Present: 'MINE!!'

He was a detective. OK, so I’d never met a real detective before and I only went on the date because I was intrigued. Was he going to arrive in a mac and a trilby placed at a jaunty angle? I hoped so. He would want to turn up early to suss out the restaurant for ‘scum’. He would have eyes like deep, dark pools of mystery and a way of speaking that persuaded you to blurt out your innermost secrets. If we got into trouble on our Safari honeymoon he would be able to do that Crocodile Dundee thing to calm down the wild buffalo. But while I was daydreaming about these possibilities, waiting outside the restaurant, I got a text saying ‘Sorry late, struggling up hil’. Not a very physically fit, literate or punctual detective then. In my mind I had pictured a younger, taller, suave version of Columbo. Now it was more like a fat lump with egg on his lapel, a broken Casio watch and a squashed Topic in his pocket.

I was waiting outside in the cold for ten minutes. Yeah alright, ten minutes isn't that long. But it was very cold and one would hope to realise it was worth the wait. I was a little disappointed then, that the guy who turned up was skinnier than me (My no. 1 rule: Never to go out with a guy who is thinner- or prettier- than me) and wearing a hillbilly check shirt and a tight leather jacket that was camper than Butlins. Not a big strapping copper at all. Rather a weed, really. I wondered whether he investigated littering. In fact, that had been part of the initial intrigue- what type of detective was he? I was sure that he'd refuse to tell me on the grounds that it was against an oath he took in Cadets or something and in some bizarre role-reversal I'd manage to slip him up and find out the answer using my cunning and guile. The reality was that he could tell me, he just wasn't sure if he should.

Rape. He was a rape detective. There's a pleasant first-date conversation for you. I honestly wished I'd never bloody asked. What the hell do you reply to that? Do you ask him about his day!? I didn't have to. He continued to tell me that the night before he'd been taking penile swabs from a homeless chap. I started to wonder if I'd had any contact with his hands so far that evening. No, no. It had been a peck on the cheek to say hello. No hand contact. You know when there's a leper on holiday and you don't realise they're there until they're in your face asking for money and you start to worry if you'd brushed past them just before that without knowing they were a leper? And then you tell yourself not to be silly because it's not Biblical times any more and surely you can't catch leprosy from just brushing past someone but then you think of your mate Sandra's nan who hadn't had her tetanus and she pricked her finger gardening but didn't have any Dettol and the next thing she knew she was on her back in Costcutter with a weeping finger and an Irish accent?
Yeah. One of those moments.

So we were sat there having a glass of wine before the meal and chatting about the rape cases he'd investigated (the odds of getting a conviction are rather depressing, apparently) when I commented on the fact that he didn't look like a detective at all. That was when he decided to tell me that people meeting him for the first time tend to wonder if he's gay, which might be to do with the fact that he has low testosterone levels that make him seem effeminate. I wondered why on Earth he'd decided to blurt that out 15 minutes into the date- it's hardly a turn-on. Although maybe for ladies looking for a 'metrosexual' type it could be. But I wanted an old-fashioned detective, and the last word you would use to describe a detective is 'effeminate'. I had visions of Columbo flashing sequinned hotpants under his mac, insisting on pink latex gloves at the scene of the crime and doing unspeakable things with his cigar during the end credits.

Campness aside, the bloke seemed decent, and we finally got sat down at the table. But here was another one who seemed to want to ply me with drink- he ordered a bottle of white wine with no consultation... and he was on beer. He asked me how I had found the dating website (we'd met online) and I told him that I didn't really like the idea of onine dating but as I was single I thought I'd give it a go for a bit, despite finding it rather embarassing and not at all something I'd want to have a chat about. He seemed to take this as a cue to tell me, in great detail, about another girl he'd recently met the same way. In his words: They'd gone out a couple of times and she was very pretty but stupid. He'd not been that bothered but she'd been very into him and so he'd decided to sleep with her on the second date, but had left her flat later that night and never called her again. He had got what he wanted, and she shouldn't have 'put out' so soon. At the end of this charming little story, he evidently expected me to find it all very amusing. I said I thought it was unfortunate that she wasn't very bright, and considering how he had behaved I felt rather sorry for her actually. It was at this point that he poured himself some wine.

