably had a few too many beers at a few too many parties and she decided I was not in the right place for her right now. But she waited until Christmas Eve to tell me what had been ‘on her mind for some time’. Of course, because it had been on her mind, she had not bought a Christmas present for me, but I had not been quite so crafty. Fortunately I had ignored the calls for expensive gifts and as a result was able to palm off the chocolates I had chosen on my sister. So all was not lost.

Given that they’re only going to end up breaking your heart and leaving you a wreck of a man, what’s the point in splashing the cash when it comes to taking a girl out on a date?

Indeed, it would probably save both parties a considerable amount of time, energy and well-earned money if a girl, on asking a girl out, she simply took a few notes from your wallet and slapped you around the face with a wet fish. After all, the end result is pretty much the same in that you end up both poor and humiliated.

Not for me, then, the champagne lunches in a hot air balloon at sunset or a five-course dinner in one of the swankiest restaurants London has to offer.

No sir, it’s all about doing it on the cheap which, by happy coincidence, can also make you seem far more imaginative and spontaneous than the average City gent whose idea of a good night out is to pay through the nose to be patronised by a French waiter.

While in the summer months nothing beats a picnic in the park, which ticks both the romantic and economical boxes, given that this particular dating tactic is limited to just a couple of weeks in July, the local, family-run pizzeria is the choice of champions.

Nothing can beat walking into the bustling atmosphere to be greeted by name by a friendly waiter. She’ll think you are either extremely popular or, better still, have connections with the local Mafia, while you’ll know you have been there for the previous two weeks trying the same tactic with different girls. One-nil to you, my boy.

The thing about such places is that they are often far more cosy but, more importantly for a cynical seducer, they offer a no-nonsense and affordable wine list alongside cheap and hearty fare that actually fills your plate.

Even once dinner’s over and she’ll be wanting to head to an upmarket club or cocktail bar to carry on the night – she will, you realise, have been persuaded by the aforementioned cheap chardonnay into thinking you are a great guy and she is having a fun time then all is not lost.

Simply throw in the line “I’d much rather just have as stroll as the stars look so pretty tonight” and bingo, you have added sensitivity and a degree of mystery to your vast repertoire, which already includes an enthusiasm for feminist issues shown when you accepted her kind offer of going halves for dinner.

More importantly, even this government has yet to introduce a tax on walking, meaning that, all going to plan, you could have had a pleasant night out including dinner with a young lady all for the price of a watching a pay-per-view football match at home.

A bit of planning thinly disguised as spontaneity and frugality portrayed as kookiness means it’s all too easy to play the dating game and play it without hurting your wallet.

You’ll still end up dying alone, however.

Actions, they say, speak louder than words and never has this been truer than in the modern world of dating.

Meeting somebody new these days more often than not involves strained small-talk in a noisy club and even when you can hear each other the fact that it’s all too easy to put your foot in it means that less is usually more.

As any of the thousands of advice books out there will tell you, first impressions are about so much more than first words, with one study or other showing that body language accounts for anything up to 90 per cent of all communication.

Luckily, in order to become fluent in romantic body language, we don’t have to sign up for a ten-week course or buy a range of self-help DVDs or books, however much their authors would like us to, but instead just combine a little online research with a little common sense.

According to the fountain of all knowledge, the internet, as well as my friend Tracey, initial eye contact is all important and often a make-or-break moment in a prospective romance.

Statistics seemingly plucked from the air and published on the web say that we all look at one another between 30 to 60 per cent and the time, meaning that a brief look away, such as a classic dropping of a gaze after eye contact, stands out from the norm and attracts attention.

Of course, it would be all too easy to get the timing all wrong and end up looking, at best uninterested or, at worst, socially inept or even slightly shifty.

Now no book or relationship guru can put an exact figure on the amount of time that will work best. It’s all down to the moment, really, and what feels right, though the important thing to remember is that staring is not sexy and should you not drop your gaze every once in a while, that first impression is highly likely to be your last.

