AS the only dates I'd discovered at the Dinner Club singles night last week were in the sticky pudding I returned to a tried and tested place to meet men. Cyberspace.

But who to choose this time? I asked the one person who's always right. My mum.

"Set your online sights a little lower," she said, comfortingly. "Choose a guy with a normal job."

She thought I had been aiming too high with the pilot - who didn't book a return flight to see me.

And the doctor I met a couple of weeks ago, well, his work on amputated limbs had put me off a bit.

"You could meet a binman and be happy!" she said.

"No, I wouldn't." I replied. "They'd be the last person to take out the rubbish after doing it all day."

Her words were still ringing in my ears when I got an e-mail from a guy who was a "transport co-ordinator".

A normal guy with a normal job. Perfect.

Sure, transport co-ordinating may not be glam, but somebody has to do it.

Otherwise we'd all bang into each other. Like on the dodgems.

From his internet pic he looked nice. At least his clothes were co-ordinated and he was wearing cool sunglasses while posing on a boat. A posh boat. Not the Yoker Ferry.

So we arranged to meet at city centre haunt One Up. I arrived early and as I couldn't see him I got myself a Cosmo then texted him to say I was at the bar.

"So am I," he replied.

Turns out the ace co-ordinator had been sitting BEHIND A PILLAR.

Now surely if you're meeting somebody for the first time you'd plan to sit somewhere they could find you?

Then, as the transport man rounded the corner to reveal himself, I felt a bit like I'd been hit by a truck.

He looked just like my ex, the one who left me for the cross-dressing Elvis impersonator (that's what I tell people).

They could have been separated at birth. I hadn't noticed, thanks to the sunglasses.

"I'd rather go lie down under the number 38 bus than go on a date with him," I thought. But how could I escape? Come down with sudden food poisoning from the bar nuts?

FAKE a phone call from a friend to say my pet terrapin with personal issues had attempted suicide?

Squeeze out of the 18-inch wide window in the loos and shimmy down the drainpipe?

No. I felt bad. He looked like he'd ironed his fine-knit stripey jumper from Top Man especially for the occasion. So I stuck it out.

And tried to make conversation - "Do friends refer to you as the tranny man'," that sort of thing.

But he was as much fun as getting stuck behind a tractor on a winding road.

I needed an escape route. So I pulled the fake text message routine.

"My friend is in town!" I feigned surprise. "And she's just been dumped/run over by a lorry/is about to move to Tonga. (I can't remember what I made up).

"I need to see her for drink/life support /Tongan update! Do you mind?" Yes, I felt guilty. But that guilty feeling soon abated when the bill arrived.

Now, I believe in equality and suffragettes like Emily Pankhurst and all that. Except when it comes to paying on a first date.

When I said: "Let me pay half" while vaguely wafting my hand around in the direction of my (fake) designer handbag.

I didn't actually expect him to let me go through with the gesture.

But he didn't say anything as I placed my £20 on top of his.

Had he guessed I was doing a runner? Seems not because as I got my coat he asked: "Would you like to meet up again?"

Of course I told him that it was very nice to meet him but sorry, I didn't think we were compatible.

At least, that would have been the right thing to do.

Instead, I gave him smile as genuine as Fern Britton's waistline and muttered: "Hmm, yeah, call me! Bye!"

I know. I'm such a phoney.

But I had learned a valuable lesson. Never date a guy who's wearing sunglasses in his photograph .

You won't be able to see where you are going.