Late-date

I had my first date through the website last night. It was extremely brisk we went from first contact to arranging cocktails in about 8 hours.

The plan was originally to go to this great little cuban place I know where they do the amazing mango and ginger daiquiris you will ever taste. It's a suitably louche gem of a bar and would have been perfect for a first meeting.

Sadly Soho wasn't an option so we ended up going out in my old haunt of Chelsea. It was a bit of a jaunt from Hampstead but had the advantage of being my old prowling ground so I knew all the good places for a cocktail or two late at night when a chap is trying to give the impression of being thrillingly charming.

We arrived at once such place, she turned up first by a matter of minutes and I swanned in after giving up to the fates and getting a cab. It was raining impressively so everyone enterting the place could make a dramatic entrance like something out of the Malteze Falcon.

She was far more pretty than her picture (which was attractive) and all together lovely. My very good friend N who is going to be vetting the girls from this site, or at least that is the plan, is bound to approve of her. She was intelligent, witty, creative, interesting and had studied feminisim at university. I don't think I'll ever meet a girl who N would approve of more than this one.

It was a good first date, we exchanged strange travel stories and talked about nonsense. I made a remark about making people paper mache dinosaurs that seemed to go down extremely well, in fact there was a lot of laughter.

After a good few rounds of cocktails, ending in an espresso martini for me which was excellent, we left and I got a cab home.

I'd like to see her again (any man would) but I'm not so sure of her intentions. It's one of those things really, unless a date ends with a girl doing something rude on me I find it very hard to judge how it went. At the least it was an entertaining evening and for my first full day on this website hopefully a jolly good indicator of things to come.