HAVING romantic treats with a New Age lovely is an appealing prospect on the face of it.

Their love of all things nature means even if they aren’t interested you might at least get to see some naked chanting. However, you have to balance the attractions of hot hippy love against the fact people of this persuasion are often unbelievably irritating.

Start down this slippery path and before you know it you are waking up next to a Goth.

My reservations were reinforced sometime ago when I met and briefly dated a gorgeous and charming New Age type.

In my defence, when I first met her she was in a full-length coat so I didn’t realise she was a hippy.

On our first date she was beautifully dressed but I noticed with concern she was wearing those fluffy boot things they favour.

The conversation started pleasantly enough until she mentioned the ecological antics her and her friends had been up to and I foolishly pretended to be interested.

I hadn’t really been listening when she explained what they had been doing but I ventured a non-committal: “So why did you decide to do that?”

She snorted slightly and said incredulously: “To save the world, of course.”

As she was very hot, I looked deeply into my drink, fighting the impulse to mock her misplaced self-confidence and incorrect opinions.

She was remarkably well-informed and interesting but you would be amazed how hard it is to work romantic chatter and innuendo into a conversation about dead otters.

I tried to steer the conversation back to her body and jelly wrestling but to no avail.

It took all my control not to blurt out: “Look I’m aware there are unhappy animals in the world but I would rather they didn’t rear their ugly heads while we’re at quite a swanky restaurant.”

As we got further into our fledgling relationship, her tie-dyed rags crept into her regular wardrobe and made it impossible to take her anywhere nice and, lovely though she was, things fizzled out.

I should have known, as I have been good friends with a few hippy hotties in the past and it was clear from the start there was little hope of crossing into the perilous yet delicious “with benefits” category.

I was never going to embrace their love of spitty little roll-ups and oversized sunglasses, while they would never share my ambitions of owning a house that doesn’t have wheels and working for a living.

Also, they love living in squalor.

I remember getting in a yellow VW van with one of my favourite hippy friends – after I had moved a pile of her underwear and swept Bombay mix from the passenger seat.

During our journey I started to get a headache – possibly because she was rambling on about dolphins or something.

I reached for an aspirin box on the dashboard and shook the contents into my hand.

And there it was, on my palm, the body of a dead bat.

I looked at her aghast, waiting for an explanation as I held the limp leathery corpse in my hand.

She gingerly adjusted her beads and sandals and said: “It hit my windscreen a few days ago and I was hoping I would have been able to revive it.”

“But it’s missing part of its head,” I pointed out.

I was horrified, but comforted myself that I did not feel as bad as a severely concussed bat would have if it had regained consciousness only to discover it had been folded up and tucked in a tiny box.

I refilled the revolting little package and put it back on the dashboard to delight a future migraine sufferer.

Despite her wrong outlook on life, this treehugger is still a close friend and on other road trips with her I have got engine oil on clothes from assorted motor parts and put my knee in a blob of ice cream.

I know what you are thinking – obviously she performed some naked chanting by way of an apology.

Sadly, she did not.