Would you go on holiday with a man you just met?

Naively I imagined holding hands and frolicking in the sea, leisurely breakfasts in bed, me in impossibly glamorous kaftans and him smitten and adoring.

How could I have been so wrong? The reality was awkward silences, a flaming row in a hilltop restaurant above Palermo and an atmosphere you could cut with a machete. Add 35C heat and the confines of a hotel room, and our romantic love-athon soon turned into a nightmare from hell.

The first indication that all was not well came on day one. After a fitful sleep — did he have to turn the lights on at 4am when he went for a pee? — I was woken by a blinding light. Michael had flung open the curtains and was standing there, dressed head to toe in fit-for-purpose khaki and with a selfie stick welded to his hand.

“Thought we would go and see some of the Etruscan ruins,” he said without a hint of irony. Hold on a second, it was only 9am. Weren’t we supposed to be on holiday? I could already feel a simmering rage. The handsome man who had seemed laid-back and fun in London had morphed into a scout leader with bad dress sense. I looked at him bleary-eyed; didn’t he realise that I was the kind of girl who would rather poke my eyes out than visit dusty buildings in the sweltering heat?

The temple at Segesta, Sicily

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We were like chalk and cheese. I go to bed at ten, he was still reading his Kindle at midnight. He wanted the windows open, I told him I would be bitten to death by armies of mosquitoes. I packed a few select dresses and bikinis, he packed everything but the kitchen sink. Factor in his habit of colour co-ordinating his outfits (he is an interior designer) and bringing his own bathrobe, my habit of leaving wet bikinis, towels and cosmetics around the room, and our dream holiday unravelled before our eyes.

Going on holiday together for the first time is bound to be a game-changer. Any illusions you had about the other person will be shattered the minute you see him folding his underpants before going to bed and discover he snores like a freight train. Not surprisingly, the fact that I have to wear a mouthguard to prevent teeth-grinding at night was equally a bit of a turn-off.

The trouble is, sharing a few meals in restaurants and cuddling on the sofa in London is not the same as ten days of full-on togetherness. Bound to each other in a hotel room, 24/7, our lack of any real connection became glaringly apparent. We were both busy back home and with all the everyday distractions we hadn’t noticed that, apart from a love of fine dining and Game of Thrones, we had very little in common.

For the first couple of days we were like polite hotel guests trying not to get in each other’s way and making clumsy attempts at small talk.

“Look, the sea is going in and out,” I said in a moment of existential angst one afternoon as we lay rigidly on a tiny towel listening to each other’s breathing patterns.

We began to irritate each other. Behaviours that back home had seemed cute now jarred. His idea of fun was to spend hours on his computer checking driving routes to minor baroque churches and devising a holiday timetable. My sleeping neurosis — checking the curtains for any cracks of light before I could even consider settling down, and covering up that green light on the TV with a towel — helped to edge our relationship towards meltdown.

On day four I rebelled. As Michael got ready I pulled the covers over my head, squidged my earplugs in farther and refused to budge. When he went to have breakfast, I skulked down to the infinity pool and ordered iced coffee and read Italian Vogue. When he finally came down to join me, he spent the whole time under the shade slathered in total sun block. There we were in a beautiful resort, looking out across a stunning bay, but all I could hear was Michael tapping away on his iPad. I wanted to push him over the edge of the cliff.

The evenings weren’t any better. At the restaurant sitting silently opposite each other, as I watched the other couples misty-eyed and squealing with laughter, I contemplated sticking the asparagus up my nose for light relief.

That was the death knell. Back in the room, as he began systematically to work his way through the minibar, I rolled my eyes like a stroppy teenager and laid into him. I thought he was a workaholic with about as much humour as a school SAT. According to him, I was argumentative, childish and a slob. I yelled, he retorted in that deliberate softly spoken voice of the passive aggressive and sulked in the bathroom.

We didn’t see much of each other after that. As we packed our bags to leave, I felt a wave of relief. The nightmare would soon be over.

I have learnt my lesson the hard way. But a word of advice. You can be in an amazing hotel in the Maldives or a sumptuous villa in Tuscany, but unless you are with someone your get on with, you may as well be on Exmoor in the pouring rain.

I went to Spain with my hot Tinder date
By Hannah Rogers

Ever been abroad for a date? I have. To Marbella, for a long weekend, having known the man in question for only a few weeks. We met on Tinder (where else?) and had been on two above-par drinks/dinners. Still, the next logical step in this scenario would not usually have been to throw oneself into the deep end by going abroad for the third — not least for two commitment-phobe millennials like us.

