I’m an online dating evangelist – I think meeting people on the internet and then going for drinks with them (in a safe public place, etc) is one of the best ways to meet likeminded and potentially shaggable people.

As an evangelist, however, there’s a conversation I’ve ended up having a few times that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. It goes something like this:

“Remember you told me to go on OKCupid?”
“Yeah. How’s it going?”
“Well, I’ve had a couple of quite good dates. But I’ve also been sent some hilarious and awful messages. And oh God this one person had a profile so bad it was hysterical. I’ll send you a link…”

Please don’t show me the money

I don’t want to see your links. I don’t want to see the people you think are so funny that it’s worth going to the trouble of finding their profile again, copying the link and then emailing it to me. I’m human, of course, and so naturally I find the flaws, foibles and fuck-ups of other humans inherently funny. There’s nothing I like more than hearing how unrelentingly shit other people can be, because it makes me feel like less of a blundering oaf.

Tell me about it, by all means. If you’ve spotted a dating profile where someone’s used a UKIP quote in the ‘things I like’ section, then that’s well worth a pub-time anecdote. But I don’t want your links.

There’s something so deeply personal about an online dating profile that even the idea of other people seeing mine (I’ve wiped it now, so don’t go looking) makes me shiver with cold dread. Like showing your CV to a work colleague who has known you for years – someone who knows that most of what you’ve written is – at best – rose tinted and – at worst – bordering on fantasy.

Mistakes, misogyny and mockery

I don’t like it when people lie on internet dating profiles. When they send messages that are presumptuous or rude. I don’t like it when they make sexist statements or offer arrogant critiques of people’s profile photos. There are many things that I not only don’t like, but that will have me wishing slapstick comeuppance on anyone who comes across as vaguely right wing.

But I don’t want you to show it to me. There are two reasons for this:

1. I have probably seen it, or something like it, already. No, really. I’ve done a lot of internet dating, so if you send me someone’s profile picture along with an amused email about how he’s odd because he included a photo of his dick, the best reaction you’re going to get from me is ‘so?’ I’ve seen quite a few dicks – attached to profiles, emails, and (if I’m really lucky) actual men. I’ve also seen messages where people just say ‘how r u sexy’, or write clumsy erotica, or offer to be your slave forever. Unless it’s a spectacularly unusual message or picture, my reaction is likely to disappoint you. If you want someone to be shocked by it, you’re better off sending it to your mum.

2. I’m uncomfortable laughing directly at people. Sure, if a friend trips on the way to the bar and accidentally spills a beer over someone I didn’t like much, I might have a bit of a snigger. But there’s a world of difference between the odd giggle at someone’s flaws and an anonymous shredding of someone who has laid themselves bare for you in the hope that you’ll approve. The shredding is fine, but when you’re shredding someone and I have to look into their eyes – even if they’re separated by a net connection and the knowledge that they’ll never hear what I have to say about them – there’s a feeling of discomfort that just isn’t enjoyable. If you asked me to kick a kitten I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it just because you assured me it was dead and wouldn’t feel a thing. It’s still not a fun thing to do.

I’m not saying people on dating sites are all amazing and wonderful, nor even that in mocking them you’re a horrible person. What I am saying is that if you want me to join you in appraising and critiquing, I don’t need to see who they are.

Knowing me, knowing you

This brings me on to my final point – and it’s a very important one. Be wary of being too judgmental about people when you’re telling someone else about them. Recently a friend of mine (a new member of OKCupid, on my wholehearted and overenthusiastic recommendation) sent me a profile of a guy she thought she liked, and told me that he’d ruined things by having ‘massive sex issues.’ Meaning to incite a good old giggle and a session of bitching, she invited me to offer judgment about his ‘freakish’ foibles.

Unfortunately for her, his ‘freakish’ foibles sounded pretty hot to me. Moreover, based on a slightly blurry picture and his style of profile writing, I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d already sampled them.

She didn’t reply to his message.

Summer’s come around, eventually. Time for us to run to the park to play cricket badly, burn things on barbecues while sipping lukewarm Fosters, and – if you’re me – growl with resentment at the fact that you have to show people your shaving rash if you want to go swimming.

I shave my crotch sometimes. Not all the time – in fact, one might say I’m reasonably lax about the removal of body hair. Ultimately, shaving things takes time and effort that I’d rather spend on having fun. However, I don’t mind the occasional shave because I like it when people come all over my cunt, and I get to rub it in. I’m gross like that.

So I have no problem with shaving, or hair removal, if it’s something people want to do. What pisses me off, though, are situations where I feel uncomfortable if I don’t. Situations in which I feel singularly incapable of channeling all of the angry liberal feminist rage I feel most of the time, and simply end up looking wistfully at my crotch and wondering why I give such a massive and disproportionate shit about how it looks. In this case, the thing that has made me angry is the prospect of swimming in the sea.

Caught between a rock and a hairy place

I understand that aesthetically some people prefer smooth thighs and a bald crotch, with no pubic hairs poking out of the sides of a swimming costume, but unfortunately for me (and, I suspect, a hell of a lot of other women too) this isn’t actually an option.

The choice for me is between a hairy crotch or an ugly shaving rash, ingrowing hairs, and a desire to scratch myself that’s likely to get me arrested in public places.

When I’ve confessed this to people before, their response has usually been ‘well, why don’t you wax?’ Great thinking, kids, but unfortunately waxing makes no discernible difference to whether my cunt turns bright red and causes me immeasurable discomfort for a week. What’s more, it hurts like… well… like a sadist ripping hairs out of your pudenda.

