Being single in Leamington, reasonably professional, moderately independent and adequately articulate, speed-dating seemed a perfectly acceptable option on Valentine’s Day.

With depressing predictability, none of my friends believed my reason for going was work-related (this article), opting instead to declare my motives as being fuelled by desperation – somewhere between the two may not be too far from the truth.

Finding middle ground quickly is what speed-dating success relies on.

If say, your ‘clever’ opening line fails to pay-off, three minutes can be an excruciatingly long time; and like a mercilessly heckled stand-up comedian with no riposte – you can easily end up exposed in no man’s land – like I did.

Having persuaded a couple of my single colleagues to come along for moral support, and indulged in some confidence building fast-paced drinking beforehand, for some unknown reason I felt my ‘do I know your face from somewhere?’ gambit was spot on.

I was going for irony.

Ironic then, that not one of the dates I tried it on found my conversation starter remotely innovative, interesting or clever, and it failed to do everything it was meant to, seeing as it only succeeded in halting conversation.

Pic by Mary Turner

The speed-dating format is simple: the ladies find somewhere to sit while the men move round the room in three minute bursts and chat to those who are vacant – meaning the ones without company of course, not those who seem unoccupied.

By this stage both parties will have been given a marking booklet to accompany their name tag and number, and have to mark down either yes or no and ‘first impressions’ after the three-minute whistle goes to move on – something I suspect my score suffered on given my disastrous starting line.

The first 12 minutes seemed like an hour – so a tactical change saw me resort to playing it safe.

This means the conversation becomes quite repetitive: name (James), occupation (reporter), what your hobbies are (sport and sport) where you live (Kenilworth), siblings (one brother), whether you had been speed-dating before (I had not), how the night was going (lying: very well), whether you had said ‘yes’ to anyone yet (coyly: might have).

Not pioneering stuff by any means, but it did work better than trying – and failing -to be a cross between Orlando Bloom and Jack Dee.

The turnout at the event was good, and with more people attending the 39 plus age group than the 21 to 39 section, it means I have a good few years of honing my speed-dating technique before I have to rely on it.

But having received the results, my lack of confidence appears to have been misplaced:

From the three boxes ticked I received three mutual matches in return, otherwise known as a 100 per cent success rate.