The dating frenzy of the recent months is cooling down a little, as I am frankly getting tired of meeting new people. Most of them really are rather boring.

The most interesting dates were the gloriously unsuccessful ones (practically all of them), as they gave me something mildly amusing to blog. I mean, who wants to hear good news? I know that everyone wants stories of sunburnt Irishmen being made fools of, either by themselves, fate or improbable combinations of both.

However, in the midst of the dating frenzy, I was always very frustrated by the amount of time I wasted speaking to females that weren't single. Now before everyone starts freaking out and deleting me from their friends lists, I'm not some sort of arse that only speaks to ladies in order to achieve some sexytime, not at all. I would just appreciate it very very much if non-single people would be kind enough to give some indication of that early on in the flirting process. I mean, this refined Irish charm isn't endless, you know. Must be conserved.

Case in point: a certain very attractive Spaniard in my German class. We shared a classroom for ten weeks, never any indication of boyfriend presence. Granted, she didn't seem very interested in me. Still, the polite thing to do would have been to subtely slip in a comment somewhere. Oh, 'My boyfriend's a football fan too'. Or a quick little 'Yes, my boyfriend eats food too'. Or even 'Oh, you're breathing air? My boyfriend does that too'.

Nice and simple. Everyone wins - I save charm, I can concentrate on grammar rather than wild sexual fantasies and she gains a sweaty Irish dude as a friend who is fully aware of her lack of availability and would never try anything untoward.

I mean, when I had a significant other last year, I did it. Pretty arrogant, some might say, but it's not at all. Just giving everyone a heads-up. Although back then, the significant other never dropped the 'oh my boyfriend *insert something irrelevant here*', feeling that it makes the other person feel uncomfortable. IT DOESN'T!

Anyway, so all of you paired-up folk out there, do you do it? And if not, why not?

That's it. Feel free to delete the arsehole now. ;)