Madeleine West: 'I think I've been ghosted, and that can only mean one thing'

OK, it's confession time: I've never 'technically' dated. As in, I've never scheduled a meal/drink/event with the specific purpose of 'feeling out' another for relationship potential; never 'scoped the scene' or 'read the room' in search of someone special; not undertaken a 'love reccy', so to speak.

Historically, I've had a tendency to trip and fall into meaningful connections, and thus I thought this was how relationships were born:

Boy meets girl at a site of mutual interest (insert museum/pub/office/rare stamp appreciation society here). Over a period of days/weeks/months, they discover a collection of other mutual interests which, in essence, makes them a clutch of collective nouns known as 'us', 'them' 'they', and suddenly you realise, 'Oh! You, me, we... this is a relationship.'

In this, the age of cyber connectivity, love is just a click, flip, preferably not flick, away. It's a whole new digital world, and I'm still struggling with analogue. It's a world in which I have no map, sat-nav nor directory assistance.

I don't know much about it, as it's still something of an abstract concept I'm happy to view from afar with bemusement, like tennis. But I was asked to share a meal with an associate recently. Potentially 'love all?' Or just another 'deuce'? Only time would tell.

There was conversation, laughter, the curious arrival of a 'mate' two minutes after I landed (whom I actually got along with — should have grabbed HIS number) which didn't hamper the occasional delicate touch on hand, wrist, thigh.

A request for a kiss was made and given with significantly less delicacy, then we parted ways at the perfect time to save any potential awkwardness. And then... then... (Insert spinifex rolling across a desert plain...)

Nothing. Nada. Donuts. Crickets.

I think I've been ghosted. Now I'm feeling confused, a bit insecure, a lot overwhelmed, even more underwhelmed. Whoa. This can only mean one thing: I'm officially dating.

I've stepped into the dating pool, it would seem, but I suspect it's less Olympic aquarium and more toddler's paddling pool, probably used as a public latrine more often than is sanitary, so I'm not sure how long I'll linger.

WATCH: Married at First Sight's Mel Schilling talks us through some common dating terms. (Post continues.)

Me and dating is like a toddler with a bowl of soup. I like it, I want it, but don't yet have the requisite skills to manage it, and there's little doubt things will get messy.

Talking the talk presents the first hurdle. I have a long-term love affair with wordplay, but never realised the dating scene would open up an entire vernacular, an idiom, a veritable language for me to explore.

'Ghosting', as I've alluded to, involves hooking up, once or twice, then disappearing from the face of the earth. Pooofff! Gone!

Then there's catfishing; what I thought was the national water sport of Mississippi is, in fact, grooming and forging an online relationship with someone under a false character. I know! Wild. What it has to do with either cats or fishing, not sure, but I'm gonna roll with it.

Then there is the swipe, the zombie, the backslide, the DTF and its tamer equivalent 'Netflix and chill' — I'll leave it to you to Google, but let's just say some are nouns and some are verbs and some are adjectives. Wanna guess?

Regardless of the jargon you employ, It's all part of the language of 'trying to be loved' and I'm determined to become fluent... if only to experience it as an anthropological study (and maybe get a sly book deal out of it).

I'm not yet on Tinder or her exclusive older sister Raya — being of the ilk that considers these things something used to start a fire, and what sounds like a fancy yoga-spa respectively — and am frankly too scared to start.

Me managing to add an attachment to an email and actually send the thing is like a toddler consuming a bowl of soup without spilling a drop, then thanking the waiter in fluent French and sliding them a tip.

Maybe that's the key. As I enter the dating world, perhaps I should go 'in character' (actor, after all) and don a dodgy accent. Thus, if I'm not feeling it, rather than 'Casper-ing' potential suitors, I could suddenly mime an impenetrable language barrier and exit stage left.

Seems a kind way to extricate oneself, doesn't it? It's either that or just spill hot soup on their lap and slip out amid the ensuing chaos. Hmmmmm. Wish me luck, readers — Raya, here I come. I just need someone to show me how to install the app on my phone...