‘Okay, fine, I will!’

‘What?’ He chuckles, and it’s a rich, chocolatey sound that makes me squeeze my hands together, hunch my shoulders and want to rush round in circles laughing like an excited cartoon princess. I don’t, you’ll be pleased to know. I try and act cool.

‘I will meet you, but we need rules!’

‘Ahh, rules of engagement.’

‘Or non-engagement,’ I say, as seriously as I can, trying to keep a lid on the nervous anticipation that seems to have made me wobbly and inclined to grin like a loony. Nerves can have a funny effect on a person. ‘I’m also very busy so I thought I’d combine activities.’

This can be translated as ‘I’m scared shitless of being in a proper date situation because I’ll freeze up and Noah will agree that I am a lost cause, not even he can teach me seduction’.

‘Please, just this once?’ I cross my fingers behind my back: survive the first lesson and the second might be fine.

‘You, woman, are like nobody I have ever known!’

‘And what do you mean by that?’

‘I’ve never been called an activity before.’

‘Have you ever done this before?’

‘Well no.’

Phew, that makes me more relieved than it should. Why should I care if tutoring women in the art of seduction is an everyday occurrence for him? But I do. ‘So,’ I am determined to get back into my flow, my pre-prepared script, which he keeps diverting me from, ‘I am combining you with Hugo.’

‘Oh my God, a threesome! Skipping straight to lesson 73!’

‘Seventy-three! I’m so crap I need seventy-three lessons?’

He ignores me. ‘Can I pick who we have next? I’m not sure Hugo is going to do it for me.’

I sigh. ‘You are so rude! He’s a dog, not a man.’ I think I’ve cocked up a bit. Before I met Bea for brunch, I had decided that my plan was to abandon seduction lessons, but to get out more by offering to walk dogs. So I signed up and offered to walk Hugo. It is now far too late to cancel. I can’t let him down, can I? Combining my activities seems the best of both worlds. One, I won’t have an awkward not-a-date OMG-what-is-he-going-to-teach-me encounter with Noah in some bar: we’ll be relaxed, out in the fresh air. And two, he can give me some hints and tips on how to meet my perfect first date whilst out walking (my preferred, relaxed, approach to dating). See, I have devised a lesson plan! ‘Anyway, what do you mean, lesson 73?’ I can’t let it drop. ‘How many lessons are there?’ What am I committing to here?

‘I was joking!’

‘Thank God for that! Can you warn me when you’re being funny, please?’

‘I’m that unfunny?’ He laughs. He’s not unfunny, it’s just this feels so intense I’m finding it hard not to take everything he says literally.

‘You’re brilliant face to face, it’s just hard on the phone when I don’t know you! You’re hilarious, dead funny, is that enough ego stroking?’