It’s been a long time since the beer garden of the iconic Oaks Hotel in Sydney’s Neutral Bay lost all but one of the trees it was named for. So you might think that its patrons would at some stage have singularised that name – as the residents of Sevenoaks, Kent, did when six of the ancient broadleaf giants in their town centre succumbed to a freak storm in 1987. I arrived in Australia the previous year, by which time the popularity of the Neutral Bay Oaks with fun-seeking singles had earned it a nickname which has more to do with biology than botany, and I can’t be the only Speccie reader who can remember kicking off the weekend with a Tooheys or two in what my new workmates referred to as The North Shore Groin Exchange. In those days most young Australian women didn’t feel threatened by such ribaldry and a recently arrived Pom could compensate for his pasty complexion and wonky teeth with what passed – with a sufficiently chardonnay-primed audience – for wit. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, ladies…’ I would murmur in my Roger Moore voice as I stepped into a circle of giggling secretaries, patting my pockets and scanning the ground between their mini-skirted legs, ‘…but I seem to have mislaid my inhibitions.’

Perhaps it was the memory of such evenings, and the not entirely shameful strike rate I had as a testosterone-fuelled twenty-something, which prompted me to return to The Oaks recently as a testosterone-diminished sixty-something. Not, I hasten to add, in the hope of getting lucky in the beer garden. It still gets as crowded and convivial as it ever did. But while the noise generated by such ambience once stirred my libido and loosened my tongue, today it is more likely to turn my thoughts towards a Thai takeaway and Netflix. But I’m only a little bit deaf, and everything south of the border is still in more or less working order. So when I heard about the over-50’s speed dating nights which The Oaks now hosts in the relative tranquility of its upstairs function rooms, I signed up.

Speed dating’s not new, of course – it’s been around since the 1990s. But back then it was considered borderline desperation, and those who confessed to having done it tended to excuse it as just a bit of fun – like visiting a clairvoyant. Online dating had a similar stigma for a long time, and it was only the social distancing and lockdown of Covid which made it respectable for my generation. Apparently, it’s the disappointment many have had dating online which is responsible for the current renaissance of speed dating around the world. It certainly is a bit of fun, and in some ways the 7-minute chat module is one which favours the older player. No matter how dull your life has been, if you only have 3.5 minutes to summarise it you don’t have to tell many lies to make it sound interesting. Conversely, while those 3.5 minutes may not allow you to describe many of your brilliant achievements, they also minimise the chance of you repeating yourself or forgetting the name of the person sitting in front of you – and alerting her to either your nascent dementia or your susceptibility to early onset boredom. As I’ve only done it twice, I’m hardly qualified to tell anyone what to say. But I have learnt what sort of lines won’t make the first impression you’ll be hoping for. Whatever it said on her profile about wanting to meet someone with a ‘good sense of humour’, for example, don’t assume she has one herself.

And that she’ll laugh if you open with, ‘I should probably tell you this is the first time I’ve ever taken speed.’ Or ‘I don’t believe that’s your real age: would you mind if I cut off one of your legs and counted the rings?’

Or, ‘I’m actually gay and I’m only here because of FOMO.’ And on no account, as you take your seat across the table from any of the women you hope to impress, should you be tempted to toss the last inch of your third complimentary glass of pinot down your throat, rub your hands together, and shout, ‘Feeling single, seeing double!’ But faint heart never won fair lady, so I’ll be upstairs at The Oaks Hotel again next week; suited, booted and minty-fresh of breath. And if all else fails I might even brush off my Roger Moore impression. Thanks to a throat operation I had ten years ago I doubt any of the fragrant fifty-somethings I’ll meet will recognise the voice. But when I tell them who it is, at least I know they won’t say ‘Roger who?’