And that was when she turned around. Turned around to see a man walking up very quietly behind her and making a strange face. We make eye contact. I see she is wearing earphones and has been oblivious to me the whole time.

I turn right at the junction and walk up another street, quietly cursing myself for extending my journey by ten minutes, and cursing society for making a man feel this way. Why had I overcompensated for my gender? Why had I assumed she would think I was an attacker? Wouldn't simply not attacking her have been good enough? Why can't everyone be as trusting as me? When will we understand that strangers are just friends you haven't met yet - even at night?

'Sorry, mate, have you got a light?' says a stranger round the corner. He is about my size, and he is a man.

'Nope!' I say, my voice suddenly higher than normal, and I scuttle away.

As I walk, I keep looking back, just in case he's tip-toeing behind me while making strange faces.

But he's miles away, and he just looks confused.

THE PROBLEM

Some men are not supposed to be good at talking about their problems. Others are supposed to be terrible listeners. I do my best to defy those rules.

Right now, in fact, I am sitting down with a friend who's just been through a rather harrowing break-up. His face is darkened by emotion. He hasn't touched his coffee. And now his tired and searching eyes are upon me, glistening with hope, seeking some of my ample wisdom. His words hang heavy in the air.

'So ... what do you think?'

I freeze slightly. As a good listener, I know all the moves. I've been nodding gently for the past ten or twenty minutes. Making concerned faces and shaking my head when it felt necessary or apt. But now I suddenly realise that all I've actually been doing while he's been detailing the precise and complex issues surrounding the breakdown of the most important and long-term relationship of his life is thinking: In the film Ghostbusters, Walter Peck was responsible for ordering the police to shut down the Ghostbusters' supernatural storage facility, resulting in the huge explosion which released hundreds of spirits on to the streets of Manhattan. But what agency did Walter Peck represent?

My friend's eyes are searching my blank and startled face. He thinks I'm mulling his problem over, but actually I'm wondering, Is there any way I can relate my advice to Ghostbusters?

'Because here's what I think ...' he says, and he's off again. That was close. But maybe he now suspects I wasn't listening. I lean in. I'm going to listen this time, I think. I'm definitely going to listen.