I'm looking for love and willing to try anything to get it - which is why I decided to hand my Tinder account – and my right to choose and message guys I like the look of – over to my dad.
While finding an actual date has never proved too difficult, finding someone friendly, attractive and halfway normal is far more elusive. And making someone stick – without either of us being distracted by the thousands of other options out there – is even trickier.
Dad's been with my mum for more than three decades, so he obviously knows a thing or two about picking a keeper. After giving him a quick lesson on how to actually use Tinder, he swipes right for a sun-drenched water skier (apparently he looks 'exciting'), left for a drunk who keeps the pub I used to work in open pretty much single-handedly, and left again for a guy snuggled up to his pet pooch ("This bloke's snogging his dog!" Dad says, entirely missing the point of the modern man trying to look sensitive).
Interestingly, he ignores the bio and age of every man he sees, and selects them purely on how close they live to me and their profile picture. His criteria are: "A fresh-faced gent with kind eyes," and definitely no men with "scruffy clothes and bushy beards".
The first guy who bites back is Kyle, a slim-built man who looks like a cross between Zac Efron and Chris Pine. Dad ditches all the small talk and goes straight for the jugular: 'Want to go out for dinner tomorrow night?'
"I'm not sitting here all day," Dad says bluntly. And he has a point. Just five minutes later, my phone buzzes with Kyle suggesting Mexican food, and Dad arranges the details with him.
When I head for our date the next day and spot Kyle in the corner of the room, he's wrapped in a chunky-knit jumper and a warm smile. Nice one, Dad.
A plate of nachos and two gin and tonics later, I discover he's a personal trainer with a love of travelling and Aston Villa (maybe it was football-fan ESP that made Dad pick him).
After a couple more drinks, a sombrero selfie and shared bowl of churros, I'm brave (drunk, whatever) enough to confess to Kyle that it was, in fact, my dad he'd been flirting with. I tell him about my experiment, which seems even more stupid when explaining it in person.
"Does your mother know?" he asks sombrely. It's a good sign – and as I get to know him, I realise Kyle is kind and charismatic. Afterwards, we exchange a few flirty Facebook messages, but as he's about to jet off for a fortnight in Spain, the conversation soon fizzles out.
I'm not ready to give up though, and my Tinder account is lighting up with other matches Dad has picked for me.
Up next is David, who has a subtle scatter of freckles and an armful of tattoos. Peering over Dad's shoulder, I assume it'll be an instant left swipe – but he must know me better than I think, because he swipes right – and we match.
When I see he's been online but not messaged me, I pass my phone over to Dad and ask him to work his magic. An impressive 20 minutes later, and using the same cut-to-the-chase approach, David agrees to meet me the following night for a midweek curry.
I soon realise the beauty of getting Dad to pick my dates is that I haven't exhausted all the small talk as usual, meaning I can ask him about his career, family and hobbies to fill the silence echoing around the empty room…
"I was impressed by how forward you were," David says. "Most girls wait for the guy to make the first move."
Ah. I tell David it was actually my dad he'd been exchanging messages with. "So if this doesn't work out, I could always give your dad a call then?" he asks.
As soon as I hop on the bus, my phone lights up with a message from David. 'I really enjoyed tonight and I'd love to see you again.' I keep my response short, succinct and to the point.
'Sure. Dinner – Friday night at 7?' It's a date. And I love my dad a bit more.
After five weeks, 23 matches and two dates, the main thing I've learnt is that being forward clearly pays off when you're looking for love. After all these years of labouring over witty texts and hidden hints, all I had to do was ask. Who knew?
This was edited from a feature in Cosmopolitan magazine. To read the full feature, buy the October issue of Cosmopolitan for just £1.
