Welcome to the jungle

For a 32-year-old girl dangerously veering towards Bridget Jones territory, Los Angeles is a tricky place to get a date.

Not that ‘dating’ in the American context of the word is an easy thing for Brits to get their heads around.

Back in Blighty, meeting a boyfriend or girlfriend usually involves a drunken snog in the corner of a dingy pub or club, and making a hungover decision the next day whether to see that person ever again. Granted, the odds are a bit stacked against you, but if you do miraculously find someone you like, then you stick to that one person. Hard part over. We Brits leave our fates up to Dionysus.

I’ve realised dating across the pond is much more of a minefield. Americans do not, firstly, seem to drink as much, so the useful drunken snog situation is usually out of the window. Instead, you are left with an awkward conversation, sometimes in the cold sobriety of daylight, when a random person asks you for your number. For a typical reserved Brit, this can be a little tricky. If you’re not really interested, it can leave you feeling a bit impolite and trying to find a way to reject someone who has been, let’s face it, pretty brave.

But say, miracles did occur and that business card passed through the window of a car at a red light (seen it happen) reaps dividends and you do manage to get a date. Chances are, that spark of chemistry might not last, as you have to impress your man or woman more than every other person they happen to be dating at the same time. From what I can tell, this casual polygamous soup continues until you decide you like each other at least say, 75% more than any of the other potentials. At which point you can be “exclusive.” i.e. monogamous.

Well hallelujah.

Granted, this American system seems a lot more orderly, casual and a bit less pressured – see someone and tick off your own personal checkbox. However, I hate to admit it, but the sentimental side of me misses the chaotic British way of doing things. Men getting drunk, making a lunge, doing that weird jellyfish nightclub dance behind you for about half an hour before giving up, spilling their 15^th pint over your toes as they leer at you in a crowded bar. Oh happy days!

Getting a date over here seems to me, more and more like a job interview. I had a browse through some dating websites and saw several men talking about wanting to meet someone ‘ambitious and determined to achieve their personal goals.’ What does that even mean?

Sorry but I cannot date you because you are not near your personal goals. You have not reached your $100,000 salary target, have no interest in running a hedge fund, and have failed to understand War and Peace. Next!

At the risk of sounding like Carrie Bradshaw, who, much as I love Sex and The City, is a terrible writer, I am wondering if we all pursue our own personal ideal of perfection to the degree that we look past what is great about a person, so we only see what’s wrong rather than what’s right? Is this why many people my age are on dating websites, where they still dismiss those who are too short, too fat, too thin, not pretty enough, with the wrong ambitions, as being not ,good enough’ for them?

So…as no-one in this world is perfect, my advice to those poor people in this messy, stagnant dating arena is to have a lunge at someone. You never know how it’ll go…