Today is Monday.

Since it’s my sworn duty is to make you guys smile my thoughts quite naturally led me to the emotional minefield that is the dating game.

Just last week I understood for the very first time that dating in the United Kingdom and dating in the United States is approached by horny interested people in a totally different way.

In the UK if you go out with someone once or twice and ‘like’ them, you’re dating. You don’t date anyone else. You are exclusive until you break up. This means people in the dating game are put under a huge amount of pressure, especially if they live in a small community where everyone knows everyone else’s business. This can make girls in particular very reluctant to date at all. I know this because I have two daughters at the dateable age and they find the whole thing ‘stressful’. I wonder if this is why we have a huge surge in internet dating sites and speed dating.

However, in the USA, it’s perfectly acceptable to go out with two to three people at once until you’re sure you want to go steady. Once you start dating exclusively it becomes a very different thing. MAKES SENSE TO ME. And I think we should import this brilliant idea to the UK.

However, I foresee issues ahead. If a girl was seen out with three different men in the same week she would be called a certain name, not a nice name, which in the USA is called ‘ho and in the UK would be a slapper. And if a man was seen out with three different women in the same week he’d be called a ‘player’.

In my novels I’m not shy in using certain real events mined from my kids and their friend’s experiences. They’re enough to make your hair curl! I put the protagonists through the dating wringer and when people say to me, ‘Oh, that would never happen in real life. Who would jump out a ladies’ rest room window in a hotel bar to get away from a blind date?’ I have no problem replying, ‘my daughter did. Twice!’

All I can say is that things were a lot different in my day. I dated a right couple of dozy buggers before I met my DH, who proposed within two weeks of meeting me – this is the God’s honest truth btw – he was thirty and I was twenty one. That might seem young today, but when I had my second daughter at twenty four I was regarded as an ‘elderly mother’ (We work fast in this family!) Anyway, as ever, I digress.

Questions:

How do women/men girls/boys in the USA overcome this issue? Are they upfront that they’re casually dating?

How many frogs did you kiss before you found your prince/princess?

Tell the truth, what have you done to avoid an awkward scene/moment in the dating game?

Any tips/advice from you guys out there dipping your toe in the dating pond?

You know I love to hear from you, so please leave a word or twenty, below.

And don’t forget - Episode two of Desert Orchid here on Friday. Come and meet Charisse.