Web dating the Marmite way

There is a fondue restaurant I know where speed-dating evenings are held. The idea is to move from table to table making smalltalk over the melted Edam and cut-up carrot. If a subject such as seed catalogue collecting comes up and the usual visual and verbal cues to demonstrate waning interest fail, you shove your fork through the eye of the diner attempting to woo you. I may be wrong about that last detail...though it is undeniable that he/she would be left in no doubt as to the state of affairs.

A better method is needed to sort the chaff of casual acquaintance from the wheat of potential mating material in a way that spares the parties the chore of the "two-drinker". These are those irksome instances where you go through the motions of ordering a Campari and soda and a bag of pork scratchings for someone you've already taken against and then have to wait around making polite conversation until you are bought a half of mild which you can sink in one gulp before grabbing your coat.

Perhaps, when making arrangements after viewing prospective dates on the internet - a feasible though, in my view, not wholely satisfactory way of going about things - it would be sensible to chose websites which ask questions slightly more revealing than "What is the colour of your hair?" and "Do you have any hair?": the sort of stuff that crosses the line between common or garden data and insider dealing intelligence. Yes, the website that poses the real toughies would become the Google of digital romancing, particularly if the phrasing of questions left no room for shilly-shallying, dissembling or fibbing by guaranteeing to polarise respondents. After all, there can be no grey area when sorting on a "likes/dislikes Marmite" preference (Likes). Other surefire questions might include: "Do you ever lick the lid of the yogurt pot when having breakfast in company?"(Most certainly; it's the best part); "Do you, after removing ear wax with a cotton bud, put the bud on the back of the washbasin for someone else to collect?" (Yes, I leave it for my butler, along with the dust bunnies); "Do you smoke after intercourse?" (Don't know, I've never looked).

Armed with the answers to such questions, your beloved is but a mouse-click away.