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Date a Hack at Your Peril ; Men Love Journalists. At Least That's What a Survey on Ideal Lovers Says. Adrian Butler Has Other Ideas

Posted on: Tuesday, 8 March 2005, 09:00 CST

IT'S the sort of PR survey you immediately distrust, but a recent poll by two dating agencies which listed the most attractive professions for each sex still managed to be surprising.

Evidently the three factors men now look for in women are (to quote the old saying) a plausible manner, a little literary ability and a rat-like cunning. Because top of the poll for men was a journalist.

Of course, there's a certain type of journalist men are imagining here, and she isn't Janet Street Porter.

Today's men want to wake up next to BBC Breakfast newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky.

Putting aside the fact that if you actually did wake up next to her it would be 3am and she would be leaving for work, how can anybody fancy Natasha Kaplinsky? Is it her grim professionalism? Her corporate wardrobe? Her rigid hair?

Whatever the reasoning, before they storm the Daily Post offices with chocolates and flowers fighting for the attractive single women, I feel should tell men some truths.

Over the years I've been out with three journalists. If you're thinking of doing it, get out while you still can. Find yourself a nice orthodontist, or weapons tester, or plasterer. Anything but a hack.

Journalists might seem like a good catch. As a rule we're quite bright with above-average social skills. But we're just not normal.

For starters, every hack needs a hobby horse - a subject they can dust off to fill space now and then. Some have their fascinating children. Others write about their fluctuating weight.

If you go out with a journalist, however, it will be something worse. It will be you.

Maybe they have narrow tastes, but from reading the papers journalists only seem to go out with two types of men. The first has the persona of a slightly backward 10-year-old, and whatever he does, he gets it wrong. Soon everyone you know will read about how you drool in your sleep and are going bald. They will smile at you in pure pity.

The second, even worse option is that you'll be written up as a perfect boyfriend - painfully worked into every possible scenario, then boasted about until everyone you know is sick to death of hearing about you.

If this happens, pray the relationship doesn't turn nasty. A few years back, Kathryn Flett went on a holiday to Paris with her boyfriend. She came back single and turned her experiences into a best-selling book.

Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons continue to dine out on the misery they inflicted on each other.

Readers and editors love dirty laundry, and will jump at the chance to publish it. Woody Allen leaping in front of his ex-wife in the street in Manhatten and shrieking, 'Are you writing a book about us?' is, if anything, an under-reaction.

These are just columnists, you'll say. Well, if it's a reporter you're going out with, you're entering a whole new world of pain.

The thing to remember about reporters is they never have enough news stories to write. At journalist school we were told about a reporter who knocked a cyclist of his bike driving to work. She then interviewed him while he was still semi-conscious, and stuck it in the paper.

Lois Lane did not go out with Superman for the obvious reasons. She went out with him because every time they stepped out of the house she knew there'd be a front page exclusive in it for her. In short, gossip at home and you're fair game.

But surely, you'll say, all this goes for male journalists as well.

Of course it does - but the most depressing thing about all this is that women have us sussed.

They described us as 'seedy' in the survey, conducted by Down the Moon and Only Lunch agencies, making us only marginally more attractive than people who work in IT.

We're beaten, quite rightly, by surgeons, lawyers and company directors - so even if I do find a nice orthodontist, chances are she won't have anything to do with me

The women men want

1 Journalist 2 TV director 3 Human resources 4 Designer/ architect 5 Property developer 6 Academic 7 Banker 8 Advertising9 Doctor 10 Writer

and the men women want

1 Surgeon/doctor 2 Barrister/solicitor 3 Company director 4 Journalist 5 IT professional 6 Management consultant 7 Architect/ designer 8 Banker/stockbroker9 TV director 10 Academic

Source: Daily Post; Liverpool

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