Wear your heart on your screen A

FRIEND of mine has started online dating.

“You’re doing what?” I said, as we talked in the bar. “Whatever happened to meeting a girl when you were out socialising?”

“I’m out socialising now,” he said. “Look around this place. Do you see anyone suitable?”

There were three fat blokes further down the bar and a crowd of lads in the sports room watching football. Point taken.

It was all so different in the past when people met potential partners at dances or work or through a friend of a friend.

Back then, young people went around in a collective (polite name for a gang) and paired off.

Boys and girls would switch partners until they discovered compatibility and then got engaged. Job done.

This arrangement was best summed up when I asked a friend how he and his wife had got together.

“I was the last one left of our group,” he said. “So she took me.”

Both my happily married daughters said my attitude to online romance was prehistoric and that any self-respecting single of any age these days turns to the relevant app on their mobile to look for a suitable date.

Apparently, a total of one in four relationships now starts online.

The first dating site, Match.com, was launched in 1995 and now operates in 25 countries. There are 1,400 dating sites catering for UK singles. Users can be matched by age, location, hobbies, politics and religion.

Some sites use “personality defining algorithms”, which means filling in a questionnaire. This in itself is fraught with danger and obfuscation (otherwise known as stretching the truth or lying).

Top lies told by men are about their job, height, weight, physique and money. They also claim to know celebrities, have assistants or work in the film industry. There must be plenty of those living in Huddersfield.

Top fibs from women are about weight, age, physique, height and money, bust size, glamorous profession, knowing celebs, having assistants and working in entertainment. A lot of those, too. Which basically invokes caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. But if you want a website, there are many to choose from: Happn, Match, Once, Hinge, Huggle, Zoosk, Elite and thousands more. They cater for every interest, age and belief; gay, Christian, senior citizens and beard lovers (it’s called Bristlr). Every niche area is covered. Our time (for like minded singles over 50) DateYorkshireSingles, Gluten Free Singles. Tindog for dog lovers,Salad Match for salad lovers, Sizl for bacon lovers, Trekdating for sci-fi fans, Tastebuds that matches musical tastes, Spex for people who wear glasses or like people who wear glasses and Farmers Only. Purely in the name of research, I filled in a survey at comparison website Queek’d. The dating sites recommended

Top lies told by men are about their job, height, weight, physique and money. They also claim to know celebrities

for me ranged from eHarmony (the brains behind the butterflies) through Uniform Dating (everyone needs a hero) to Millionaire Match (the original and largest millionaire dating site since 2001).

By heck, had someone recognised my worth at last, by offering me premium membership for celebs and VIPs? Except that it added: salaries will be verified.

So if I was to use any app to find a date, it would be back to being honest and say that I was six foot tall, athletic build and friend of the stars.

Well, I once met Norman Wisdom.