I have been writing this column for over a year now and have, much to my editor's delight, universally failed in reversing my relationship status. My main concern is that this is from no lack of trying. Readers may remember failed attempts at internet dating, failed dates set up by friends, failed brief encounters at conferences, as well as a whole assortment of other equally poorly executed rendezvous.

            If my attempts to extricate myself from singledom were to be made in to a film, I fear it would be no Dangerous Liaisons. The best I think I could hope for would be Industrious Liaisons, by virtue of the relentless endeavour. My only comfort from such a thought is that it would give me something in common with Keanu Reeves; in that we would both have came out of it rather badly.

            So what is to be done? It has been recommended to me on a number of occasions that a dose of speed dating would be a good remedy for my predicament. Now, this is something that truly terrifies me. You have three minutes to sell yourself, but clearly the first half of that is going to be used up trying to explain to each equally desperate person why you feel the need to select a potential spouse using societies cheapest and least romantic option. Signing up to a session is essentially booking into the last resort resort.

            I've never really seen myself as a salesman and the only time I've worked as one I almost got fired for not forcing myself on a bunch of Buddhists to flog them mobile phones. You see, I tend to view myself as an acquired taste rather than cheap sugary thrill. I'm to be taken time over, savoured. Forcing me to sell myself to individual candidates over a three minute period would be perverse. I would think that I had wield them with my latent charm, whereas in reality they would have been abused by a tirade of discombobulating muttering, some strange squinting and series of awkward hand gestures that could be easily mistaken for call for medical assistance.

            The thing is I'm running out of alternatives. I've already exploited the internet, raided friends' phonebooks and looked up what the word the serendipity means in the dictionary. I really can't see what more I can do…If I try speed dating and fail what then, the horror that is pottery night classes?  

First published in Rocks Magazine www.rocksmagazine.co.uk