It is, as the saying goes, a small world.

(I remain to be convinced of this, because the maths suggests otherwise. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's more to do with the fact that privately educated people with degrees from Russell Group universities in a number of selected professions is small enough, but that they are proportionately over-represented in the social and occupational fields in which they move, and that's why both an old university friend and a woman with whom I ride at a yard well outside London both turned up on different floors of my office building a few weeks ago.)

Anyway, to dinner.

Before Christmas, The Writer and I headed into the wilds of north London for a friend's birthday supper. It was lovely: a large group of us took over the upstairs of a small French restaurant, and more red wine was had than is ever advisable on a school night.

There were old university friends, the girlfriends of old university friends, and colleagues of girlfriends of old university friends: lots of people chatting and laughing and having debates and trying to work out what each other actually do and when the last time was that some of us saw each other.

And there, at the end of the table, in the middle of all those people I know well, and some that I know less well, was a shipping lawyer whom I'd met once before. A shipping lawyer with whom I went on one terrible date circa 2008.

Because apparently before I met The Writer, I dated approximately all the men in London, eligible or not.

Said shipping lawyer and I had had one dinner at a tapas bar on Charlotte Street, which started promisingly until, ten minutes in, I realised that there was no sign at all of basic social conversational skills, let alone sparky repartee. Once he'd spent some half hour talking about the recent bathroom refit he'd had done, complete with difficulty of tracking down the perfect malachite bathroom tile, not even a decent patata brava could hold my attention.

When the realisation dawned in all its gory horror, all the claret in the world couldn't save me from the desire to claw my way out of the situation. Fast.

"I, er, I went on a date with that man," I confessed to TW as we made an earlier-than-other-people exit and headed back to the tube later on.

"Which one? Oh my GOD! HIM?!" The whoops of glee were not quite the response I had hoped. "The REALLY BORING one? How did you date HIM?! God, no wonder you love me so much."

The world. Not really that small, in the grand scheme of things. And yet plenty, but plenty, small enough.