So this night in May I'm eating alone in a Vietnamese restaurant in Menton, a small French seaside town half-way between Monaco and the Italian border. It's picturesque but pretty boring. So it's popular with couples who want a quiet honeymoon, families and retirees. I was texting frantically and rapidly sinking into depression.

Why the fuck was I here?...well I was starting to ask myself the same question. I'd been on a business trip to a town 40 km down the coast from here and had booked a hotel here for a couple of days post-business break. Reason was I'd got a tinder match with a hot 25 year old black French girl on a previous business trip and we'd been texting hotly for months.

Actually I noticed her texts getting cooler the nearer it came to the trip I'd planned just to come and meet her. I knew deep down it was folly. It was high investment, needy behaviour. I knew that but she was (at least in the bunch of photos she'd sent me) hot, black, 25 and gagging for it. To a middle aged man that's only had one makeout in 8 years that's a good reason to throw your money away on a foolhardy escapade like this one.

Anyway I give up texting because she's not replying on WhatsApp anymore. She's flaked! I finish my meal and go to bed despondent.

Next day I've had two coffees in a café before 10 o'clock and I'm still seething. I'm also horny as hell and I see quite a few chicks walking past. One checks me out. So I say to myself "what have you got to lose by approaching?"

I settle the bill and walk down the road a bit. There's a dark skinned woman in a short tight skirt, looks cute, big hair, big sunglasses. I cross the road ahead of her and as she catches up I stop her and ask if she speaks English. She whips off her sunglasses and says "Yes I do, in fact I studies English at university!" Bingo! so we get chatting.

I ask her the way to the beach but as she's answering (I realise this could end the interaction) I cut her off and say "no, shops, I want to look around, the shops and stuff, is there anywhere interesting here I'm just here for two days, my hotel is over there (pointing) you're kinda cute..blah, blah, blah, blah. She's a bit bamboozled and all the time I'm stepping in a bit closer.

Just then a guy on a big scooter somehow manages to come off it in the road right in front of us. I was worried that if I went over to help him she'd be gone so I just prayed he was ok. She didn't budge. We watched as he dusted himself down and grappled his lumbering machine upright. Then he got on and went on his way (phew!)

Were very close now and I realise I've got a semi. I pull the trigger asking her out for coffee. She says she has to go home for something but agrees and we swap numbers. She takes a lot of time checking the number works before leaving which I take as a very good sign.

On her way driving home she texts twice. I text my wing back in London to say I've done one approach, got a date and "it feels on".

She's due to meet me outside my hotel and turns up 10 minutes early in a short tight black leather skirt. So it's on then. I scrapped her idea about going to Monaco. I took her for a coffee in the nearest café, escalated, then we went back to my hotel and fucked. No LMR. While she was in the shower I lay on the bed and let it start to sink in that my nightmare eternity without sex (apart from hookers) was finally over.

I took her for dinner than night in Menton. She was parading me around waving at her pals. It turns out she's 45 (but is still fit), divorced and of Indian descent but grew up in France. She said she'd been telling her friends the day before how she wanted an English guy (her ex was French) then the next morning guess who shows up.

Women rationalise it all. I think it's cute actually.

The tinder girl finally responded. She wanted to meet me at 9pm but I flaked, haha. I was out again with the other woman.

I returned to London from that trip feeling like the conquering hero

But the stories not over. You'll hear more about the tinder girl in my next report!