‘Yes, drinks all round!’ He waves his empty at the barman. ‘You need to get this off your chest, I can tell. Call me your fairy godmother or whatever.’

‘You are the least fairy-godmother-like person I have ever met!’ Which reminds me. ‘How long did you say you’ve been watching me?’

‘Oh, a while, since my mate left. Well, while he was still here as well.’

‘Wow, that’s creepy. Are you some kind of stalker? Should I even be talking to you?’

‘Should I even be talking to you? You’re the strange one who sits in a bar and doesn’t drink.’

I glare at him. ‘Look, I’m getting another drink!’ I wave at the barman, who has been lurking for the past ten minutes, looking pointedly at my glass, but has now decided to bugger off out of range.

‘Haha, gotcha!’

I ignore his triumph. ‘Why did your friend go?’

‘Things are a bit shitty for him right now.’ He shifts uncomfortably, then changes the conversation. Interesting. ‘Why does a girl like you need help from a guy like me?’

Good question; however, I think it’s a rhetorical one and he won’t welcome a full answer. I take a deep breath and decide to go for it anyway, well at least some of it. After all I will never ever see him again, will I? ‘Okay. Do I look desperate to you?’

He studies me for a moment. It’s a bit unsettling.

‘Don’t think about it too long!’

‘Sad, lonely, maybe a bit grumpy.’

‘Hey, less of the gr—’

He holds a hand up to silence me. ‘Though some girls get grumpy when they’re not getting enough.’

‘Enough?’ Even as the word comes out of my mouth, I know it is a mistake.

‘You know … sex.’ He has got a dirty grin, a very dirty grin. He probably thinks he looks sexy and endearing.

‘I am not desperate for,’ I realise I am talking rather loudly, so lower my voice to a hiss, ‘sex.’ He could have a point though. I might be. It is so long since I had it, I’m not sure. Maybe my current mood is less to do with PMS or PMT or work, and more to do with my abandoned lady parts!

Oh my God, do I even want sex with somebody else? I hadn’t got to this point in my dating fantasy before. The pinnacle of my ambitions so far has been one full evening with a guy who I might like enough to repeat the process with.

Robbie has been my one and only for so long, sex with another man will be weird. Well weird. What if other people do it differently? What if I’m expected to do things, thingy things, with things? Oh shit! If I thought first dates were bad enough, how am I going to cope with third dates – when I might be required to undress? Look a new penis in the eye?

‘Are you okay?’ He’s peering at me.