Warning to men: Read at own risk.

Listen up singletons.
Frustrated with dating Mr Wrong?
Wondering whats wrong? if its you? the guy? your shoes/perfume/the salad you ordered at the first date? or the City you are at?
Nope.
There seems to a virus abound.

The virus is named EFS- emotional fukcwittage syndrome.
and its affecting males from the age of 18-33.

Symptoms include
-a tendency to be overtly dramatic and intense on the first date when flowery proses sprout from lips unabashedly
- then being all impassive on the second date but continuing to make plans for future dates
- beginning the conversation along the lines of 'I like you....but I don't know....*cough cough* you see there is this girl I liked when I was like 15....and we are all wrong/she was horrible to me ....but I still love her....etc etc....do you think I did the right thing...erm....what do you want ' on the third date
- then playing dead (i.e. not returning calls) or writing confusing emails/leaving errant messages or proceeding to pick an argument all the while making you feel guilty for winning it
- finally ending it in the famous 'lets be friends' line, the message behind which is that he knows he is being an as*hol* but he rather you not say it to his face or to your friends in case he wants to date any one of them

Not a symptom
-Honesty or common courtesy to say ' its not working out. sorry. all the best eh?'.

Like all viral infections, prevention is better than cure. To avoid encounters with infected people
-Never go on date with a guy whose only description you received from friends prior to the date is that ' he seems nice'. Hello! Serial killers are nice too. Find out something more concrete.
-Internet dating seems to be the better way these days than the bar scene*shudder*, but beware of messages with obvious spelling/grammatical errors, too many exclamation marks(anything more than three can generally be taken as a sign of an insane mind), repeat proclamations of 'having a sense of humor' (hint- if he has any, he wouldn't need to type it out) and an attached picture that's atleast a decade old.

But despite taking these precautions you might still come into contact with an infected person(with a dormant virus maybe), in which case your treatment options are to
-stop all analysis of 'what he meant' with your girlfriends
-accept that he is an 'emotional fukcer' that's all
-delete all messages ever received as well as phone numbers
-never ever respond to the cries of 'lets be friends' with a chirpy 'sure'
-if possible, start dating his neighbour or better his boss

So, be careful and may the dating pixies be with you (nothing like blue annoying flying buggers to keep things in perspective).