I got my crotch waxed once, so I know what it feels like. Anyone who suggests that I do this, in the same casual tone as they would if they were recommending a certain film, needs a quick, sharp lesson in empathy. Because my God, people, it hurts. A lot.

When I regaled my Mum with the horrible tale of my inaugural cunt-waxing, she summed up pretty much how I felt about the matter.

“I had it done once,” she said “and it hurt, but only slightly more than childbirth.”

I would probably have been less upset by the pain if it turned out there was a ‘gain’ from it afterwards, but unfortunately the very next day I was nursing bright red patches and itching again, still unable to wear a bikini in case people on the beach thought I was contagious.

How do you solve a problem like a hairy crotch?

I challenged myself to write this entry without recourse to my usual rage-fuelled bile-spitting about society’s expectations of presentation and body. Not because it’s unimportant (it’s very important) but simply because I recognise that no amount of raging and ranting and writing empowering blogs on the internet can magically stop someone being bothered about crotch hair.

If someone gives you an odd look when you stand on the beach, straggling pubes waving in the breeze, your discomfort won’t be lessened any by knowing that I wrote a feminist blog about it the week before. Knowing that I shouldn’t care about this stuff – that I’m intrinsically happy in my worth as a human being whether my crotch is bald or not – doesn’t make the slightest difference to my irrational, emotional insecurity about it.

When we arrive in Utopia, no one will ever have to worry about whether they have crotch hair, or a shaving rash, moles in unusual places or stretchmarks or cellulite or any of the other things that cause us to panic. We’ll all be far too busy swimming to give even the smallest flying fuck about anyone’s perceived imperfections.

But right now that’s not helpful or comforting. Right now I’m preparing for a holiday, staring mournfully at a bikini and dreading the moment I have to show it – and whatever state my crotch is in – to the world.

There’s no conclusion to this that’s in any way satisfying. In the short term I’m buying shorts. Long shorts. Swimming shorts. The really baggy ones that go down to my knees. Twinned with a bikini top and an angry stare, they should get me through this summer, at least.

And in the longer term, well. There’ll be more angry blog posts and rants about what is not wrong with you and why no one should feel compelled to shave their body hair. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we reach our Utopia before summer 2014, when this whole charade begins again.

Yesterday I found a brilliant (read: not brilliant) article on HuffPo giving dating advice to women. You all know how much I love (read: don’t love) both HuffPo and ill-thought-out dating articles. You know the ones –  they all seem to be entitled ‘Top 10 tips for women dating’, or ‘Top 5 ways to impress a lady if you’re a man’, or occasionally even ‘Top 10 search-engine-optimised sex manoevres with which to confuse your partner.’

These articles are clearly bloody difficult to write, and the writers frequently fall into a number of traps. To prevent this happening again, and causing me to spit cider over my phone and exclaim “WHAT?! You want me to do WHAT on a first date, HuffPo?!” I have written a guide for dating writers:

Top 5 tips for writing a top 10 dating tips article

1. Try to avoid assuming we’re all stupid. Tips such as ‘post a recent photo on the dating website’ and ‘don’t play with your iPhone during the date’ rest on the rather gargantuan assumption that your readers are a herd of cackling incompetents. You might as well tell us to not to punch the waiter, or ensure we turn up wearing shoes.

2. Before you set pen to paper, try your hand at some research. If that is too tricky, why not simply haul yourself outside for five minutes and meet a real human? This might prevent you from giving tips in which you make gargantuan, sweeping proclamations about the behaviour of the entire species. Clangers such as: ‘if you’re looking to hook up on a first date, that’s fine. Just don’t expect this to lead to a real relationship’ can be easily avoided by speaking to one of the countless thousands of people who have done exactly that.

3. When editing your tips, read them with the eye of someone compiling a 1950’s guide on how to be a Good Heterosexual Partner. Tips such as ‘if you want an over 50’s man in your life, you’d better give him the ability to feel needed by taking care of things for you’ will no doubt have that particular editor smiling with delight. This is a sign that you should cut them. Immediately.

4. Consider whether your advice applies to everyone, or just to you. Advice like ‘don’t wear flattering underwear’ or ‘don’t try to suggest changes to your partner’ only apply to a very specific subset of people – the sort of people who wear flattering underwear, for instance. Or the sort of poisonous critics who are likely to explain – on a first date, no less – exactly which things their potential partner might need to change about themselves. I don’t know any of these people myself, but if you’re writing this tip down, you are probably one of them.

5. Remember that dating is neither a war nor a job interview. When I read these articles there’s an overwhelming sense that the sole purpose of going on a date is for the person you’re dating to accept you. As if the best possible thing that can happen is that they don either a Donald Trump hairpiece or an Alan Sugar beard and magnanimously announce that ‘you’re hired!’

Dating tips writers – I appreciate that on the surface your job might appear to be one of a coach – cheering your team on until they win a shiny prize, and ensnare the man or woman they’re meeting. But actually your role is far more important than that: you’re there to help people have successful dates. By encouraging people to think only about whether they’ll be accepted by their partner, you miss out the rather crucial point that they need to accept their partner too.

Every minute they spend worrying about whether their underwear is too flattering or whether they’re making their date feel ‘needed’ enough is a minute not spent finding out whether the person they’re dating is actually someone they’re interested in.

My top dating tips

1. Talk to your date

2. Listen to your date

3. Decide whether you like them

4. Find out whether they like you

5. If, by the end of the date, you know the answer to both 3 + 4, then no matter what the answers are, you’ve had a successful date.