Dating downwards

As a sometime dictator, Ms R is not likely to settle for just anything. The whole point of running a dictatorship, albeit on a part-time basis, is to set standards. And right now, we need them more than ever for Ms R has read of a disturbing trend. It seems that normally desperate single persons are finding the rhythms of the recession so unsettling and worrying that they are lowering their dating aspirations and just 'settling'. According to NY Magazine, people are putting their money down on the kind of lower quality dating stock they would previously have not considered, just so they can have someone to share a takeout meal with on Saturday night.

As much as Ms R tries to ignore them, she knows she has readers of the type who enjoy heavily seeded bread and naturist walking holidays, and who will probably say that it's good to try something new. People, there is a difference between the delightfully nouvelle and getting down with a man or woman whom you would have previously assigned to someone even more desperate than your good self.

It can easily happen: you read yet another article of recessionary woe and you despair of a brighter, cleaner world where useless graduates can get $80,000 a year jobs for knowing nothing. After an hour or two of sitting with your head in your hands, you decide that it won't matter whether you go down in style or not, so you locate the phone number of someone you would normally consign to the reject pile and you call. There is no chemistry here: you are feeling under siege, the world is crashing around you and you are sharing a pizza with someone who picks off the olives, peppers, salami and anxiously asks if there are anchovies. You would not normally be here with a person so pathetic, but it's a recession and you have no idea what oil prices are doing so it's best to take what you can get.

And then what? Well, once you set your sights lower there's only one way to go and it isn't up. Eventually the good times return, bankers start spraying Cristal at whores in tacky nightclubs again and all people will remember you for is that you went out with a compromise. All because you want someone to choose from the takeaway noodle menu with you.

While other dictatorships lose their grip and go soft, here at the Lady Robinson Dictatorship (TM) we do not. Unless you are Jennifer Aniston and you have bored not just us, but yourself, with your dating exploits there is no need to stay inside with Mr or Miss also ran. Your Supreme Leader hereby instructs you to cast your fears aside, burn those stupid eat in menus and rage, rage, rage against the average date.