The other day I found myself caught in a YouTube wormhole watching an interview with resident Hollywood weirdo Crispin Glover, as you do. For anyone that doesn’t know who Glover is, he comes from the troupe of teen stars that unsurprisingly became unilateral freaks in their forties. Here, in his Nineties pomp, he was asked what he looks for in a woman. Amid much stammering, he finally quipped: ‘I like women that like me, of course.’ Believe me, that’s a harder premise than it sounds.

            Over the years, I can honestly say that I have been ghosted more times than Derek Acorah and turned down more times than an Ed Sheeran record. It has now gotten to the stage where I just address myself as a ‘pulse man’. I did have a girlfriend once, but it was more of a hostage situation than a relationship and when we split up it was a mutual decision, in the sense that she and the multiple guys she was seeing mutually decided she should be single.

            Now, I am happy on my own. I enjoy being able to do what I want when I want – depending on whether my mom needs me to walk the dog, of course. But as my twenties begin to betray me, my closest friends have all settled into long-term relationships and Jameela Jamil refuses to return my calls, I felt perhaps the time was right to plunge into the murky depths of online dating.

            Just like how VAR has ruined modern football, I feel that dating apps have ruined the serendipity and sparkle of organic romance. I know it’s foolhardy to expect to meet a brunette over a burger and milkshake these days, but the concept of cyber simpaticos feels like a kind of cattle market where instead of eating the juiciest meat, you take it for a Nando’s.

            Nevertheless, I had a go. I boycotted Tinder and went straight for an app that judged personalities rather than looks (there are not many women, alas, swiping rapidly right on a man that looks like a cross between Simon Pegg and a Scandinavian schoolboy). Going by the name of Hinge, after an hour of scrolling, thumbing and liking, I felt cheated. Considering it’s supposed to be an app about personality, none of the women seemed to possess one.

            Each woman’s answers were tedious boilerplates where the key hobby was ‘travel’ (ironic considering conversations must go nowhere). One even said ‘boys, saying you own a dog doesn’t mean you’re cool’, while underneath her picture saw her proudly posing with a pug. Hinge and these other dating apps feels like opening a door to a key party where nobody can drive.

            When I did get to speak to someone, it was as stilted and as short-lived as making small talk with your Uber driver. And at least then you know you’re going to end up somewhere. Of course, I am sure women who use Hinge can attest that they suffer the same soporific platitudes that I got, and probably much worse all round.

            The fact is if you didn’t manage to find a long-term partner before 2012, you’re fucked, because all that is left are a gang of people that are too distracted, too choosy or too basic to sustain anything other than a wink-faced emoji. Dating has become some sort of weird sexual buffet, where you can pick, choose and reject. No one needs to date long-term because if one night out isn’t 100 percent perfect, you can be happy in the knowledge next week you might swipe right on someone that enjoys breathing oxygen, has eaten solids and been exposed to Jack Whitehall.

           I will delete Hinge tomorrow and go back to the relative comfort of bachelorhood, but I have decided to have some final fun with my profile. Sign of a great first date? Chlamydia. My greatest strength? Chlamydia. I take pride in? Chlamydia. Strange? Yes. But I have now become the most interesting person in the history of online dating.

            And I bet I still won’t get a look in.