The restaurant was one of those intimate, fancy places with low lighting, white table cloths and waiters who said things like “excellent choice” while they took your order. In all fairness he’d definitely gone to some effort tonight. Although she wasn’t really sure if the effort was to make her feel special or to impress her with his superior taste and income. She suspected the latter.

He’d been funny and charming online. With time to edit his words he had managed to come across as witty, not cutting. Clever, not patronising. That seemed to have changed in person. She couldn’t help noticing his sharp, impatient tone with the waiter (not that she could see anything wrong with the waiter or his service- he seemed pleasant and polite enough) and the way the waiter’s eyes tightened a little as he tried to hold a forced smile in the face of her date’s condescension.

So far he hadn’t said anything entirely unforgivable to her, but he’d eyed her up and down for just a little too long as she arrived , making her feel like she was a used car being inspected by a suspicious mechanic.

The final expression he gave was more “I suppose you’ll have to do” than “wowsers how lucky am I?”

So far he’d banged on endlessly about himself, humble-bragging about everything from his car to his recent promotion to how he’d “put that useless foreign cabbie” right in his place on the way here tonight.

Ugh. This was turning out to be a nightmare. No more dating websites for her - this time she really meant it!

Nodding in what she hoped were the right places (on a positive note he didn’t seem to care if she was actually listening) she tried to avoid eye contact. Which wasn’t hard given that most of his eye contact so far had been with her cleavage.

She kept her eyes on a point slightly to the left of his shoulder and tried to fake smile her way through his monologue. At a table behind and to their left sat a couple. Or maybe not a couple, it was hard to tell. He was nice looking but he looked like he might have borrowed what he was wearing tonight, his shirt just a little too long at the wrists and loose across the shoulder. Not that it looked bad - the effect was actually a bit cute, she thought to herself.

His companion was another story. Her clothes were so fitted that it took all her non-body shaming ethos not to think of them as “one size too small”. And labels as far as the eye could see, all strategically placed for maximum advertising impact.

She’d never understood why people thought it was classy to plaster yourself in logos to show how expensive your outfit was. Surely the whole point of being really rich was that you had nothing to prove? Not that she was ever likely to find out.

She couldn’t help watching the woman as she pouted, tossed her hair and laughed just a fraction too loud at something the waiter said, while the man sat looking awkward and embarrassed.

It looked like he was avoiding his dates eye, too. She knew how he felt.

The man glanced toward her. They locked eyes for a second, and she couldn’t help herself. Without really understanding why, she rolled her eyes dramatically. He grinned.

She grinned back.

She wondered if it would be wrong to excuse herself to the ladies and accidentally trip over next to him, giving her an excuse to speak to her unexpected partner in crime.