It's hardly surprising that there's a dearth of available single men in their fifties, or that those who do exist look lower down the age scale for a potential suitor, because we women of a similar age are daunting creatures. And god, we're fussy.
While one can live quite happily for years with a monosyllabic husband whose silences, you have convinced yourself, are thoughtful - how on earth do you switch to Mr Garrulous whose last less-than careful owner let him chatter over University Challenge - and then get all the answers wrong - where as your last car, I mean man, made Paxo look like he was a slow boy from the woodwork class? Recent criticisms I have heard from my friends about men they have met include: 'He sends me emails with weblinks in them.' 'He didn't drink.' 'He orders very expensive wine and then I have to split the bill.' 'He puts extra salt on everything he eats.' 'He calls the bathroom "the little boy's room"'. 'He wears an anorak.' 'He signs off his emails: "Cheers''', and 'he lives in Greenwich.' (Okay that last one was me.)
None of these seem like grounds for shunning, but nevertheless, shunned those men have been (well, look, It's an hour and a half's drive from my house to Greenwich without traffic - not gonna happen). All men have their idiosyncrasies and all women nitpick. I could make them into categories for match.com and they'd be a lot more bloody useful than whether they like Korean food, or "enjoy country walks"'.
So, perhaps it's understandable that those who are pairable cling to the first woman who doesn't contradict them when they voice an opinion. However, that shouldn't lull them into a pretty, young, sweetly accommodating sense of security, because no matter how old or how, apparently amenable, the woman is. She also talks.
To her friends.
Example: Last night in a staid, middle-aged bistro off Kensington Gore waiting for a night of nostalgic, melancholic bliss with Leonard Cohen which I unfortunately have to share with the rest of the Albert Hall. Sitting beside me is my recently single friend, Eva. She is fiddling with her cutlery looking awkward, as well she might.
Do you remember the Woody Allen Film, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask? Well, this just about sums up Eva, except that she's not afraid.
I, on the other hand - at which she is looking very intently - am terrified. Based on her last question she seems to be expecting some sort of demonstration. I clench my fist and she sits up attentively, and I hurriedly sit on it instead. For too many seconds it appears she thinks that this is part of the show-and-tell and I can see the cogs turning in her confused brain until I shake my head.
I reach for the wine bottle to replenish my glass.
She sits up and gets out a mental notepad.
'No No, NO.' I say, taking a large gulp of wine as panic runs through my head like a naked guest in a burning hotel.
She's still looking at me expectantly.
'I'm not an expert,' I protest.
'But you did write that column,' she insists.
'Yes but I looked it all up on the internet.'
A little light bulb seems to go off behind her eyes. 'Ah, I didn't think about that,' she said. ' What should I type into Google?' She moves a little closer to me, to catch the answer mumbled into my risotto which is a little too tart for my taste (speaking of which...)
'Do you think anyone is listening?' she whispers, rather late in the day, as she glances at the table next to us where there's an old, red faced man with white facial hair but not a lot on his head and his slim, soft blonde daughter.
No, I don't think they can hear us.'
'How can you be sure?' Now, after half an hour of Ask Me I'm Anne Summers - suddenly - she's shy.
'Because if they were listening they'd be a lot quieter.'
I'm wondering what has prompted this sudden thirst for carnal knowledge but I daren't ask. I already know far, far too much about the man she is currently seeing. Things that make you go blind just thinking about them which I shall, continually, the next time I sit across the dinner table from him. Thank goodness it's time to wander up to the Albert Hall.
Half an hour later, Leonard Cohen is kneeling at my feet, albeit a mile away. His voice sounds like an underground explosion, his hand is cupped around the microphone, his cheeks are folded across his face like they've been in a drawer for a while, his eyes are closed. 'I'm your man', he sings.
There's a collective swoon across the auditorium, then the lights come up at the interval. In the row in front of us the old guy from the restaurant is running his hands over his daughter's back in a way that is not paternal. Sugar and daddy spring to mind. Next to me sits a chap with a flax of dyed black hair, wearing a leather jacket several sizes too big for Pavarotti. who smells strongly of stale cigarette smoke and has a cyst on his nose large enough to wear its own hat. He asks me if I'm enjoying myself.
I am. Or I was.
He tells me this is his fifth Cohen concert and that the previous night he had been seated in a private box next next to Crimewatch's Nick Ross.
Probably no coincidence I'm thinking. He was probably apprehended for a hold-up somewhere. And then he looks into the middle distance above my head and starts to list the Cohen memorabilia he has acquired over recent weeks until, mercifully, Eva interrupts:
'He's so good looking for his age,' she sighs. 'I mean he's 74 - I'd still sleep with him. '
Not that much of an endorsement, Eva given your recent history. And anyway, so would most of the audience, including Zaphod Beeblebrox here.
'Men age so much better than women,' she adds.
'I disagree,' says another of our party. I went to a college reunion the other week and the women looked fabulous while the men were all a bit thrown together - crushed, crumpled, tired.' (This is a friend who recently paid a grand to a dating agency but never has enough time to go out on the dates.) 'The women had thrown a lot of cash at their appearance ,whereas the men looked as though they'd just sort of shambled up. Men get a lot harder as they get older... '
'Yeah,' says Eva, ruefully, '...except in anyway that's useful.'
'Oh by the way,' she asks, ' That Alain de Botton School of Life thing, they're having a lecture on Seduction. Do you want to come?'
'Ah...I think I'll pass.' I said.
