My 400 dates a week

It has been an odd seven days. After being single for what seems like 100 years I have had offers of dates from more than 400 men. I have been out with five. I have had irritable emails and loving ones; I watched Sylvie Guillem dance from a box at the Royal Opera House, and I have sat up till 2am talking. One morning I received, out of the blue, a wildly excessive gift (a G4 laptop plus fabulous accessories).

I have been to the theatre and to the pub and to a members-only bar. I have been told that I am wonderful, mad, gameplaying, frightened, anxious and that I look quite nice. I have felt spoilt, buoyed up, dispirited, depressed, arrogant, confused, fraudulent, flattered and impatient and, while I have never had so much attention, I have also had moments of feeling intensely alone.

And all this due to strangers; men I have either never met or spoken to, or men I have met briefly, once. And all because, a week ago, I joined an internet dating service.

I am 32 and I am, or was, resolutely single - and, more to the point, most nights at least, dateless. I used to date, if that's what it was. At least I used to somehow, anyhow, end up having my fair share of amorous adventures.

Now (and I can hardly bear to write this cliché) most of my friends are married. So, me: a single, 32-year-old, not unsuccessful (I have a job on Vogue), not particularly glamorous, not fabulous looking, not unpresentable, relatively healthy, relatively happy and, importantly, a willing guinea-pig. What harm, I thought, in internet dating?

There are more than 15 such sites in Britain. There is a site called whatsmyrating.com that invites you to stick your photo on a site and let strangers rate it, on a scale of one to 10.

There is Justlunch.com, which sets up "just lunches" with suitable candidates. Lunch? I wanted large-whiskyandthen-I'm-out-of-here dates. I tried Match.com, which is one of the UK's biggest dating websites, and allows you to instant-message other datees who happen to be roaming the wild moor of the website at the same time as you, only I couldn't face messaging anyone. For example, there was "Cheeky Chap" who was, he said, "a careing very porson." So, no match for me.

But fine. Onwards. And so I tried datingdirect.com, the UK's largest website. It boasts more than a million users, and prides itself on its clean, no-frills website, its singles nights around the country, and its educated subscribers.

You can browse the site for free to check out the merchandise, but if you want to send someone a message, or put your own profile on the website, you have to join, which entails a £20 fee for three months. It's a good deal, trust me. I signed up and when I checked back a couple of hours later there were eight messages! I practically opened a bottle of champagne.

By the end of the day I'd received 30 messages. Two days later, 100. This is not a boast. Okay, so my photo was a little flattering, but it wasn't great. It was still me. All women on the site receive a lot of messages. That's the way it works.

It is a curious sensation, having so many offers from so many strangers. At first I loved it. One sent me a long poem; another, a flight commander, had written to me from Baghdad. One man was a few years over my specified age range (30-50) but qualified himself by saying that he was just a kid inside.

What was I looking for? That's one of the questions you have to address when you write your personal profile. Your age, occupation, race, religion, income, level of attractiveness (I put average; every male profile that I read had plumped for attractive) and star sign are all listed underneath your photo. Then you get a paragraph in which to write up to 150 words about yourself and what you are looking for. This is what I wrote:

"I'm not looking for anything specific, wish that I were, then I might know where to look or what to look for. But I wouldn't mind it if someone turned up who I could pester in the middle of the night, and first thing in the morning. I worry a bit, hate supermarkets, am not brill in enclosed spaces, wish I could have a dog but can't, adore my nephews, talk about my sisters too much - and I have that thing - you know - absurdly high standards, but at the same time am generally pretty easily pleased."

It's hard, when you are bombarded with so many messages, to decide who to email back, never mind deciding who you would like to meet. A few weeks ago, I would have thought, la-de-da, such problems, but now all of sudden it was a problem. How do you reply to 400 correspondents when you are already busy with a job and a new nephew and sisters and friends and a life? Well, you don't. I became callous.

For me to take note of a message and double-click on the "view profile" button, it had to be really good. What qualified as really good? Wit, of course, originality, charm.

Compliments worked well. "You sound wonderful and mad" caught my attention. But too much affection, on the other hand, turned out to be a deal-breaker.

Internet dating is, ironically, a curiously old-fashioned way of meeting someone. You are presented with a great many members of the opposite sex whom you don't know, but who are all vaguely suitable, in the way that I imagine you were, times past, if you were a debutante or part of village life.

Dating today, once you hit a certain age, is not like it once was. When I was in my teens and twenties I met a lot of fairly random men fairly randomly, and often went out with one of them - usually whoever it was who asked. If the date was a dud, it just meant one down, on to the next.

The awful reality is that the magical, chemical thud that happens when you meet someone you feel instantly attracted to doesn't happen if you stop meeting people. And as you get older, you meet fewer available people. Plus, you get stricter about your time. You tend to go to parties that you feel you have a chance of enjoying, ie those thrown by friends, often the people who are married.

