Prospective dates.

I get a message from a prospective on-line date. He's keen. Too keen. "Let's meet for dinner on Tuesday", and he names a restauant a million miles across London from me. He has no picture, and says very little about himself on his profile. So all I can deduce is that he is someone who wants to date women who are prepared to date a total nutcase.

I send an email back saying "Thanks, but no thanks to dinner on Tuesday" and give a couple of reasons (quite apart from the fact that my book group meets on Tuesdays where at least I am guaranteed good company and good conversation). I receive a petulant e-mail back saying he thought I would be fun and adventurous and would therefore enjoy a spontaneous evening. I don't think it will help to tell him that a spontaneous evening can result in having your body cut up in to little pieces and dumped in the River Thames. OK, that may not be highly likely, but a needy insecure man is a serious possibility. Oh yes, it turns out the restaurant mentioned is three yards away from his flat. Great!

I think it's time to end this correspondence, and almost straightaway a message from another guy zooms in. He claims to be a young looking 53. I'd put him at 65 plus. He has a moustache, and likes dancing. he doesn't seem to have any other interests. I hate dancing. I hate moustaches so it's a "no" from me. I press the "thanks but no thanks" button.

Man Hunt

Where do women of my age meet men? The workplace? The men where I work are either too young, happily married or gay. One is all three. Evening classes? Only women turn up. Through mutual friends? My friends know only married men or those who have some form of social problem. I don't want to take on a care in the community project. So I'm left with dining clubs and on-line dating. I sign up to both and part with a shed-load of cash.

The first dining club event ends up being exactly like a Care in the Community outing. I was the only woman with more than three brain cells, and the men were monosyllabic. For once in my life I didn't eat pudding, and made my excuses and tore home to demolish half a tub of Ben and Jerry's finest ( the one with polar bears in it). That was the best bit of the entire evening.

I go on-line and find the only message from a would be dater lives 4,000 miles away but thinks distance is no object to love. He seems to have rather a lot of issues. I hit the 'no thanks' button and contemplate the second half of the tub of B and J, but virtuously resist temptation.

Proceed to Fifty with Caution

Especially if you are single and female - because it is a well-known fact that you become invisible on the dot of your half century. Your ex-husband is married to a skinny would-be yummy-mummy (does she know that he had a vasectomy?)

We the ex-wives are meant to disappear into the ether and sadly we do. Unless we go to the gym a lot and use Botox. Some of us don't like the gym and would rather spend the Botox money on going on decent holidays. Or getting the leak in the roof fixed.

This is what my life has become. Weighing up the benefits Botox versus an intact roof. I go to the theatre on my own, and sign up for evening classes. I am invited only to dinner-parties to make up numbers when the hostess feels she has to invite her weird never-married brother because he doesn't get out much. I sit next to him and hear a lot about his model railway and his new telescope.

I can't even drink much to numb the horror because I am driving, so I come home and start a blog. I also vow to put some excitement back into my life - I think a lover would be rather fun.