Will I never learn?

Despite having dated online on and off for more than four years now I fell into the classic online dating trap last week. Yes, in the same week as Mr Scotland; how unlucky can one girl be?

I met Mark online two weeks ago and was so impressed by his ability to correctly spell the word 'definitely' (you'd be amazed how bad spelling will dampen even my overactive sex-drive) that I agreed to a Saturday night date.

The texts were funny, the emails varied between sexy and sweet and his photo, while not necessary my immediate 'usual' type was attractive. I was just beginning to get excited; we'd even had the pre-date phone call and he didn't sound thick or common (limitation of character that have a similar effect on me as bad spelling, see above).

Fast forward to another pre-date phone call and we got on to discussing our photographs. My photo tactic is to have relatively average photographs of myself on my profile in the hope that a man is pleasantly surprised when we meet, rather than horrified that he hadn't received what he had ordered.

Unfortunately it seemed that Mark didn't have a similar philosophy. "Oh," he said. "I think that photo of me is quite an old one, I'm not sure I look much like that anymore."

I should have got rid of him immediately. Instead I wasted an hour of my life while he faffed about emailing me a more recent photograph. Mark wasn't sure he looked much like his profile photograph anymore but I was; it was practically a different man! Fatter, older, much less hair. I knew instantly there was no way I would ever be attracted to this version of the man but when he offered to cancel the date I felt too bad to agree.

Of course I had to cancel in the end, his low self-esteem and lack of confidence were as off-putting to me as the photograph and it was clear he was about ready to fall in love with me which would have been a very sticky situation to extricate myself from.

He seemed quite understanding when I let him know but then in his final text to me he offered to have oral sex with me if I wanted. Clawing back a little dignity for himself after being dumped maybe? I don't know but I'm not in the habit of having oral sex with men that I categorically am not attracted to. Come to think of it I don't, unfortunately, have oral sex often enough to even consider it a habit, but call up Mr My-Looks-Have-Gone-Downhill in recent times for it? I don't think so.