My View: Milly Johnson

THE world of internet dating has moved rapidly on from those early days when all it seemed to attract were fantasists. I have quite a few friends now who not only freely admit to trying it, but have met and married partners with whom they might never have crossed paths had they stuck to the traditional way of dating.
By The Newsroom
Published 28th Sep 2011, 13:15 BST

My latest book An Autumn Crush, as well as paying a nodding homage to the old sport of British wrestling, also features a lot of internet dating. And far-fetched as the experiences of the characters in the book may seem, trust me they’re all based very much on fact. I collected some wonderful tales of woe while I was researching this book. Some stories made me laugh and some made me downright angry. Hearts are fragile things to mess about. It’s clear that many people project an image on their internet dating profiles which matches what they want to be and not what they actually are. That means that once they hook up with a partner, the whole relationship is built on lies. Which is why a good rule of online dating is to meet up as soon as possible after a connection has been made. And if he or she is reticent to do that, ask yourself why? If they’ve gone on a site to “meet” someone and yet don’t want to see you in the flesh – move on and find someone who wants to progress things in the real world.

It’s not my ideal way of meeting a date, I’ll be honest. At least when you hook up in the traditional sense you’ve got all that physical attraction stuff out of the way first. The trouble with internet dating is that you can build up a very strong connection, incredibly quickly – which can all explode into nothing if those first few seconds of a face to face meeting result in no increase of heart-rate.

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But, as a writer, working in solitary confinement, I did give it a go once upon a time. I met “Dave”, a lovely chap but alas still too raw from his last relationship split. He talked for two hours non-stop about his ex – I couldn’t get a word in. There was “Jack”, who had the most gorgeous voice and whisked me out to dinner and the theatre. But there was no fun in him – no silliness. I’m not sure he even knew how to laugh. And there was “Hal”, who ticked every box on the “fabulous man” checklist: tall, handsome, educated, wealthy, loved kids, loved animals, treated me like a queen... every box except the one which said “do you fancy this man?” I liked him, loved his company – but I didn’t want to snog his face off.

Life would be so much easier if we could just flick a switch and fancy those who fancy us – but alas it’s just not like that. I gave up after that and got a cat.

* Milly Johnson is the Barnsley author of six best-selling books and winner of Come Dine With Me Barnsley (Saturday, October 1, Channel 4, 4.10pm). www.millyjohnson.com

* An Autumn Crush is out now (£6.99) published by Simon and Schuster.

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