"I followed advice from a dating guru and the night was a complete disaster."

When I was in New York a few years ago, I saw a psychic.

She had long grey hair tied in a bun atop her head, with strategically placed chopsticks. The room smelt like incense and there was low-playing, creepy music.

In other words, she was completely legit.

When she looked into my future, she took a deep breath and scrunched up her mouth in an expression of overwhelming pity.

“When it comes to love, you’re cursed,” she explained.

“Oh. Oh goodness. That doesn’t sound promising” I thought.

Unfortunately for me, an ex-girlfriend of my dads had (allegedly) placed a cursed on his first born daughter (I’m the second daughter.. awks) damning me to an eternity of bad luck when it comes to dating.

Eugh. Dating is hard enough without an added f*cking curse.

I asked the wise psychic lady how I could lift the curse, please. She said I just needed to purchase 10 specially formulated candles and light them every night before getting into the bath.

They were $50 each. So that’s $500 altogether.

Needless to say, I never purchased those candles.

And on Monday night, I really, really, wished I had.

It all began when I woke up with my stupid period, accompanied by the worst cramps I’d had in years. I had a sore back, I was bloated and had shooting pains down my legs.

There is potentially nothing that makes you feel less like going on a date, than having a heavy, painful period, and thinking you might faint at any given moment. Cool.

You see, I had a blind date set up as part of an experiment.

Last week on Mamamia Out Loud, we spoke about a piece of listener correspondence.

A 29-year-old woman called Sarah said she was single, and she really, really didn’t want to be. And I could completely understand where she was coming from.

I’m 26 and I’ve been single for three years.

I’ve seen people on and off, but nothing serious. I’m extremely happy, and for most of that period have really enjoyed being single. But I’d be lying if I said sometimes it didn’t get a little lonely.

So project ‘Find Jessie a Boyfriend’ commenced.

A listener sent us a link to a YouTube series by dating expert Matthew Hussey, titled “3 Man-Melting Phrases That Make A Guy Fall For You” that had been viewed more than five and a half million times.

And so it was decided I would road test them.

The first: Compliment a man’s style – not his physical appearance. He can’t control whether he has a nice smile or nice eyes, but saying “I like your shirt” is something he chose.

I struggle with compliments at the best of times. They always feel insincere. And what if his shirt is stupid?

The second: Talk about his hidden traits. If he is good at the guitar, notice and compliment him on the feature of his personality that led to the skill, rather than the skill itself. For example; Compliment his discipline or work ethic.

Wait… why am I just complimenting him the whole time? I HAVE SKILLS TOO. 

The third: Tell him that he makes you feel safe.

Kill. Me. 

If you want to hear how the date went down in real time, listen here. Post continues below. 

Despite how cheesy/lame/borderline sexist all the advice sounded – I took one for the team. I tested out his absurd theories, so other women won’t have to.

After a period-pain-filled day, I left the office to go home and try and make myself look somewhat acceptable. But… when I walked into my apartment… something wasn’t right.

My lights wouldn’t turn on.

Turns out I hadn’t paid my electricity bill. I thought my sister had done it, she thought I’d done it.

To answer your questions YES we’d been sent warnings, and NO I don’t have a key to my letterbox and therefore couldn’t access them.

Who the hell lags so much paying their electricity bill that it actually gets cut off? How… embarrassing.

I messaged my blind date to tell him that I’d be half an hour late. Great start.

I then discovered that I wouldn’t be able to do the following: Have a shower. Straighten my hair. Iron my clothes. Apply make up given it was dark.

Guys, this curse thing is legit.

I eventually applied some make up in my hallway where there was a communal mirror and booked an Uber.

I googled the place, and it said it was about 20 minutes from mine. Either way I was going to be late beyond what I’d predicted. EVERYONE LOVES LATE PEOPLE RIGHT!?

Traffic was bad – and I was later than I’d anticipated. But when I arrived I got a bad feeling. I couldn’t see him. Was I in the wrong…?

Yes I was in the wrong place. There are two in Sydney and I’d gone to the one in Bondi when he was at the one in Surry Hills.

Yes, he’d told me it was Surry Hills, I’d just forgotten.

I actually think I might just be a really bad person and it was all culminating in this ONE NIGHT.

Post continues after gallery. 

So I jumped in a cab to head back from where I’d come from and meet him at the correct bar.

Where he had been waiting for 45 minutes. He sent a cranky emoji which I think we can all agree was completely fair enough – and he had every right to leave and never speak to me again.

When I turned up, he was lovely. He didn’t say anything about my completely un-ironed clothes and probably offensively bad make up.

We started chatting and he said “What do ya reckon of my shirt?” I complimented it and BOOM I’D CROSSED ONE THING OFF MY LIST WITHOUT EVEN TRYING.

We then got onto the subject of dating.

“My issue is that I really care about attractiveness at the expense of everything else,” he told me.

Ohhhh. Oh… no.

“I’m working on it,” he reasoned.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt and said “Do you mean you just really care about being attracted to someone, rather than just beauty?” But he was quick to correct me.

No. No, he meant they have to be objectively hot. Whatever that means.

Then there was chat about the ex girlfriend who had “let herself go” and used to sit in front of the heater in her pyjamas with a bun on top of her head. Guys that is literally how I spend 90 per cent of my life. His ex sounded like my soul mate. 

He added that he didn’t really care much if a girl was funny, as long as she “understood his banter”, and most of his ex girlfriends had been “very dumb”.

Was I…. was I being punked right now?

Next I had to find a way to seamlessly integrate my next compliment - despite the fact I'm pretty sure he was looking me up and down going "Yeeeeah she's defs not objectively attractive".

We got onto the subject of a dog he had saved and it was a really loved story. Dogs are probably my favourite things. So I said "Oh, wow... it sounds like you are a really caring person who works hard  to save animals." What... the f*ck.

It sounded as lame as it looks.

He then told me he is part of a Facebook group that just routinely rips on women, and said some of it was pretty entertaining. If this was a joke... it is literally the funniest one I've ever been a part of.

NOW FOR THE LAST ONE.

I really didn't want to do it. So I ordered another glass of wine and braced myself.

We were talking about travel and I said I'd been to Marrakesh with my twin sister and it had been pretty scary (true). And then I so awkwardly mumbled "... but like if I was with someone like you I reckon I would have felt much safer."

JESSIE STEPHENS. DID YOU JUST ASK A MAN YOU BARELY KNOW TO ACCOMPANY YOU TO F*CKING MARRAKESH? YOU ARE MEANT TO BE A FEMINIST.

I'd like to apologise to the feminist sisterhood for what I did and I regret it.

The verdict though? He loved it. He smiled and agreed that yeah... he's pretty protective.

The date the came to an end, and he generously offered to pay. I insisted we go halves, but before I knew it he had taken care of it.

In no way do I think he is a 'bad' person. For another woman I'm sure he'd be perfect. But unfortunately, my physical appearance has and never will be, my currency.

Plus - I'm tragically cursed. And I'm still get to purchase $500 worth of magic candles.

You can listen to the full episode of Mamamia Out Loud, here. 

You can buy any book mentioned on our podcasts from ibooks, at apple.co/mamamia, where you can also subscribe to all of our podcasts in one place.