Dating in London: How to Survive It

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Dating is a formidable thing in any town of this fair Isle we live on.  As if there isn’t enough pressure in life to be thinner than Posh, have more money than Alan Sugar and to be able to belt out a tune better than Leona, we have to also find a life partner who is also all of the above.  Oh, and who we happen to love. 

Whether you’re a lass from Lancashire or a lad from Leeds, love has never been so tough - only count yourself lucky that you don’t have to leap into the fiery pit otherwise known as London Town. 

Every night of the week young and old singletons alike are donning their favourite outfits and sprinkling sweet smells behind their ears before trekking out into the bright lights, on golden pavements, to find ‘the one’!

Here’s a list of top – tips from my most trusted sources – on how to succeed… and survive!

The Dos

1 – The Outfit.  London, Paris, New York, Milan.  Yes, I’m afraid London is up there with the best of them.  That means one simple thing – you have to be fashionable.  If you’re going to fish around in the wardrobe for something in this season’s cobalt blue trend and all you can find is a shirt or dress your great auntie gave you this x-mas’s then you will end up feeling like Marty McFly has just dropped you out of his time machine.  Get yourself to Primark.

2 - Remember your transport.  Very few of us will be sliding into a limo or stepping into a guilded carriage outside our front doors to be delivered directly and comfortabley into the arms of our new love… most have to contend with that ever popular monstrosity The Tube Train.  Unless your hair-do is being held in place by cement or by God himself, then keep it simple… the last thing you need is to turn up looking like Tina Turner.

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3 – Social Networking.  Learn to pose.  Stand in your mirror for hours, practice at bus stops, shop windows, the reflection in the TV – this is a social networking Universe and when ‘the one’ looks you up online the day after your date, have an array of glamorous and well-posed shots waiting.  Not a menagerie of drunken hag snapshots which he / she will take one look at, put the evening before down to temporary insanity and click ‘delete friend’.

4 – Be Good!  You know what I mean.  London is a big place, but oh my god London is a small world!  Date one = a drink or a dinner or a movie and nothing else – otherwise you wont be able to pop out for a morning Starkbucks without good-morning-ing your way through a throng of has-beens.

5 – Keep it simple.  Unless you actually are Alan Sugar then keep your dates simple!  In London, where a small glass of wine costs £6 and the cost of dinner in a posh restaurant is roughly the same as some small countries GNP, you must remember to plan ahead!  Woo the one of your dreams in the Tate Modern, perhaps, or with a stroll along the Southbank, or perhaps frequent the National Gallery, Tower Bridge, Kensington Gardens… all of which are free and, if the one of your dreams turns out, in fact, to NOT be the one of your dreams, you wont be left with a credit card bill that the RBS would be proud of.

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