There's a market out there for the Fifties housewife

My, you're feisty!" How long did it take me, in the London dating world, to realise that's not a compliment? Men think they like strong, opinionated women — but actually they really don't.

I've lost count of the number of fortysomething men who have looked at me in horror because I've interrupted again.

Or have I interrupted? Wasn't it supposed to be a conversation? You know, batting topics back and forth, frank exchange of views. But I realise quite a lot of men like Telling You Things. They'd be thrilled if you just sat with an amused expression.

I remember the boyfriend of a friend once yelled in exasperation: "For heaven's sake, Amanda, don't interrupt. I'm trying to finish my paragraph!"

Paragraph? I didn't envy their pillow talk.
Women ought to be crosser. But in some ways I feel sorry for men of my generation. It's a classic mismatch. Brought up with liberal views on everything from race to childcare, they assumed they'd want to date equals. London, after all, is the city of grown-ups.

But actually, perfectly nice men in their forties still want a 1950s wife. Someone to ask them about their day. To let them explain that article in the New Scientist. I can do all that. But I would like to contribute, too.

I admit my own dating technique can be rusty. "Gosh, I really admire you being so confrontational with men," my friend Mary observed. "But I thought I was flirting," I gasped. Apparently not.

Note to self: cut back on the Merlot.
But confusion reigns. One man I met for coffee seemed promising (clever, own hair, read poetry). "You'll do," I found myself thinking. "It will help me get over the one I really liked."

We chatted for hours. I warmed up. Vaguely imagined kissing. The next day I got a text. "For me," he wrote, "I think the afternoon should remain what, indeed, it was: a unique occasion."
It was so unintentionally malicious, I laughed out loud. Poor man. How awful did he find the whole thing?

Then there was the art photographer I dated a bit this summer. Purist in the extreme, he never watches telly or West End plays. "I think, perhaps," I ventured, "you'll get irritated by my love of popular culture."

Absolutely not, I was his dream woman.
Fast-forward a month and we sat in the Tate café — him white with revulsion — as I raved about loving Mamma Mia! Worse still, I had just interrupted his monologue about Meryl Streep in The Deer Hunter.

It wasn't his fault — he went for the woman he thought he should fancy (own flat, blow-dry, loves culture). He'd have been so much happier with a 1950s pinny.

But when I told my (happily partnered) friend, Fiona, she was less forgiving. "Honestly, men shouldn't be allowed out on internet dates until they've been to Lucy Clayton's finishing school. Make them pass a certificate."

It's a thought — any bright entrepreneur out there want to finance Dating A-level?