If word of mouth is anything to go by, this is a city absolutely awash with great lovers. Ask almost anyone to rate their performance in the bedroom and you'll get a resounding 10 - or maybe a nine if we're feeling modest. No one, male or female, ever admits to being rubbish in bed.

We insist we have evidence to support these claims of bedroom brilliance. Former lovers have declared we were the best they'd ever known.

"She couldn't get enough", someone recalls, or "He told me he'd never felt that way before", says another, smiling at the memory.

None of us seems to consider for a moment that we're really not that great. Too clumsy, too fast, too fake, lacking in rhythm, timing, flexibility, stamina - a hundred possible flaws. Bad personal hygiene, bizarre habits (giggling madly at the key moment or calling out for mothers/previous lovers), the list goes on.

Apparently when a bunch of researchers polled car drivers on how skillful they were behind the wheel, almost no one would concede to being merely an 'average' driver. They were all good drivers, they said, with great reflexes, perfect gear changes, and confident in wet conditions. Who knows how all those accidents happen then.

This lack of modesty seems to apply equally between the sheets. Everyone's brilliant. Everyone's at it for hours; in fact, bedsteads across Britain are practically knocking down walls. Or are they?

Because if you listen carefully to the girls next to you in a bar on a Friday night, or to the shoppers behind you in the Waitrose queue, or to someone's indiscreet phone call on the train, you'll overhear a slew of disgruntled comments:

"He didn't have a clue, really, he needed a GPS to even get close."

"She just lay there; at one point I thought she'd actually fallen asleep."

"He practically slobbered across my entire face."

"God knows when he'd last brushed his teeth."

"She seemed to think she was munching on a corn cob, I had to beg her to stop, I just couldn't take it."

It seems that, among a constellation of sexual superstars, some of us are shining less brightly than others. Isn't it time we quit over-selling and under-delivering? Or do we know secretly that we're mediocre, but in this competitive age where it's unacceptable to be a failure at anything, are we unable to resist bigging ourselves up?

Maybe we've all read too many of those breathless cover stories in Men's Health or Cosmo. You know the type: 5 Mins to the Best Sex of Your Life, or Unleash Your Inner Sex Goddess.

Surely it's time we worked up the courage to get some frank and objective feedback. Try asking for a rating out of 10 from your current (or most recent) lover, along with some areas for improvement. Assuming they have the courage to tell you, it might be the most enlightening sex advice you've heard in ages. Just remember to return the favour.

In the bedroom, as in life, honesty and generosity are much under-rated virtues.

Here Is The Writer : Alice in Numberland

By day Alice crunches numbers at a banking colossus in Canary Wharf, and by night she devotes her time to studying the strange behaviours of the male species. In between she expands her collection of Agent Provocateur and runs marathons. Tell her what you think about dating in the City.
 

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