Blind date

Could a date coach help Mariella choose from THREE men?

Mariella is beautiful, smart and successful with a great personality and a heart full of love. But, at 34, she’s beginning to wonder if she will ever find lasting love.

Until she turned 30, Mariella Spoto was happy being single and independent, focusing on travelling, having fun with friends and her career as a TV and film make-up artist.

But now she’s on the hunt for that special someone, and for four years has had only dating disasters.

So when Mariella wrote to the Daily Mail’s Dating Doctor asking for a blind date, we decided to send her for a romance reboot with dating coach Genevieve Zawada and clinical psychologist Dr angela Smith, founders of love Match retreats, to find out where she might be going wrong.

They helped her to see how her approach to dating could be blocking her from finding a lasting love.

‘i realised the men i like are never ready for commitment,’ says Mariella, who lives in london. ‘i can now spot these red flags much earlier and can avoid dating that type of man.’

She also learned that her ‘attachment style’ — her view of the trust and security of others, which, according to Dr Smith, almost always determines how we behave in dating and relationships — is characterised as ‘anxious’.

‘She has to start choosing men who are consistent, kind, curious and — most important — those who have a more secure style of attaching,’ says Dr Smith. ‘Now, on dates, she can look for tell-tale signs of consistency: do they call when they say they will? are they on time? Do they have some understanding of emotions?

‘This then means she is much more likely to get into a relationship with someone who is more secure.’

For Mariella, considering her three ‘relationship-breakers’ was another revelatory moment.

‘after a lot of thought i decided that he has to be a gentleman and generous; he has to be successful, with financial security, because i have worked hard for the same; and he has to have a healthy, active, outdoorsy lifestyle.

‘Previously, i might have disregarded someone who was bald, but now i have let that and other features go, because they were standing in the way of me meeting someone i might actually like.’

To put what she learned into practice, we sent her out on three blind dates. So, did love blossom?