What is dating for? Films such as Hitch, in which Will Smith plays a “date doctor”, portray dating as an arena for disasters and bad decisions. But dating provides crucial clues for future relationships.

An ancient motto tells us “In my beginning is my end” and with dating what happens at the start can forecast what will happen later on. Imagine George Michael’s surprise when after an evening out with Brooke Shields he went back to her place to be greeted by her mother and a security guard. No romance ensued but, given what we later learnt about his sexuality, this particular date was ill-starred anyway.

Opening details count. Has your date gone for direct contact: such as having a drink, or included some activity that will delay intimacy, such as the cinema or theatre? Will they propose that you come round for dinner and meet their friends? Each of these decisions tells you something about them.

Those old dating options have been joined by a rapidly proliferating set of new possibilities, such as speed dating. But can anything really be said in three minutes? If it seems too short, a recent survey found that psychiatrists typically made a diagnosis of their patients in the first three minutes of an interview.

The recent fad of silent dating, in which talking is replaced by written messages, misses the point here. Writing is supposed to help you to avoid saying the wrong thing. But it is precisely saying the wrong thing that can be so helpful. The slips and hesitations in someone’s speech can tell us so much.

Dating someone on the internet only makes things worse. Although some unions result, writing hides, while speech reveals. Has the other person told the truth? Are they really single? All you can be sure of is what’s on a screen: you don’t know their friends, their family or their workmates.

The multiplication of these new fads shows that dating is hardly a natural process. Each person is ultimately trying to present a self-image that will be desirable or loveable. This staged encounter will raise a question fundamental to all of us: what do we represent for someone else? Perhaps Will Smith did the right thing then when he took his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, to see a psychoanalyst on one of their first dates. “We wanted to start this off right,” he said, “with someone to tell us what we were doing.” Having a third party present might not be your idea of fun but the idea has caught on. TV dating programmes invariably feature an adviser who comments on the couple’s every move.

Dating is no longer simply about assessing another person. It is a game in which two people test versions of themselves. It doesn’t just involve learning about someone else. Dating lets us learn about ourselves.





Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst and author