Once the eyes are sorted, it’s all straightforward enough so long as you try to act unto others as you would have them act unto you.

For example, how would you feel if the person you were talking to stood with their arms folded or keep fidgeting? These would quite rightly be taken as clear signs of disinterest and a sense of being uncomfortable.

In contrast, smiling and gently nodding and generally adopting a more ‘open’ stance to the person you are speaking to will almost always make you seem more approachable and willing to open up.

It is science, but it’s hardly rocket science is it?

Now you’ve saved yourself the cost of a relationship guidebook, all you need to do is work on the witty banter and you’ll never go home alone again.

The secret of successfully chatting someone up is to make it seem as if you arent chatting them up.

That means avoiding those corny lines and obvious pick-ups that are usually the instrument of desperate men (though women are sometimes guilty of using them, too).

Theres a good chance that the target of your attention has heard them all before. So, forget witticisms like Who stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes? and Heaven must be missing an angel. (That line only ever worked for the soul group, Tavares.)

Try to engineer an approach scenario a natural situation in which you can spark up a polite conversation. This method is not only a lot more likely to be successful, it can also be used outside bars, clubs, parties and the like.

For instance, if you catch someones eye in the supermarket drinks aisle, you could ask if theyd recommend a wine for a dish youre planning to cook.

Watch the body language of the person to whom you are talking, and listen to the tone of their voice. This will help you judge their mood and match it, thus avoiding misreading the conversation and killing it.

In other situations, such as the park, the banter should be light and well-mannered, while in the pub you can risk being a little bit cheeky and flirty. Wherever you are, express a genuine interest in the other person, and dont overstay your welcome. Just do enough to secure that important first date.

Men should avoid coming on too strong with a woman on her own, who may be threatened by a man being too pushy. And women should be ready for a man to keep the conversation going as long as he thinks its necessary to make an impression.

There are a few things that both sexes should avoid while chatting up someone.

Swearing. The occasional profanity will probably be overlooked, but a stream of effing and blinding wont. Too much blue language is at least irritating and at worst offensive and its a sign of that youre not articulate.
Talking about yourself. Asking the other person about themselves will flatter them. Talking at length about your own life will bore them, and boasting will put them off entirely.
Sexual innuendo. Making smutty remarks and being aggressively sexual is off-putting and even intimidating. Double entendres are no substitute for wit and a good sense of humour, which is more likely to impress the object of your attention.
Staring. Make regular eye contact but dont stare especially at any part of a person other than their eyes. (You know what we mean, chaps!)
Ridicule. Making fun of someone youve just met is not the way to win his or her affections.
Being needy. Dont appear desperate. Keep your emotions tempered, but dont act standoffish, either. Dont reveal any major details about yourself, or any big secrets.
Getting distracted. Concentrate on the person to whom you are talking, and dont let your attention be drawn by background music or passers-by. Being caught checking out other people will kill the conversation instantly.

For more information, see the UK Net Guide features: Guide to a Successful First Date, First Date Conversation, First Date Style, The Dos and Donts of Blind Dating, and Flirting with Body Language.

Britons who use online dating sites are refusing to curb their spending when they meet a potential match for their first date despite the effects of the credit crunch, it has been claimed today (November 28th).

Leading UK online dating service provider FreeDating.co.uk conducted a study which found that just 12 per cent of its single male members were planning to cut back on date-related expenses due to the economic downturn.

In addition, the research found that the concept of the man taking care of the financial side of a first date is still in existence – although there was some disparity between the sexes and different generations.

According to the statistics, 64 per cent of men now believe that they should pick up the tab, while only 35 per cent of women expressed their desire to let their date foot the bill.

Perhaps surprisingly, this attitude appears to be even stronger among younger men, with 80 per cent of under-21s claiming that they should pay, while 47 per cent of women in the same category shared that view.

Dan Winchester from FreeDating.co.uk said: “This research shows that the traditionally-held view that the man should pay for a first date is alive and kicking – even more so amongst the younger generation.

