It's probably a sign of getting older but I'm starting to look back nostalgically at those halcyon days of naive youthfulness. Dating was easy; you found someone you fancied, got your best mate to sound out their best mate. If the response was positive you got your mate to go and tell their mate that you would like to meet them outside Boots on Saturday afternoon. Once this was achieved you would spend the day trying to impress her by looking as disinterested in life as a Sea Cucumber and then taking them for a slap-up lunch at Wimpey. Now few girls could fail to resist such a trap for their affection and it wasn't long before you were officially going out with them.

If getting someone to go out with you was simple enough dumping them was even easier. Once again, the best mate was employed to deliver the devastating news that after four days of unbridled heavy petting it was clear the relationship was going nowhere and for both our sakes it was best if we party ways. It was, of course, not her but me…I was clearly still emotionally scarred from the previous weeks traumatic break up with the girl I had been seeing for over a week!

Oh for such simplicity now. These days dating is more like having a job interview. Professional romantic recruiters will already have done their Facebook homework and Googled you for any criminal records. This is unfortunate because it appears there is someone in the US with the same name as me with a penchant for wife beating - a nasty surprise that one I can tell you. "But I've never been to the US", I lied. Obviously so flustered I didn't know whether it was worse to confess to wife beating or admit to being poorly travelled. OK, wife beating is irreproachable but in a town like Brighton being found out as someone who hasn't spent a year travelling 'finding oneself' is tantamount to admitting that you think 'Thatcher had her faults but knew a thing or two about Poll Tax'.       

So take me back to the days before the internet, mobile phones and long term emotional turmoil. Back to the days when the biggest discussion of the week was the number of girls you snogged at Saturday nights youth club disco. It might not have made much sense at the time, but compared to today's corporate styled match making I'd take it back before you could say, "that Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles is a bit of all right".

[First Published in January 2008's Rocks magazine]