13 NOVEMBER 2004, Page 87

Q. I am 22 years old and would like to

have a girlfriend but as yet have never had one. Most of my friends assume that I have had a lot of experience — I suppose they think it must have happened while I was away in gap year or at university but it simply didn't. Naturally I don't enlighten them as this suits me fine. I feel that if! tell people the truth I will be seen as some sort of' freak and I will never get a girlfriend at all, but equally I am nervous of starting off at this great age and being immediately shown up as having had no 'hands-on' experience at all What should I do, Mary? I don't want to gain experience at the hands of a professional.

Name and address withheld

A. The best thing you could possibly do is to make a feature of this unique selling point of yours. Quiet6, lei it be known to a bigmouth on

your social circuit that, as yet, you have had no hands-on experience, as you put it. Far from the revelation turning you into a laughing stock you may sit back and wait for the stampede as girls in exactly the same position as yourself will jockey for intimate position with you.