archiveall the men you should never date

“I don’t do Christmas," he will say, his face pinched with misery. Quite a statement, and one loaded with meaning. To him, Santa is just an anagram of Satan and nothing more. You can deal with this, though, you tell yourself. You can make him adore the festive period – everybody says they hate it, but love it really. You can play him Winter Wonderland over and over. Maybe hang some jingling bells off your privates. And so your denial continues. But as the nights draw in and the Christmas lights start...

You can't move on social media or in an airport novel for mentions of "the boy", that mythical perfect boyfriend who gets their partner's eyes and tweets all a-flutter. "Meeting the boy for drinks later," they coo, as they skip down to whichever chichi future-dive their beau is sitting in, batting his sweet little eyes at the rest of the clientele. But who is The Boy? How do you get to be one? What does he do? Much like the "Cool Girl", "The Boy" is a fantasy of perfection. In...

Dating blogs are full of advice and this one is no exception. All the others talk nonsense though – about rules you should follow and how you have to do X so that you look more Y. Ignore them all. Disconnect the internet. You need only one piece of dating advice today. And it is this. You should never date a man who… 1. Tells you that you have the same number of hours in a day as Beyoncé. If he ever presents you with this mug, introduce it to his...

You don’t get many men falling over themselves to tell you about their childhood when you first start dating. People who had idyllic ones don’t usually feel the need to wheel them out to make conversation. Unless we had a very bad one, or grew up with celebrities or politicians for parents or something, there’s very little to say about one’s childhood beyond the usual bewilderment at how all the chocolate bars were bigger and everyone got smacked on the legs in the supermarket. The teenage rebel however, idolises his childhood self....

There are three things you should really avoid talking about on a first date. Food, politics and science fiction.  Star Wars, Star Trek, comic books, Doctor Who, Alien, the lot. Just avoid it if you can until you’re “going steady”, because if the sci-fi chat comes out too early on, the chances are you’ll have an intergalactic battle on your hands before you even get to the bedroom. So why is sci-fi a no-no? Put simply, it is extremely political, and sci-fi fans get very touchy when you don’t get their hobby....

“It’s exhausting to be right all the time,” the Know-it-all will tell you as he swirls his drink around his glass. “But I just can’t help myself. If I see an error, I have to correct it.” You may find this charming at first. Knowledge can be quite sexy, after all. "He's so clever," you'll gush to your slack-jawed friends. You revel in your new role as Marilyn Monroe to his Olivier, drinking in his fun facts, grammatical corrections and recommendations like lattes. But the trouble with a know-it-all is that...

This is it, then. It's official. It's getting hotter, you can smell barbecues and you're never three metres away from someone with a Magnum hanging out of their mouth. It's summer. While you nibble on picnic food, drown your sunburn in aloe vera and endure weeks of barbecue-related food poisoning, don't let these 25 losers make things worse for you. This summer, you should never date a man who… 1. Wants to "try that latest pop-up place" he's just read about. Summer is ruined by these ironic "burger n spiralized mango" joints...