Dating. Eurgh. The very word is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the toughest of Rambo-esque Supermen. Show me someone who hasn't had a bad experience as a result of their involvement with the opposite sex, and I'll show you someone who's still in nursery. Or is a nerd.

It's my belief, in fact, that most holy men only turned to God because the vow of celebacy gave them an easy excuse to drop out of the dating game.

If, however, you decide to embark on the rocky road to a relationship, then feel free to follow these simple guidelines, which should minimise the damage caused to you life, sanity, and bank balance. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that I'm currently single, and possibly spend too much time on my computer. Make your own conclusions.

• Act casual
  Not only will you look more relaxed, and comfortable in your life, but you'll also save face if it turns out that the object of your desire finds you as attractive as a two day old turd. Not only that, but no-one likes a slobbering, over-emotional, fool - it's embarassing.

• Pick a target at your own level
  As sad as it may be, beautiful people will only ever date beautiful people (unless money's involved, but more on that later). You should, therefore, be ruthlessly honest about the standard of partner that your own looks can hold on to. (Get mates to appraise the situation if you're in some confusion as to how attractive you are - they're most likely to give you an honest to bad oppinion.) As a side note - if you're ugly and have just "pulled" someone drop-dead gorgeous then you are, unfortunately for you, drunk. Sorry.

  Fig. 1 - If you're an ugly mo-fo then this is probably the best that you'll ever manage to pull. Still, it's personality that counts, eh?

• Don't believe them
  "When a man loves a woman, she can do no wrong" as the song goes. And it's true. Women are all lying scheming whores who will use your emotions to blind you making you unaware of their dishonest ways. Of course, us men are often no better so any women reading this needn't think that they're getting away lightly. And bear in mind that the more someone loves you, the easier is is for them to lie to you, as they don't want to hurt your feelings by telling you the truth about that other someone that they've been sleeping with behind your back for the past four months.

• Pretend to be poor
  Of course, if you're a student then this is even easier to do, because it's true, but feining financial turbulence will seive out all of the money-grabbers. Obviously, if you're loaded and ugly letting people know of your riches is a sure-fire way of attracting that beautiful blonde bombshell. But ask yourself this: Would you be happy? Probably, yes.

  Fig. 2 - "I would certainly not date anybody just because they were well off. No. Never. Well, not unless they wanted to look after my young child while I toured the world."

• Be yourself
  Actually, this is probably the reason that I'm still single. Arses.

• Design a lengthy article for your long-running website which is vague enough to be considered innocent, but specific enough so that if a certain person saw it they'd know that it was about them.
  You never know - it might work......

		Maintained by Tony Gowland Last updated: 18/7/99