The food was lovely, and the wine had further loosened his tongue- he confessed that he'd nearly cancelled our date because a close member of his family had passed away suddenly the week before. Naturally I was horrified, said how sorry I was and told him that it was fine if he wanted to chat about it and fine if he didn't. So I got his family history from 1900 to the present day. Apparently he was in constant torment due to the fact that his family were deeply deeply religious and it had grown more and more difficult for him, in his line of work, to continue this belief into adulthood, so he was now an atheist. But with the recent death in the family this had brought up a lot of questions in his head and there was a bit of a mental struggle going on. Having sat through all this for an hour, I knew how he felt. My mind wandered to the scene in Airplane! where various people kill themselves during Ted Striker's stories. I was beginning to contemplate requesting to blow-torch my own creme brulée.

Ah yes, dessert. He had ordered the Banoffee pancake (after having complained like a 5-year-old to the waitress that he would have preferred Banoffee pie, and why could that not be arranged for him?) and I ordered the creme brulée. As the waitress was walking away he yelled 'She's promised me I can have half of hers!' I had done nothing of the sort and took it to be some sort of stupid joke. Reader, I am a little like Joey from Friends in my reluctance to share food. A man (or woman, for that matter) can feel pretty honoured if, on any occasion, I deign to share my meal with them.

Dessert arrived. All good, all lovely, nothing out of the ordinary here (apart from the religious debate between me, him, and the voices in his head). He demolished most of his pancake and popped to the loo, leaving a plateful of soggy melted ice-cream mess. I continued demurely with my delicate little spoon and my dessert.
Suddenly, he RAN back towards the table and looking down at my bowl in horror, exclaimed 'That's MINE!', grabbed the creme brulée from under my nose, threw his melted leftovers in front of me, grabbed his soup spoon and finished my dessert in three enormous shovelled mouthfuls.

I was absolutely gobsmacked. This was unforgivable. He saw the look on my face once he'd finished crunching the sugar with his mouth open, and explained 'You were eating more than half'.
I decided that we were definitely not going for drinks after dinner. We went Dutch on the meal, got our coats and walked outside. I said 'Well it was lovely to meet you but I think it may be time to call it a night'
'WHAT?! No way! We're going for a drink after. I've heard there's a nice wine bar around here...'
'Yes there is, just down there. But I've had enough for tonight thanks'
'Nope! Come on! We're going for a drink!'
'But?'
'NO!! COME ON!'
And with that, he grabbed my arm and frogmarched me down the road to the wine bar.

The wine bar was empty apart from a few regulars and the bartender, who was having a chat with a mate waving his arms so violently during the conversation that he nearly fell off his stool. We took two seats at the bar and my date ordered me another glass of white wine. By this time I had definitely had enough. I wasn't terribly drunk, I just couldn't physically take any more. I knew this had to be my last one.

The religious debate continued. I can't even remember what his point was any more. My take on religion is quite flexible but the main thing is, I think it is used by certain people as a tool to control the masses and as a result can be incredibly beneficial or incredibly dangerous, depending on the situation. I don't know why he disagreed with this, but it seems that he did. He had gone from a sober atheist to a drunken creationist. I kind of understood it, given the family tragedy and his inward struggle, but by God it's not great for a first date. We were having quite a healthy discussion about it, neither of us getting too heated, yet he decided to include the barman in the debate.

The barman's take on religion, it seemed, was that it was not something to be questioned in any way whatsoever. I was trying to put a point across, while he kept yelling 'You must have religion! It is good for family values! We need family values! How can you say you don't want religion? You don't want a FAMILY?! How can you not want a family? It's the most important thing in the WORLD...' and so on and so on. A conversational brick wall. What was worse, the barman's friend seemed to have developed Tourette's and was intermittently shouting expletives for a woman's anatomy to punctuate his mate's monologue. It was at that point, when the barman paused to ask if I wanted more wine and my date said 'YES!' that I'd had enough.

I said it was time to leave and stood up. My date said 'No, come on, it's still early'. I said it was quite late actually. He looked at his watch, took a split-second to take it all in, and finally yelled 'WHAT?! It's eleven-THIRTY?! It was TEN O'CLOCK ten minutes ago! I've missed my last train!' and with that he sprinted out of the bar and down the hill.

I haven't heard anything from him since.