Could a happy, witty, blue-eyed man be the one?

A dating site email arrived from Jim, who lives about a mile down the road and may not be aware that we see each other on the high street sometimes. In fact, Jim (I thought, looking at his photograph), I saw you at the weekend. I was buying tulips and you were buying avocados.

Jim works for a legal outfit and is heavily into snorkelling. You name a turquoise sea and he has snorkelled there. I hate being underwater, but thought it best not to mention this until after the wedding. I was immediately attracted to him: his page was witty and he had kind blue eyes and a wide smile. I’d already seen him in person and his eyes really are kind. He’s a fulfilled, happy person, his bio said. He has everything he wants, other than someone to love. He isn’t a player; he’s one of the good guys. He finds dating sites are getting increasingly sleazy, he added.

I agreed enthusiastically to beer, though without mentioning tulips and avocados. I did say that I was finding dating sites increasingly sleazy, too. He wanted to fall deeply in love with someone, he said in his response, and stay there for the rest of his life. He despised the whole dating-site culture of one-night stands, he wrote, and short-term relationships and lack of emotional ambition.

We arranged to meet on Friday night, at a bar near his flat. I didn’t mention that it was also near mine. He suggested the venue.

He said: “Let’s make it after 9pm, as I have a meeting there at 7pm.” I said 9pm was ideal.

I went back and looked properly at his profile, and that’s when I noticed that he is hoping to have children. I messaged him. “You know that I’m 50, don’t you? Children aren’t on the cards. Still want to meet?”

“It’s probably not a goer long term,” he replied, “but how do you feel about short-term fun?” Short-term fun? Wasn’t this the man who was casual-sex averse? “Give me your mobile number and I’ll text you when my meeting’s over. Should be by 9pm but might overrun.”

Intuition struck me like a gong. “Wait – do you have a date at 7pm? Is that what the meeting is?”

“It was arranged before I met you,” he protested. “And I’m not one for cancelling at the last minute.”

I waited and waited, dressed up ready to go out, and kept checking my phone. When it got to 10.30pm, I took off the dress and the makeup and went to bed. At 10.55pm, the phone beeped. “Fancy a drink?”

“How did your date go?” I replied.

“Unexpectedly well. Lovely snog at the bus stop. Are you up for another?”

The following day there was another Jim, a tanned and muscly builder, wanting to know if he could have my phone number. “I love your profile,” he wrote. “I barely read at all, but like a woman who does.” I gave him my number and he rang while I was walking along the street, just as it was getting dark.

“Well, this is weird, isn’t it?” he said. He had a nice Yorkshire accent.

“It is a bit weird,” I agreed. “How are you, what’ve you been doing?” I sat down on a bench to talk to him.

“Busy day at work, just had a shower, just opened a beer, putting my feet up. You?”

“The same, though I haven’t quite got to the beer and feet-up stage yet. Looking forward to that.”

“You sound way too posh for the likes of me,” he said. “So what are you wearing?”

“Tweed skirt, T-shirt, jacket, boots.”

“Kinky. How short is the skirt? Tell me about the boots. Are you wearing stockings? I’m getting hard just thinking about it.”

“The skirt’s mid-calf and a bit dowdy; I’m altogether a bit dowdy,” I told him.

“Tell me about your nipples,” he said. “What size are they?”

“Really?” I said. “Seriously? I have to go. Bye.”

“Jim” had only posted one photograph and on revisiting it I was suspicious of the studio-quality lighting. Was Jim the man in the picture? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m beginning to be sceptical about dating site photographs that are too good. Especially since I realised that a man who had posted a stylish picture of himself in a black raincoat at the Trevi fountain in Rome had lifted it from a clothing catalogue.