LUKE MARSDEN: my terrible experiences of online dating

​You then go to order them another drink, only to fnid they’ve disappeared, never to be seen again. You’d be pretty angry, right?

For millions (including me) this is the very grim reality of online dating, specifically the devil-created dating apps. The days of "meeting a bird” around Wigan on a night out are similar to my hairline: rapidly disappearing.

The only way you can meet someone these days is to enter the digital sphere. You almost create a “dating persona,”sum yourself up in less than a sentence and if you don’t hit the right buzzwords “funny, loyal and honest” then you’ve no chance.

Luckily for me, I’m all three of those things, yet I’ve been trapped in a hellscape of talking, dating and silence. Some of these women have a better disappearing act than David Copperfield!

If you’re reading this and are one of those women, you should be embarrassed: no goodbye or even a “not my type,” just an instant ghosting. I’ve started to ask them if they have died? Some did have the courtesy to stick around long enough to confirm they hadn’t.

The latest dating trend is "zombieing:” the art of ghosting someone then popping back up weeks or months later to start the conversation all over again; rinse and repeat.

My heart goes out to anyone on these apps, it’s a truly awful way of interacting with humans: a cattle market of choosing the best picture that may prove bait to create a conversation which may or may not result in finding the love of your life.

Friends I know on these apps are truly miserable and stuck in a groundhog day cycle.

My advice to anyone who is miserable or feels their current partner isn’t for them: stick with what you’ve got because the alternative is looking to be far, far worse!