“Speed dating is all about bedroom potential”

AT A DINNER party, there is a post-pudding lull in which an idle conversation about speed-dating begins.

“If I was speed-dating,” I say without any forethought, “and viewing second-date potential, I’d be tempted to skip the gruesome-looking ones.”

At this, the chat suddenly becomes less desultory and there is a slight bristling to my left, where a lugubrious man sits.

Earlier in the evening he had been introduced to me as a Fantastic Golfer And Great Fun.

We have been sitting next to each other and done our best.

“That’s a bit harsh,” Fantastic Golfer says.

“Really?” I say.

“So let’s say there’s an unsightly lady on this chair with a… umm… moustache perhaps.”

He looks upset.

“And there’s an alluring beauty on that chair.”

I explain that the alluring beauty is padded to perfection around her hips and breasts.

I ask him not to tell me he’d be in a quandary about who to chat to first.

“What about personality?” he asks.

“What if the unattractive woman is witty and great craic?”

“That’s the point,” I say. “That is what you don’t know.

“So, let’s just pretend for a minute the moustache lady is on one chair and the alluring beauty is on another and you don’t know what either of them are like.

“You’ve got five minutes to find out. Who are you going to sit beside?”

I’m curious.

He sidesteps adroitly.

“So you’re telling me that it’s all about looks then.”

“No but we’re talking about a speed date here, so it’s about spark.”

“What do you mean by spark?”

“I mean bedroom potential, a good feeling.

“For example, I’m not going to get a good feeling if someone has a spookily long forehead.

“I can’t help it… a Dr Who-ish cranium would stop me wanting to find out whether a man is funny or charming.”

I was surprised at having to defend my position.

After all, most men tend not to be magnetised by intelligent troll women but perhaps this man was an exception.

There was a sting in the tail of what he was saying, a loud subtext, which was that he considered my attitude lookist and unfair.

Speed dating is about first impressions and just or unjust, for me one simple rule would apply.

To go on a second date with someone, I’d have to be able to imagine him en flagrante.

And I’d need to be able to do this comfortably, without wincing.

I say as much.

“Look, I’d go on a second date with Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy but I’d give Gordon Brown a miss.

“He looks like the roll on/roll off type.”

He wasn’t happy about this.

“Anything else put you off?”

“Yes, large girly bottoms or an overbite.”

I don’t know why he seemed so stung. He didn’t have a weird forehead, overbite or girly bottom.

Maybe he didn’t like the idea of women making superficial judgements like… erm … men?

“I can’t believe women are that shallow,” he says flatly.

“Not all women,” I say brightly, by way of comfort.

Truth is I feel like poking him in the eye because there’s nothing shallow about chemistry — it’s why I went on a second date with my husband of 25 years.

I am keen to wrap the conversation up because he seems the kind able to hold his position in an argument to the point of death, even when he’s stopped making sense to himself.

So I ask him to pass me the wine.

He fills my glass and I look at him.

He’s handsome enough. I’d probably have given him a shot on a speed date.

Wouldn’t have lasted long, though.