Wendyl Nissen: SEXTS SUK ... GO 4 A REAL D8

But with text, the words "I" and "you" separated by a can, apparently, be read several ways.

I have been analysing a lot of post-date behaviour lately. Well, that's a lie. I've been trying to analyse a lot of post-date behaviour lately for young women. It would appear that being married and a mother makes me the go-to girl for advice on men's behaviour.

But the material I am being asked to work with is severely limiting my ability to answer that perennial question: "What does he really mean?"

When I last dated, men and women met each other face to face and got to know each other while consuming a great deal of alcohol. These days no one leaves the house. They simply fire off millions of texts to be analysed, interpreted and explained without the need to see each other.

In normal times, post-date behaviour analysts had the advantage of facial expressions to work with, as in: "So how did he look when he said, 'I [heart symbol]you'?"

But with text, the words "I" and "you" separated by a heart symbol can, apparently, be read several ways. It could mean he loves her, or he feels some love for her, or he is just in a happy mood.

Give me a long look, a raised eyebrow or a distracted shrug and I'll tell you exactly what he means.

These days you can have sex by sexting someone on a cellphone and telling them exactly which bits of their body you'd like to suck. I'm not sure when women found that an appropriate way to behave. Last time I looked, sex involved actually touching another human being and anything else must be regarded as a cop-out by a lazy man or one who is not up to it.

And then there are emails, Facebook and, if you're really sad, MySpace or Bebo, all places where romantically inclined women and men send long messages, in fact whole essays, to each other. Far too many faceless words for a post-date interpreter to feel like spending time with, to be perfectly honest.

So in the end I called time. After downing three martinis in an hour, during which I found myself once again unable to form one single piece of advice using the material on offer, I drew on the powers of vodka, vermouth and three olives: "You are not 12," I told these women. "I can't possibly use my powers of interpretation based on a few letters of the alphabet, some severely graphically limited symbols in the shapes of hearts, smiley faces and sad smiley faces and some grainy images of someone's genitals.

"Go out and have another date for God's sake because if he can't get off his arse to buy you a bloody drink then he might as well be a hologram." And with that I stropped off to watch He's Just Not That Into You for some tips.

But not before trying to get into the swing of things by texting my husband (I was a little tipsy, I will admit): "How do you sext someone?" hoping to engage in the latest trend. All I got was, "What!" in reply.

I had allowed my predictive text to send the message: "How do you pewv someone?" Obviously I wasn't planning on pewving anybody.

Every woman I know who has seen He's Just Not That Into You says it was quite funny but a bit lame. I was ready for the lame part because it stars Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck who could not have looked more like two Hollywood megastars walking through their roles blindfold and barely performing above coma level.

I had also read that morning the words of Dr Diane Purkiss of Keble College, Oxford complaining about the way women are portrayed in Hollywood movies such as this.

"What's new is very dumb heroines: shopping-obsessed, credit-cardoholic girls with an eating disorder who can't walk down the hall without falling over," she says. They are, according to her, "the worst kind of regressive prefeminist stereotype of misogynistic cliche". I really like Dr Diane and I fully intend to read her book The Witch in History, Early Modern and Twentieth Century Interpretations.

But first I need her to write something about post-date interpretation - and help me out, because those martinis are calling me.