“Furthermore, guys are not letting the credit crunch hold them back when it comes to splashing out on a first date.”

In terms of the geographical breakdown of the study, men from Liverpool were found to budget the most for that first meeting with a match from online dating sites (72 on average), with guys from Coventry and Birmingham close behind.

Males in Sheffield were found to be the tightest with their cash (42 on average), while men from Nottingham and Southampton also admitted to having a particularly firm grip on their purse strings.

Interestingly, respondents were also given the opportunity to discuss their stingiest encounters with a first date, with one woman claiming to have been bought two kids’ meals at McDonalds.

Among the other frugal dates were dinner at a free food outlet for the homeless and a badger watching excursion – a situation Mr Winchester believes underlines the need to splash out a bit more, at least on a first date.

“Whilst the majority of women are perfectly happy to pay their own way on a first date, men should be aware that most of their fellow suitors will be offering to pay,” he said.

“Our research also confirms that, unsurprisingly, many women find meanness with money an unattractive trait.”

He added that people who are on a tight budget should attempt to compensate by injecting as much imagination as possible when they decide to go dating for the first time with a potential match.

By Catherine Portland

Now, you may have come to associate this term with the divorce courts, but I fear this is an issue faced by couples the world over. And our inability to address these seemingly insurmountable differences – a cornerstone of the gender divide – make getting on pretty difficult at times.

There just seems to be some irresolvable gulf that means the sexes just don’t understand each other, mainly in terms of the way we communicate, which makes agreement and empathy practically impossible.

Particularly in this generation, where women are not afraid to assert what they expect from a relationship, the chasm has become even more stark. This says to me that if men and women act as they are naturally inclined, things don’t work out. Hence the increase in couples citing that old favourite – irreconcilable differences – in their divorce applications.

I think they could actually rephrase this to say ‘clash of the sexes,’ which gives a far more accurate picture of why the couple are breaking up.

From my personal observations, I would say that most couple’s gripes focus around the same few issues. Usually the woman doesn’t feel like she gets enough communication/support from her man, while the man wishes the woman would be less clingy.

In most cases I believe – and there the slim chance I am somewhat biased – that the man has brought this on himself.

But it all goes back to our Neanderthal days. A recent study has highlighted the differences, putting them down to our cave-dwelling days, when women looked for someone who would support her and her children and bring home the bacon/Woolly Mammoth, while men wanted to sow their wild oats to create enormous club-wielding clans to go out and hunt and kill.

Well fair enough, but it seems our ability to communicate with those of the opposite sex has not progressed beyond the days when language was just beginning to evolve. So in an era in which we expect not manliness but some level of sensitivity as the most important trait in a lover, problems are arising at an increasing rate.

And I hate to drone on about it, but what women want really isn’t that difficult. Listen to a woman when she speaks to you and respond accordingly; tell her what’s on your mind – let’s not forget that since women are so infinitely wiser she may have light to shed – and make her feel valued, through communication, spending time with her and just generally being all-round ideal.

There. Simple.

But men. That is a much tougher conundrum. I would say the problem stems from the fact that men don’t tell the ladies what it is they want. From what I can gather they require from their lover a bizarre and unpredictable mixture of having space, someone who takes care of them, but also one that is relatively hard to get, who is up for fun, but also prepared to sit there while they play PlayStation, and who lets them sleep, mate and eat whenever they require, not forgetting being ready to give them plenty of space, of course.

Now, that is much more difficult to cater to, mainly since you never know which mood they are in. And this, inevitably, results in – yes, youve guessed it – irreconcilable differences and the break-down of many a relationship, just because the boy won’t talk.

I fear there is no easy answer to this. Perhaps in another 3,000 years our an-sisters will be having better luck.

For many, the office is an immediate no-go area when it comes to pulling. Convinced that the whole thing will end in disaster or a P45, people set themselves strict rules forbidding office relationships, claiming that common sense tells you it’s a bad idea to combine your professional and personal life.

