I've only ever been on one date (and what a disaster that was), at least, I thought I'd ever only been on one date, until I started questioning the definition of a date.

My string of monogamous relationships all have one thing in common, we met through friends, had a drunken snog and went out with each other. There was no courting, dating or wooing. It was a five step plan, and it was clean and simple;

1) Get introduced
2) Get drunk
3) Chat
4) Snog
5) Next time you meet, decide that you're now boyfriend and girlfriend

Hence my lack of experience in the dating arena.

So imagine my chagrin when on finding that when it comes to a definition of dating, it's a murky messy quagmire. But that's okay, I had some funky galoshes and a pair of fetching waders, and I was prepared to dive in.

The problem lies in that different people define it as different things. To illustrate, when I found myself in lovely company last night in a rowdy pub in London I asked the question, what is a date?

Malefriend1: I'd say it's when one or both of the parties have considered the topic of snogging/not snogging

Malefriend2: Nodding

Malefriend3: But some people would define a social meeting of two people from the opposite sex as a date

PPQ: See, I would say that a date was when both of you were aware that there was the potential for some sort of romantic involvement

Female Friend: Me too

You see my confusion? According to this little discussion, I've either been a dating mogul, the Hugh Heffner of dating if you will, OR I'm a dating virgin.

So, feeling like I was still in the dark without even my trusty, 99p purple torch from Woolies to guide the way, I did a little further investigating and looked it up on Urban dictionary. And what I can tell you is that I'm none the wiser, especially having read definition number 2!

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