So, why can't we get a boyfriend?

Primrose Skelton is 24, fresh faced, cute, single - and perplexed by writer India Knight's assertion last week that anyone can go out, any time and get themselves a smart London boyfriend. She and her friends were so concerned that they called the paper direct.

"You don't just put on some lipstick and stroll out and find one," she insisted. "It doesn't work like that. And it's not (as Knight claimed) like going out and buying a new sofa. Especially because you don't want any old Habitat sofa. You want one which will last, preferably from the Conran Shop."

Primrose shares her life view and her single-girl existence with her sister Thea, 22, and their best friend Diana Renshaw, 23. The three arrived in London a little over a year ago, and promptly embarked upon an approximation of a fast metropolitan lifestyle. They got the flat (in Fulham), the jobs (Diana's in PR, Primrose is a political researcher, and Thea's a production assistant for an events company) and the glossy, bar-hopping social scene. But they never got the boys.

"Moving to a big city makes it so hard," says Primrose, who, with Thea, grew up in Sussex. "At home, there were always friends of friends of friends to meet. Here, because we're new, we don't have that. It's very difficult to meet men."

While from the outside, London might seem like a heady bacchanalian throng filled with endless dating potential, the reality - for newcomers, at least - is rather more chaste.

Primrose, Diana and Thea insist that the vast majority of their female friends are single, too. And not because, as Knight suggests, too many singletons just stay at home and eat Lean Cuisine. These girls are truly trying. Groomed and pretty, they spend their evenings in a selection of bars in Fulham, Notting Hill and the West End. "We don't go out just to meet men specifically," says Primrose. "Sometimes we do. But there's always a big group of us out and having a laugh. We go to Shoeless Joe's on the Embankment, School Disco, the Clapham Grand."

"It's not that we don't ever get approached," Diana says. "It's just that when we do they're usually 5ft 2ins, and they will always manage to let you know they're investment bankers really early on. Last night, in The Langley, I got chatted up by this guy who said: 'Do you like this place? I've just bought shares in it.' And just before Christmas, this other guy came up to me and said: 'I've just earned a massive bonus, and I might as well spend it on you.'"

When the three do have dates, they never seem to evolve into anything more long term. "Every time I take an overnight bag into work, my boss is like: 'Oooh, off for a sneaky weekend in the country?'" sighs Primrose. "And I have to say: 'No. I'm going to see my mum.'"

All three agree that the problem with London men is that they over-analyse. "You go out with them once, and they disappear because they think you want their children," says Thea. "If I say would you like to go out for a drink, I mean: would you like to go out for a drink? I don't mean: please, please, can I be your girlfriend? But they don't seem to get that.

"They're so commitment phobic, they'll just text you and text you, loads of times a day, but never actually arrange to meet up with you," she adds. "It's as if they want some kind of thing with you, but they can't bring themselves to see you in person."

They know, ultimately, what they want from men. "Beckham with a brain would be nice," observes Primrose. Beyond that: "They need to be interesting, passionate about their job, funny, with a sense of irony," says Diana. Primrose admits that she falls for men who dress well. "But, then you have a problem, because nice, sensitive men who dress well tend to be gay. It's getting harder and harder to tell who is and who isn't." Eventually, they want to get married and have kids.

"In my early thirties would be nice," reckons Thea. Primrose would like to get married at 28: "That way, I can have a few years with my husband before I have kids." In the meantime: "No more short investment bankers, please!" says Diana.

"Though, if he was very good looking and wanted to take me to Paris, I might consider it," adds Primrose, thoughtfully.