Do you have to fancy somebody straightaway?

If you rule someone out on the basis of a lack of instant physical attraction alone, you could be missing out

I've thought about this question a lot over the years, and I've finally arrived at a definitive answer: no, you don't. There. I said it. Of course every scenario is different, and there are degrees of fancying somebody. But if you've been on a couple of dates, and you're not sure you fancy him enough, then I'd say, give it some time.

I'm not talking about months of holding back vomit and praying that his strange body odour will suddenly turn into an irresistible pheromone; but if you rule someone out on the basis of a lack of instant physical attraction alone, you could be missing out.

I have a friend who is madly in love, and about to move in with her adorable chap. Their first date? A disaster. He turned up late and, she told me, was "sweaty, bumbling through conversation, and nearly knocked a glass of wine over me. I just didn't fancy him at all."

As fate would have it, she bumped into him a second time, at a party with mutual friends, and saw him in a completely new light. She wasn't necessarily fully sold on his virtues, but when he called to ask her out on a second date, she said yes.

For me, I had an instant attraction to my boyfriend but then it definitely wavered as a result of events that occurred between dates two and three. When he told me he didn't want to come to a gig because his boots were hurting his feet too much, I thought, how unsexy.

But then he turned up on a motorbike on the next date, and I said hello to a full-on macho fantasy I didn't even know I had. Then I saw him with his mates, and how much they laughed together. Then he cooked a mind-blowing Mexican feast, and then… So by date four or five, I'd given him the chance to be an actual three-dimensional person.

So yeah, give it time. Unless he's an idiot. In which case move right along.

@lovefoolforever