If dating is a game, then I must be losing.(Features)

Byline: anne.gildea

Fair play to the Donegal woman who sued a dating agency for lack of romantic success. I haven't had a sniff of romance myself for going on three years. Not due to any self-deprecation on my part: I know what I have to offer. I'm easygoing, have a fine head of naturally not-grey hair, fully functioning extremities and all my own teeth.

And I know my drawbacks: commitment phobia, trust issues, inherent doubt about whether meeting a man is The Ideal, a wild streak, a lot of fillings and a tendency to ramble... where was I? Oh yeah. Yer woman suing the agency -- sometimes I wish there was someone I could sue for my utter lack of romance too. Yet I didn't give good money in the hope of meeting a Mr Man.

Everything a price She paid [euro]600 for 12 introductions and the men she met sounded like characters that'd now, so not the perfect man?' have you looking round, going, 'Is this Candid Camera?' The man so shy, he could barely talk? The one who introduced his tongue when she was giving him a peck goodbye on the cheek? Ugh. Did she tick the 'Big Eejit' box when it came to the 'what I like in a man' list? No, she did not.

She probably thought, as I would if I paid top dollar to join a matchmaking agency, that she'd be presented with a veritable chocolate box of 12, and the only issue would be choosing the most delectable of the whole delicious bunch. Then again, she lives in Letterkenny, so what did she expect? Small town. If she hadn't met Mr Perfect down the local, then chances are he didn't live in the area. In the event, she gave up after four bitter disappointments. She should have seen it coming in the name of the agency -- The Happy Matchmaker. Not The Happy Matchmades.

See? Ah, well. I guess it's fair to figure that if you pay good money, you can expect your 'consumer satisfaction'. In a world where everything has a price tag, why not the 'perfect man'? But as the Letterkenny litigation proves, meeting your match is massively more complex.

I know someone who joined such an agency. She made it clear her passion was books. That was the number-one 'common interest' she requested. She met the first date, asked him what he was reading at the moment. 'Ermm,' he said after a long pause, 'the last book I remember reading was Black Beauty. When I was 11.' What happened there? An honest mistake on the part of the agency, or the matchmaker taking the executive decision that bookishness is not the way true love lies? Or simply that, having collated her desires, they just shoved anything in trousers her way to fulfil the requisite number of dates that the contract stipulated. That was the basis of our Donegal heroine's case.

Did The woman I know came to the same conclusion but didn't go the court-case route. She tried the internet instead and joined the Another Friend site in January. By May of that year, she had met her man. Seven years later they're as happy as Larry. The trick, she told me, was that they emailed each other regularly for several months before actually meeting. you Ninety per cent get nervous - which is 48 per cent end with I shared that story with another friend who I knew had also tried Another Friend. 'Ah, blah,' she grumbled. According to her, you can be emailing someone till the cows come home, chortling at each other's jokes and having a grand ol' connection via your broadband provider. Then you meet that person and wham, bam, NOTHING. No chemistry.

No buzz. Just the instant desire to run away, retract a couple of months' worth of emails, and erase the whole thing from the 'dating file' of your brain.

In our hearts we know the best way to meet someone is serendipitously, face to face.

But how often does that truly happen? I read an interview recently with a British author. Speaking about how she met her second husband, she said she saw him across a crowded room and thought, 'Ah, there you are.' I've never thought such a thing about a man. Have you? I've seen incredibly attractive chaps across crowded rooms and just thought, 'Ah, so lovely, and so far away, all the way over there.' I've never gone, 'Yep, there he is, better go and get him.' Maybe that's a national character thing: innate Irish bashfulness vs English self-confidence? It's a tantalising notion, that you can just go to an agency, circumvent the ups and downs of the hunt and find Mr Right. But going on the evidence above, perhaps it would be better to sidestep the matchmaker type and go for one of the detective variety: 'Hi, I'm looking for a guy. Tall, dark, handsome; solvent; own furnished bungalow; can string a sentence together and doesn't see every instance of facial proximity as an opportunity for a snogdive.

know? of single people about first kisses possibly why only of first dates a kiss No, sorry, I don't know his name -- yet. That's your job, buster.' The plaintiff in the Donegal case accused the company of negligence, breach of duty and fraudulent misrepresentation because she didn't meet a man. Many's the man I've met that I would have loved to sue for the very same things.

And there you go -- that's probably what the judge concluded too when he rejected the case for damages: all's fair in love.

anne.gildea@mailonsunday.ie and go Did you know? Ninety per cent of single people get nervous about first kisses - which is possibly why only 48 per cent of first dates end with a kiss know your CENSUS The 2011 census of population takes place tonight -- a massive countrywide undertaking to update the data gathered in 2006 ? The census is organised by the Central Statistics Office, which employs a temporary field force of nearly 5,500 people to carry out the operation at local level ? The form consists of 35 questions that must be answered in respect of every person who is staying in the house this evening plus 12 household questions