Amsterdam

A friend of Kim's asked me if I fancied showing him how to set up a few things on his computer. He's a racing commentator and needs to get to grips with cron jobs and so on.

We decided to meet halfway, in Manchester -- walking straight into the mêlée of Man City v Sevilla, bellowing Englishmen and visiting fans from the loudest country in Europe. We squeezed ourselves onto a table in Wetherspoons with an elderly man having an afternoon out on the orange squash.

Bob, whom I hadn't met before, arrived and we got through a merrily talkative couple of pints -- racing commentator is quite an interesting job -- before he suggested another bar "which might be quieter." It was that testosteroned Argos-decorated bar opposite the Malmaison. Its website advertises "ice-cold refreshing beers", which tells you all you need to know about the target clientele: fat wallops bound into straining miniskirts and Crosshatched, G-Starred men. Mass muzak and strobing screens of football.

We had a single pint of international chemicals, before I said "Look Bob, we can't work in this place and everywhere's going to be packed today. Why don't we just sack this off for today and go to that poncy craft ale place near the station and at least have something decent to drink?" We sat amidst addicted texters, beards, square specs, and jeans with large turn-ups, and had an almost ten pounds round of Czech pilsner and English bitter.

On Thursday a woman from Preston got in touch saying my dating profile was "hilarious." A fortysomething woman (atheist, likes real ale, doesn't like camping) with a dark blonde bob and a black shift dress standing next to a Kandinsky painting in the Rijksmuseum is sex, and a portion of the night before I met her was spent in sexual imaginings.

A couple of messages later, she suggested meeting up. So we went to the Sun Hotel last night. I was tired and she was held up in traffic, and I had nodded off in the pub when she walked in, instantly making me wide-eyed in her low-cut mottled green knee-length cotton dress and green and creme flatties. I told her she looked gorgeous.

At the end, the usual circumlocution. "That's alright," I said. "This is why I'm single. Every date ends like this, year in, year out," a self-pitying remark I immediately regretted saying.

When i got in, I texted Wendy and Kitty. We'd spent the afternoon together in the same pub and they'd asked me to give me an update afterwards. "Oh well... yet another night of chatting myself into the friendzone. I am absolutely fed up to the back teeth of making all this effort and every date I go on sees me as a friend. What the fuck is wrong with me? Sorry just fucking fed up. Normal service will be resumed shortly."

Then I texted Naomi. "Hey I've just had a lovely night with, I kid you not, the most desirable woman I've ever met on this thing, who made it worse by being amiable and chatty company. I wish you well N and hope you find someone nice. All the best and thank you for schlepping up from Preston X"

She replied, "Aw, thank you you are very kind. I also had a brilliant evening. So refreshing to meet such a lovely genuine deep-thinking compassionate fun and interesting guy. I also wish you luck in finding someone who will make you happy. And you're a fab hugger. Sending love and peace Naomi x"

I don't give a shit about all that. I want to be found attractive. I want to be kissed. I got out of bed, took some speed, knowing that I was so tired that it wouldn't last long, and put one of my favourite house mixes on, to have a soundtrack on top of which to repeatedly say and think and make gestures to accompany the variants of "Friends, Naomi? Fuck that."