Yet the facts suggest that this is up there with New Year resolutions and diet regimes when it comes to promises we’re destined to break. Upwards of 40 per cent of people have gone out with someone they work with and if we include drunken fumbles at office parties the figure is surely nearing 100 per cent. The mass entry of women into the labour force has even been blamed as one of the key factors driving up divorce rates in the latter half of the 20th century.

Just as it’s claimed that if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room for long enough they will recreate the entire works of Shakespeare, if you put enough people of similar age and background in an office, a few of them will start copping off together. This is particularly true in companies that hire a large number of young or single people and certainly I’ve worked in places that more closely resembled Love Island than a productive working environment.

Of course the fact that so many people are at it doesn’t necessarily mean that office romances are a good idea. For every workplace couple screwing up the holiday rota with their honeymoon requirements, there are countless others ending in bad feeling over the water cooler. Chatting someone up at work just isn’t the same as doing it in a bar and for that reason certain rules come into play.

Working with someone invariably means you spend an awful lot of time with them. To an extent this has its advantages and is probably one of the factors fuelling romance in the first place. Proximity often breeds attraction and people that you wouldn’t have taken much notice of in a social environment become more appealing when you are forced to take the time to get to know them.

There’s also the practical legal and professional considerations. Your standard pulling technique may equate to sexual harassment if tried in the office, especially if the object of your affection is in a subordinate position. Furthermore, many companies actively discourage office relationships, while there’s always the risk of professional conflict of interest if you become involved with someone that could potentially further your career.

There’s a reason only men are ever described as being glorious in the morning; apparently women are far more likely to wake up in a bad mood.

A quarter of men claim that they never wake up in a foul mood, (although as, with statistics on masturbation, one can’t help assuming a large proportion are liars). However, just one in seven women could claim the same, with most admitting that they frequently get out of bed on the wrong side.

Moreover, women tend to stay in a bad mood for longer, with more than one in ten admitting that they stay in a bad mood for up to four hours after working, which I personally think is pretty reasonable given that my bad moods tend to last three to five days at a stretch.

The findings come courtesy of the Sleep Council, who it’s fair to say are probably an authoritative voice on such matters, and they definitely corroborate my own experiences.

Attempting to explain the gender split, Jessica Alexander from the council reckons that the extra tasks expected of women in the morning may be to blame. “Twenty-eight per cent of women as opposed to only five per cent of men do any housekeeping before going to work,” she said.

“It also tends to be them that prepares the breakfast, spends time with the children, check their emails and attend to their beauty regime. Women far outweigh men in having a busy and packed morning. So what do men do? Apparently just get up and go out: 17 per cent of them spend only ten minutes on their wake up and get out routine.”

While few male partners expect the full housewife treatment nowadays, anecdotal experience suggests that the division of labour is still profoundly felt by many. Certainly I always find that I’m the one grumpily stumbling out of bed in the morning to make the coffee.

Morning routines are not just to blame, however, as four in ten people say that bad night’s sleep is likely to leave them in a bad mood the morning after. Given this it is hardly surprise that women are more prone to a little morning mardiness, as some of men’s sleeping habits can be distinctly anti-social.

My friend’s mother claims that the secret to her long and seemingly happy marriage has been separate bedrooms for herself and her husband. At first this struck me as an unromantic anachronism; an unwelcome hark back to the day’s of sexless marriages and false modesty, not to mention house prices low enough to allow a couple to indulge themselves with an additional bedroom.

But during my last relationship I began to concede that their may be some merit to the recommendation. After moving in together, my ex and I discovered that we were tragically incompatible when it came to sleeping arrangements: he liked to listen to music while drifting off, I demanded total silence. I liked to build a veritable fort of pillows, he was happy with a flat mattress. Not to mention our differing jobs, which required me to wake up a good four hours before him. It hardly needs elaborating that the bedroom became something of a war zone, and did I mention that he’s now an ex?