So why did I, on date two, invite this man to book a flight, leave the country and share a bedroom/bathroom/dinner table with me for an extended period of time? Before that, I could hardly stand the company of the opposite sex for more than a couple of hours. It was not typical behaviour. Yet it seemed entirely doable.

This was first, because he had already seen me horribly drunk. That was date one, the result of one bottle of wine too many, a sure sign of a date gone well. Second, he had been a gentleman about it and still planned date two despite it.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the reason he had asked me out in the first place was because he had read an article detailing my dating life and thought it quite funny. By date three, I surmised, there really wouldn’t be much left for him to find out about me. Oh, and I really fancied him — that helped.

And so to Marbs we went.

There are lots of things that can go awry on a couple’s holiday. Arguments over travel arrangements, for example. A lack of romance due to comfort, or long, silent meals. The nice thing about going away with a near stranger is that none of that applies.

The honeymoon period, or perhaps a wish to appear cool and calm in the face of a packed Easyjet flight, stops any fraught travel behaviour. And you’ve nothing to argue about anyway; you barely know them, remember?

The same applies to bathroom rules. Sharing a loo with someone you barely know, and — worse — are trying to convince of your attractiveness at all times, is not ideal. But because of that, extra effort is made. Although thank goodness we had a bathroom with a closing door and not one of those hotel rooms divided only by a glass wall. I’m not sure a new relationship could survive that.

As for meals, they are full of chat (and alcohol) because you have so much to say. You’re more up for activities too. We technically had our next ten dates over that holiday, all of which proved a very jolly time.

Further to that, is there anything more enticing than the thought of hanging around in swimwear in 30C with someone you don’t quite know, but think you might quite like, and nothing else to think about? This is what holiday romances were built on — and everyone has had one of those.

Despite our typical twentysomething laissez-faire attitude, a trip such as this would always be make-or-break. Could we stand each other, and only each other, for a few days? Could we be as comfortable chatting at dinner as we could in mutual silence around the pool? Would the romance fizzle as quickly as it had sparked? The Hunger Games of relationship tests, basically.

As for the result . . . we’re both off Tinder.

Roger Boyes came unstuck in Florence

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It was a spur-of-the-moment decision for both of us
By Roger Boyes

Therapists and divorce lawyers are traditionally the great beneficiaries of the post-holiday period. If I could have afforded a shrink in the 1970s he would probably have told me: “Your infatuation with married women is a yearning for the unobtainable.” No doubt he would have dug out a childhood trauma by way of explanation and billed me 20 guineas.

There aren’t any excuses, though, for the trip to Florence. I travelled with a cheerful, recently met girl, a spur-of-the-moment decision for both of us. For the whole fortnight my mind was focused, however, not on her, but on the married woman whom I really loved. She was in the south, in Sicily, summering with her husband and child. It was, in short, a toxic holiday. I was crashing through life and into the lives of others.

Before the invention of the mobile phone, being with one woman and struggling to talk to another was a technical nightmare. Every morning as my companion showered I would scoop up a pile of lire, call out that I was off to get the papers and make my way to a café with a public telephone. At lunchtime I would claim a pressing need to check in with the office and head for another booth. At the other end of the blower I could hear the seaside clatter, gulls and children, and wished I was at her side, out of the steam-kettle heat of Florence.

I don’t think that the Florence hols were entirely miserable for my companion. We ate well, we laughed a bit, we people-watched. But my mind was elsewhere, my heart too. It was like being one of John le Carré’s cads (I had Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in my luggage), nursing an existential secret. Once we sweated our way around the Uffizi and I was struck by how many of the painters had used their mistresses as muses. There was a Filippo Lippi Madonna and Child, I remember, based on his lover, a nun. The Italians really know how to make the most out of a messy affair. I must have stared at it for a while because my companion asked whether I was OK. What did she feel this whole time? Shamefully it didn’t occur to me to ask.

It all came to a head in scruffy Pisa airport. I had disappeared to make another call and returned to the zinc table full of cheer, a rendezvous agreed in London. She looked up and asked what was going on; I answered with honesty; she called me a love rat. It was the first time that I had heard the phrase. I understood the rat bit, but I wanted to tell her: “I am in love, just not with you.” Instead, I said: “But you must have known all along.” That was true, I think. Perhaps the truest thing I had expressed on our Tuscan fortnight. What I should have said, of course, is sorry. It was an uncomfortable flight home.

Now, just about 40 years on, Google tells me that the woman I needlessly hurt is a retired solicitor. I don’t know what to do with that information.