T-16: My lilac-breasted role model

Dating agencies, internet dating sites and even matchmaking sources as esteemed as Take me Out may have different methods, but they seem to agree on one thing. When it comes to finding a suitable partner, it's important to have things in common. Some even go as far as pushing the belief that anything outside your culture is a things-in-common dead zone.

Bring on the checklist. When enrolling for 'love services', it is imperative and widespread to fill in forms asking you questions about where you were born, if you're religious, what you like to eat, the kind of activities you engage in regularly, and whether or not smell is important to you. Computer programmes are designed to match up answers and give each entrant's status a 'score', then trawl through a data base of rampant but lonely liars seeking a perfect match.

The main reason why the hit rate is successful but the match rate poor is that one tends to meet compatible people not through an algorithm but by meeting compatible people, that is, actually going out and meeting them. Why is it that dating questionnaires don't ask about parties, social events, clubs and dinners? Because generally the people filling them in don't attend such people-meeting events, preferring to leave their matchmaking to a microchip and hoping their other 'talents' (such as money, car, clothes) will paper over the cracks of their attendant (and unsurprising) lack of social skills.

Loving conversation (read: talking too much) has been my usual entry into meeting people. Curiosity and a sense of humour certainly don't hurt. Next step is a level of compatibility and affinity. But even this isn't enough. There has to be something more.

Having a wife who's extremely brilliant has made me realise what it is. It's all very well finding someone who's attractive to you, who shares your interests, someone whose company you enjoy. But when you respect that person, when you look up to them, admire them, when you're intensely proud of them, then you're hooked. It's a reflection of you and of them. Next thing you'll be calling yourselves the Power Couple.