Not famous, a film star or millionaire, but play the guitar (badly), sing in the shower (not quite as badly), cook a mean curry. Like dogs, kids, chocolate and cake. Scrub up okay.

Cute. Slightly serious, but fun. Honest, presentable, can laugh at himself. Perfect. I thought.

Grrrr. Being stood up is bad enough. But this has just got even worse, even more humiliating. I have been ghosted. He will not answer my messages! What kind of inconsiderate moron won’t even reply to a simple ‘Running late? ’ text message?

By the fourth message I may have dropped the smileys and dipped a toe (or whole foot) into the passive-aggressive arena. I did not, however, text ‘Where the fuck are you?’ even though I was itching to. I’m rather proud of my self-restraint, so that’s one positive I can take away from this.

I turn my phone off and back on again, just in case it has lost connection, or has been hiding stuff from me.

It blinks at me.

‘Oh gawd.’ I put my head in my hands. ‘Why am I even doing this to myself? First dates are the biggest load of shite …’

‘Then you’re dating the wrong guys.’

‘Shit!’ I hadn’t even realised I’d moaned out loud, and the deep voice that sounds like it is inches away from my left ear makes me jump. I start to slither off the stupidly high and shiny stool, throw my arms out wildly to recover my balance, and slap my empty glass with the palm of my hand so that it skids along the bar. ‘Fu—’ I lurch forward to try and grab it, and somehow instead end up sucking a strange man’s chin.

I say strange but mean strange as in ‘stranger’ not weirdo; he’s actually quite presentable. Minty breath (can’t avoid it), nice nostrils (no long hairs). I can’t see much more of him this close up. And yuk, bristles! Thank God he’s just gone for not-shaved-today and hasn’t got a full bits-of-food-in beard. Which would be totally gross.

I edge back, so that my nose is no longer pressed against his lips. What kind of germs might I have picked up, licking an unknown man’s stubble?

It’s then I realise that I cannot move to a polite distance because I am in a weird tango position – one arm outstretched, fingers reaching for my glass, the other hand pressed against his chest.

Em-barr-ass-ing.

I appear to have been in a clinch (but luckily now at arm’s length) with a man. But he is not Gabe.

Definitely not Gabe.

‘You’re not Gabe!’

He chuckles. ‘Nope. Not Gabe. I’m not the first date shite!’ He raises an eyebrow and grins at me. ‘More the first date dream.’

‘Really? Are you for real?’ This is why I don’t come to bars like this one. ‘Has nobody ever told you how bad that sounds?’

Just as I thought this couldn’t get any worse in the humiliation stakes, it has. I am groping my not-first-date. What the hell am I doing? Shit! What if Gabe turns up late and finds me grappling somebody else? And a cocky, confident, sexy, self-assured type of somebody else. A player!