Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? I’ve never been sure about that. Love, to me, has always been rather a painful experience, so by the time the lost bit comes around, I’m usually happier than I ever was in the relationship.

Valentine’s Day is inevitably a reminder of what was and what might have been, but mostly a reminder to be grateful for my having dodged not just a bullet but an AR15 assault weapon. At 65 and still single, I no longer look at the paraphernalia surrounding the big day with longing, as I used to. Good luck to everyone who celebrates it and is content with their loved one; the world is miserable enough and happiness should be grabbed wherever it can be found. But for me it’s now a time to reflect on the men that contributed to a lifetime of emotional hara kiri. Here are some of my worst dates in the tsunami that is my love life.

1. First date ever. Kevin (all names and identities have been changed to protect the guilty). I was 15 and he was a police cadet. We went to see The Sting in the Embassy cinema in Bridgend, South Wales, where I was living. He kissed me (or ‘snogged’ as we called it back in the day) throughout most of the film. My best friend Shelley, who was double dating with Kevin’s friend Steve got to see the whole thing. I was not so lucky. You know when you miss the sting in The Sting that your companion is not boyfriend material. It was my first and only date with him.
2. First ever proper boyfriend. David. I was 15 and he was 21. I was a very innocent kid, and when he took me to Barry Island funfair and put his hand inside my top in his car, my screams drowned out even those of the people on the rollercoaster. On Valentine’s Day, he gave me a huge satin card and hinted at marriage. I finished with him and have, to this day, thought that the universe has punished me with 50 years of non-Valentine’s dates ever since.
3. Divorced Jewish Hungarian Australian dentist. We hooked up after he fitted the veneers on my front teeth. I bought a beautiful white suit to take him and his kids to see Sooty on location in Chessington Zoo. When I was ‘interviewing’ Sooty for the article I was writing, Matthew Corbett (the hand operating Sooty) thought it would be hilarious if Sooty were to spray me with his water pistol, ruining my perfectly applied make-up and my suit into the bargain. Not long after, Paul said he was falling for me in a big way. Alas, the day after the declaration, he came out in a facial rash, decided he needed therapy, and that was that.
4. Manic depressive Josh. On our first date, at an Indian restaurant, he said that his condition meant that he would be going into a darkened room and staying there for six months. I hadn’t even crunched on my first poppadom. He wasn’t joking. When eight months had passed, I took him, by taxi, a bottle of Burgundy, Swiss chocolates and, for reasons I have never been able to fathom, a 12-foot inflated skeleton, all of which I left on his doorstep, not wanting to disturb him in the dark room. I guess I thought it would cheer him up. The next day, I had a message on my answer machine: ‘Thank you for my present.’ This really isn’t going anywhere, is it, I thought.
5. The City of Love. Not. I could have raised the water level of the Seine several times over with the tears I cried there. Ben was living in Paris, though we had met through a friend of a friend in London. I thought he was hilarious, until I realised that all of the ‘jokes’ were at my expense – my hair, my clothes, my weight. One lunchtime, we were sitting outside Le Select wine bar in Montparnasse and he said: ‘You’re the funniest, smartest woman I’ve ever met; I just don’t fancy you.’ I knocked it on the head, which is what I should have done to him on day one when he said I was fat.
6. My one and only date with the TV presenter Jim was doomed from the start. I’ve always had a problem with excessive hair growth on my upper lip and used to remove it with copious amounts of Immac (Veet, as it’s now known). I failed to notice that the tube I had bought was for the removal of leg hair rather than the delicacies of one’s face. No amount of make-up was able to disguise what looked like third degree burns. I looked like an extra from Casualty. I never heard from him again.
7. A relationship I had with Henry, who was living with someone else, ended when, finally, he confessed all to her and took me to lunch to tell me. His partner did what I had predicted she would and asked him to wait three months. He agreed and informed me: ‘I want to give her time to lose enough weight so she’ll be attractive enough to meet someone else.’ He added that there were already several low-fat yoghurts in their fridge. This wasn’t just a red flag; it was a veritable Coronation of bunting. I ended it there and then.
8. Arthur was an actor who was on a permanent diet and used to bring his Lean Cuisine boxes to eat instead of the dinners I lovingly prepared. The problem was that he ate the Lean Cuisines and the dinners, so he was steadily gaining weight. Our last date was when he received a call from a member of the Royal Family with whom he was completely obsessed and left me to go to be with her. I promise you I had nothing to do with that person’s demise.
9. Martin started borrowing money from me in the first month, so I should have seen the signs, especially as I was paying for everything and he never unpacked his rucksack, despite staying in my apartment every night. He was also a pathological liar and it was obvious to me he’d slept with someone else. He denied it over and over in a pizza joint in Soho, but finally confessed. I stood up and calmly said: ‘I’m not going to stay at the apartment tonight. I want you to pack your stuff (forgetting it was pretty much already packed) and get out.’ And I left. Two minutes down the road, I turned back and ran into the restaurant: ‘HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, YOU B*****D! AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE DONE FOR YOU!’ I never saw him again. Fifteen years later, he contacted me on Twitter, but I’d already been warned by someone that he was on the lookout for a walking cash machine again.
10. Definitely the worst date ever. Tom nearly killed me. I was, er, how shall we say, entertaining him under the duvet and kept hearing the words ‘Hold your breath.’ Newly arrived in London from Wales, I thought this was some weird big city thing, so continued to hold my breath. At the point of asphyxiation and having to come up for air, I discovered he’d been saying ‘Hold your breasts’ (I have no idea why; probably that was a big city thing). I had many more dates with him, on and off for 20 years. Paramedics were never required.