When it comes to dating, Which Approach Works Best?

Stuck in dating purgatory, Cosmo’s Mel Evans set out to see if there is one personality that works best on the boys, enlisting the help of her colleagues along the way.

- Mel Evans

IT ALL STARTED IN MY EDITOR’S OFFICE ONE AFTERNOON IN MARCH. I WAS QUESTIONING THE TEXTUAL TO-AND-FRO OF A LOVELY ENGLISH GUY I WAS STARTING TO DATE.

We’ll call him Sam. Because that is his name. It was early days, so I was in the habit of picking apart each and every message, volleying my colleagues with ‘But what does that mean?’ and ‘What should I say to this?’ Naturally. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

You see, working at Cosmo, I have a database of dating doulas on tap, ready to impart their wise words in the quest of scoring me a fella. And this time I was flitting between features director Shari’s game playing (The Rules-style), chief subeditor Kelsey’s bluntness and style editor Deni’s flirty forward…ness. I already held the dating attitudes of each of them in some way, but I was suddenly a tri-polar texter with whiplash – I had to find a solution to this hellhole of communication that I was evidently not acing.

Then just like the Old El Paso, ‘Porque no los dos?’ girl, my editor says, ‘Mel, why not try all these approaches on their own?’ instructing me to find four guys and see what floats when it comes to dating.

It was an idea so crazy (and utterly indulgent) it just might work.

The rules were simple – I had to pick guys I actually wanted to go on a date with (so, yeah, sorry to the following blokes who happened across my path at a time I had to write about my dating life), and I had to explicitly follow the directions of my colleagues when it came to texting, flirting, dating. Simples.

Miss Blunt

Kelsey, the queen of direct, had date number one. I was to approach with confidence and skip small talk; there was no beating around the bush…and I had to pay for my own meal.