Date #1

or, The One with the Metrosexual Topshop Buyer.

She was told by a tarot reader in Byron Bay recently that she would have to choose between four men when she moved to London. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, just one decent one would be enough.

But with this in mind, she endeavoured to set up dates for when she got back to the UK after her month's holiday. And how would she do this? By drunk-texting the friend of a friend she'd snogged at a birthday picnic just before going away, of course. Classy hey? He will henceforth be known as Topshop Boy.

The drunk text was sent from a bar in Cairns. The date was arranged, at her insistence. And heck it goes against all The Rules, and He's Just Not That Into You, but who gives.

It was, after all, the first proper date in a year of singledom - the anniversary actually falling on the night in question. COMPLETELY COINCIDENTALLY I might add. But then I would be lying.

They met in Soho, outside Topshop, but sadly there were no freebies thrown in for good measure. And she learned that he had grown a moustache, which she instantly took the piss out of, thinking it was a joke. It wasn't a joke. Oh.

They went to old man pubs and a bizarre member's only pub like a bachelor's flat in 1976, with the world's tiniest beer garden, a brick square in which she smoked. And she doesn't smoke. And then, in that brick square, she drank some more wine (than was strictly necessary) and kissed the boy. And decided that going back to his, on the other side of London, on the night bus was The Best Idea In The World (TM). It really, really wasn't. He had Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in his DVD machine. He owns a hairdryer. He owns hotpants. He wore them, and the tache, on Gay Pride day in London. ACCIDENTALLY. He makes her laugh, but he really is more metro than sexual.

Waking up, half drunk and half dressed in quite-a-high-up flat and nearly flashing at early risers on their way to work outside the window is really not a good look, she soon realised. Nor is bumping into someone from work on the bus back home, still dressed in the night-out dress she'd bought from Whistles the day before.

She kissed Topshop Boy goodbye on the Tube. And he promptly fell off the face of the earth.