When I started out on my journey – yes, I said journey. I am an expert and thus I must be on a journey. I must also show up in my own life and teach you how to do the same. No, I have no idea what that means.

Anyway, as I was saying, when I started out on my journey, I had a “type”. At that point it was dark and gangly. Think Morten Harket but with Ewan McGregor’s body in Trainspotting. But none of the men I fell in love with were even remotely like that. Husband Number One was broad and brunette. Husband Number Two was short and blond, and Husband Number Three is an imposing redhead. (While in a fallow period I remarked to a friend, “I’ve never had a ginger” and here we are.)

What I’m saying is, you don’t have a type. Don’t reject potential partners out of hand, just because they don’t fit your aesthetic. Suck it and see. As it were.

But! And this is something I learned from Husband Number Two — do have a list. Not of the people you’ve slept with — see LinkedIn for that — but of other, less obvious, attributes. Your mind went south then, I heard it. Not even on the list!

When I met Husband Number Two and we’d been on our second date — to Prague (it was kind of halfway between Helsinki and Margate) — he asked me three questions. One: Do you speak to your mother every day? Two: Do you love food and love cooking? And Three: Can you put up with me?

Question one: Do I speak to my mother every day? Easy one this: no. My mum is no longer with us. I don’t believe in the afterlife either, so no, I do not speak to my mother every day. But you know what? If she was still alive, I’d be in constant contact with her! We’d be texting every moment of the day.

Question two: Do you love food and love cooking? I couldn’t care less about food. I would happily take a pill instead of eating if that was an option. As long as I get enough fuel, I’m good. And I hate cooking. I am bad with knives – my family call me The Hand of Doom – and I burn water. I said yes, of course.

Question two: Do you love food and love cooking? I couldn’t care less about food. I would happily take a pill instead of eating if that was an option. As long as I get enough fuel, I’m good. And I hate cooking. I am bad with knives — my family call me The Hand of Doom — and I burn water. I said yes, of course.

And question three: Can I put up with him? Only time will tell, says I. Time said: “No.”

So clearly, a rubbish questionnaire. At least in the face of a woman who wants to get in your pants and has a loudly clicking biological clock and a desire to dilute her Isle of Wight/Norfolk gene pool with some fresh Scandinavian DNA.

But the idea is sound. Have some criteria. Just don’t present it as a questionnaire, that’s quite off-putting. Perhaps it’s a Finnish thing. Here are my criteria:

Height. Taller than me. For much of my life I have felt like an elephant. It all stems from a conversation about weight with my friends when I was ten-years-old. They were all about four stone, I was seven stone. Admittedly I was also twice their height, but it was enough to make me feel enormous for much of my life. Only when I met Husband Number Three, did I feel dainty.

Feet. Bigger than mine. I have feet like flippers. It’s why I hate bowling. Sharing my shoe size on a date is not alluring. Maybe it’s different if you are a man. 

Age. Younger than me. Not by much, so we still have the same cultural references. Cultural references are important — and largely missing with Husband Number Two, the Finn. While Husband Number Three is French he has undertaken extensive studies via YouTube and can answer questions on any cartoon from the 1980s. He is very knowledgeable on Bagpuss, for example.

Eyesight. Husband Number Three has very poor eyesight. Without his glasses he can only see about six inches in front of his face. And this is a brilliant thing. Lights on? Lights off? Who cares! And I rarely bother to shave my legs these days and I’ve given up mowing the lady garden entirely. I figure if he’s close enough to notice, he’s probably pretty focused on the job in hand.

Accent. I love an accent. Welsh, Scottish, Irish… Finnish — not so much. It’s quite monotonal. Look up Formula 1 driver Mikka Hakkinen on YouTube to hear what I mean. What’s good about a sexy accent is that there is no need to also require your partner to be good at pillow talk. I find that quite random words are sexy in the right accent. And the French accent is perfect / parfait. 

I mean, who doesn’t melt when their other half whispers “armoire” in their ear? Or “hélicoptère“? Or even “ptérodactyle“? OK, that last one might just be me. It doesn’t work in English, by the way. Imagine these words said by a standard Brit: “wardrobe… helicopter… pterodactyl.” Nothing. Dry as the Sahara.