And if you have been single for a long time, two things happen: You become more self-reliant, and so part of you grows: you get good at managing your life, from paying bills to going to parties alone. You have to watch out, though, because the sturdy tree of self-reliance can grow in a gnarly-warty-medievalish sort of way. In other words, self-reliance can be a bit of a turn off. Or a major turn off if the men you meet are wimpish. Many are.

At the same time, though, there is part of you that remains mawkishly undernourished - the part that wants and needs reassurance and recognition. You have no one to tell you that you look nice. You have no one putting their hand on yours.

Does this all sound too depressing? Sometimes it is. Often it isn't. Not so long ago, I met someone with whom I felt the thud. After a few meetings, we spent the night together. I thought to myself: how great that I'm single and I get to do this.

But then he didn't call. A male friend finally spent the night with someone he had been courting for weeks. He was thrilled. Except he called last week, trying to control his panic. He had texted his paramour, and not heard a word for three days. "God," he said, "I never thought I'd still be doing this. Worrying about this stuff in my mid-thirties!"

And so, I did meet strangers; five in fact. My first date was a disaster. This may not be surprising, as the date took place at my house, on a Sunday at midnight. One minute it was Sunday afternoon and I was replying to a message from a handsome man whose description of himself - "wordy, brazen, independent, resourceful, obsessive, healthy, intellectual, lighthearted, tidy, untidy, thoughtful, deep, superficial, paradoxical" - sounded like something I might write about myself (bar intellectual and deep).

When I wrote telling him this scintillating news, he wrote back: "What do you think we should do? I am sure it is the same answer as mine." I thought that was well put, and so I wrote: "Hot, dirty, wordy, deep, superficial sex?" I meant it as a joke. He wrote back: "I don't think I will forget this Sunday. My name is Jay and we kind of know each other, don't we?" I think it was me who suggested meeting. Yes, he said, he'd love to.

He came. He didn't have a drink. "I don't find drinking glamorous," he said. "My compulsions are food and the online stuff." Jay was a lot bigger than he looked in his photograph, which was fine but, call me old-fashioned, I'm not sure I can deal with a man talking about his eating disorder on a first date. And the online stuff freaked me out. He told me he was addicted to ordering Domino's pizza online and timing how quickly the pizza man arrived at his door. Again, fine. But to share? So soon? The problem was I had imagined him wrongly. After two hours I ushered him out into the night.

I was more careful with my other dates. I went out with one, a trainee theatre director, because he wrote me a furious email after I neglected to continue to respond to his messages. "When I look at your photo I can see a thin layer of fear in your consciousness." Quite harsh, non?

I met him for coffee. He wasn't quite cheerful enough for me, and he was fine, but fine is not good enough when it comes to an internet date. For a start, there are 399 men who might be better than fine, and you know where to find them. Also, because your internet guy has no connection to your circle, it's easier to move on. The downside is that you are left with the exhausting task of continuing the search.

Jim, the man who doesn't wear pants and works with homeless people, was absolutely fine. We met in a pub and talked for hours. He asked me how many people I'd slept with, what drugs I'd taken, and how much money I earned. He told me he was saving up to go travelling.

He was beautiful. He asked me if I'd like to know what it would feel like to kiss a stranger. I told him that as I wasn't in the habit of kissing my friends, I sort of knew, but we kissed anyway and it was lovely, which amazed me because I didn't think I would ever enjoy kissing someone who I truly didn't care if he never called again. Which was lucky, because he didn't.

There were other dates. There was the guy from advertising who was proud of his sense of humour. And then there was sweet, lovely Thomas. He's the one who took me to the ballet and sent me a G4 laptop. After the ballet he put me in a cab and paid the driver. I wish I were the girl for Thomas, but I'm not really the person he thinks I am. I look frail in my photograph. My name is Daisy. Why wouldn't he think I'm a delicate flower? Why wouldn't he project his own needs and desires onto me?

Everyone I encountered on datingdirect seemed to be looking for someone important. I think that that is what I found the hardest part about internet dating: it's about finding the right person. That's a big task to meet head-on. I think I'd rather give over to fate and deal with the consequences, or lack of them.

None of my internet dates worked out, but I only went on five. There are some damn fine men on datingdirect. Check them out.

I'm sorry not to be writing to Lee, an ex-professional footballer, asking him all about the leisure centre he is setting up. Lee looks sexy as hell and not a bit lonely.

No, the reason I've stopped internet dating is because I am now actually dating. There I was, out in the dating paddock, and along came this nice, straightforward man. He's someone I used to know - never well, but well enough - when we both lived in New York. We've only been on four dates, so who knows what will happen, but so far, it's good.