Have I got the dating X Factor?
So I did ask out Kate again. And she did reply, which was exciting. We arranged to meet up the following week. Brilliant.
In the meantime, I was still in the midst of a few conversations with other girls on the dating site. I wasn't too bothered, I was sure none of them would be as nice as Kate. But I logged on occasionally when I received a message or a wink, just to see who was checking me out.
Whenever I did this - whether it was early before work, on Sunday lunchtime or after I'd got in from the pub — one thing was constant: Kate was 'online'.
Lovestruck, like most dating websites, has a function that shows you whenever someone is logged in. It means they're chatting, or perusing, or stalking someone. And Kate, it seemed, was doing at least one of these things regularly.
Since our date, I'd been online less. Not just because I'd found someone I liked but also because she'd know whenever I logged on. If you meet someone and you get on well, it doesn't give out the best signal when they see you looking for someone else the next day.
Yet neither of these things bothered Kate. She was out there - permanently, flagrantly scouting for dudes before my eyes.
When we met up for date two, one of the first things she said was: "Remember I told you I was planning to go to a roller disco with my friends last weekend, well one of them broke her ankle and we didn't go."
Vaguely interesting, I suppose, but the problem was I didn't remember she was going to a roller disco, and that's because she hadn't told me about it. She was obviously confusing me with someone else she'd dated.
And this is the biggest giveaway of the serial dater — they tell you the same thing again and again, or they confuse facts about you. I know this because I've been guilty of it several times, like the occasion I mistakenly thought a girl had spent most of her childhood living in Ecuador. Then when she looked perplexed, I insisted it was true and suggested she had perhaps "forgotten it?"
So I decided to let the roller disco thing go — it's normal. On these sites, dating monogamy is rare. It's a numbers game by nature. You round up all the people you like, and who like you, and date them one by one, hoping one sticks. You might have a perfect night out with someone on Tuesday and be snogging someone completely different on Wednesday.
It's not very romantic, and it means you're competing directly against unseen rivals. Every date with Kate would be like an X Factor for her affections. Whoever she'd told about her roller disco plan was gunning for the same prize as me. She is Simon Cowell, judging us both. I'm a nervous soul singer from, err, Wolverhampton.
But then, I'm also Simon Cowell. So it's like Simon Cowell going on a date with himself, which is an unsettling image — although probably one he'd quite like.
In any case, the upshot was that we both made it through to the next round. I was not hungover and therefore able to speak, while she was as charming as she'd ever been. There was even a little kiss at the end. Simon was being nice to us for now, but we all know how fickle he can be.
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