I'm just going down for a drink at the bar I say to the doorman as he ticks off

"I'm just going down for a drink at the bar," I say to the doorman as he ticks off guests' dinner reservations."Are you on your own?""Yes," I reply The question is repeated. Incredulity gives way to: "What's a nice girl like you..." I descend into a hell-hole of Dantesque misery. Opened in 1988 in central London, it is modelled on the German cabaret phone bars of the 1930s. That doesn't seem to exist."Indeed not, if Caspers Telephone Exchange, Britain's only official singles bar, is anything to go by. But it remains difficult to meet people, especially if you are bold enough to turn up on your own."There is certainly scope for something which is as sociable and easy- going as Shades, but is more refined, more sophisticated," says Joanna, as a woman by the bar has her stockings removed by an admirer, "and which doesn't have the stigma of being a singles bar. Small, friendly, relaxed, it's the sort of place where you can expect to start up a conversation at the bar without being branded a lascivious loser. "People do see it as a last resort."Shades, as the closest equivalent to the American singles bars which started up in the Sixties, is an acceptable alternative to the dating agency.

We don't allow the sex pest or the anorak brigade."But if dating agencies are moving away from the image of computerised conquest for bloodless stamp collectors, why don't more people join them? "It still seems the ultimate in desperation," says Joanna, a 30-year-old photographer, over a glass of wine in Bath's Shades wine bar. "People said the club won't work because the people you are trying to attract don't join clubs - they're for sad, lonely people or people just desperate for a shag But ours is a nerd-free zone. "It's taking the piss out of the other clubs and the people that join them," says Denford. A social club exclusively for people in their twenties and thirties, it has 450 members and offers activities from rollerblading to "spliff weekends to Amsterdam" ATS stands for Alternative Train Spotters. They can cruise cyberspace with the Lovenet, bump trolleys on Asda's special singles nights, or climb aboard the Coach to Happiness, a feels-on-wheels dating agency launched last month.The ATS club in London, founded three years ago by Harry Denford, 26, is just one of the emerging organisations which may yet revolutionise the singles scene. Cheryl Brown of Candleburners introduction agency says: "Five years ago, when I used to go to weddings of couples I had introduced, I would keep very quiet. People tend to be much more open about it now and even recommend me in their wedding speeches."Today's questers can take their pick from the Nexus "skill banks" ("You come over and put up my shelves, and I'll cook your Yorkshire puddings"), Christian Singles, or Watercolours Singles Gallery.

Others try their luck with the numerous singles clubs, Lonely Hearts columns and video dating services The panoply of gimmicks puts Cupid's dart to shame. Judging by their sheer numbers, attitudes to dating agencies have shifted in the past decade, with more and more twentysomethings signing up. So what do more than 5 million young, free and single people do if they want to meet members of the opposite sex, not to "pull", but to meet a partner or just new friends?One hundred thousand of them sign up with dating agencies, of which there are more than 80 in the UK. It is, by popular consensus, the place to come if you're single and seeking. But the five men around the table deny vehemently that their favourite drinking-spot is a pick-up bar "Definitely not," says one, indignantly "If I wanted to pull, I'd go to a club," says Steve.