I was reading a fantastic piece the other day about dating in big cities. Apparently it’s harder and takes longer than in the countryside because, in order to find the best mate, we have to reject the first 37% of possible mates and then take the best of the rest. If we live in a tiny village the field of potential partners is smaller and the whole process is quicker and easier. You’d also know these people very well already.

I find the idea of speed dating, internet dating and singles parties strange and frightening. I am the most opinionated person in the world and write people off on the basis of the vocabulary they use and misuse (anyone who has ever said ‘think outside the box’ or who has ever mentioned a ‘comfort zone’ is someone I can’t talk to, let alone ‘rocket science’). I can dismiss them in two seconds on the basis of their haircut (almost anything is unacceptable on a man apart from a short back and sides), their gait (swaggering – no thanks) and a million other things that spring to mind but that I can’t be bothered to list, especially since I know I’m already causing plenty of offence. However, when I do enter into a relationship, sexual or non-sexual, with someone who does not use clichés, knows the difference between uninterested and disinterested and can walk from A to B without looking like an arsehole, it nonetheless takes me about five years to really get to know them, to really find out whether we are suited to a life-long friendship.

Obviously, when you first meet someone great, of either gender, it’s exciting to have found a friend or lover who gets what you’re talking about, who makes you laugh and sparks your interest in things you haven’t much thought about before. This is intoxicating and I always find myself idealising people and diving headfirst into mega-friendship, partly because of an only-child loneliness, but also just because I get very enthusiastic about all kinds of things, not just people. My opinions are formed instantly and I shout them at whoever’s listening and at a lot of people who aren’t or who wish they weren’t. But it’s only when I’ve known someone for five years that I really feel I have a solid picture of them. Little snipes that can sound like banter when everything’s rosy can build, gradually, like small deposits in a bank account, into a mountain of undermining hostility. Equally, little gestures of kindness, like offers to babysit or to come and stay, gentle words when I’m unhappy, things that can seem insignificant or even insincere in small amounts, can build gradually, gesture by gesture, into a tower of loving support. You just don’t know, until building has gone on for a long time, until deposits of one kind or another have been made consistently, which way it’s eventually going to go. The odd snipe is fine against a background of love, and the odd kindness is insignificant in a sea of antagonism. I don’t know if there have been studies or if there are statistics, but I bet that people who have known each other well for more than five years before getting married have a far better chance of staying married than people who are still building their pictures of each other after getting married. Relationships are slow and behaviour fluctuates, but, like a pendulum, always swings back to the middle, to some kind of norm, so I think you have to watch someone over a long period of time to be sure about how they are likely to behave as time passes, to trust someone and to be sure of them.

Personally, I’ve had lots of relationships with men and friendships with women, all of them intense because I’m not very good at casual, that I’ve categorised immediately, only to reassess years later and find that the hurt that didn’t seem to matter on any individual occasion has done irreparable damage, or that my categorical dismissal of a person on grounds of bad behaviour was misguided and that, in fact, I’m left only with affection as the years pass. Of course, if the latter is an ex-boyfriend I treated badly only to realise later that he was actually lovely, it’s too late. I’m not trying to suggest that one’s instant reaction is always wrong, but I just wanted to add to the mathematical theory of dating and why it’s harder in heavily populated areas, where social circles shift and change. It’s not just a percentage game, it’s also a question of time and, in the case of women wanting to have babies, there isn’t enough time any more, unless you procreate with someone from school or university, to get to know enough people well enough to make a fool-proof selection. This, I think, is one of the reasons (apart from women being financially independent and not having to be shackled to someone horrible whether they like it or not) that marriages in modern society are so unlikely to last. I say this as my own twelfth anniversary looms darkly.