In which I (reluctantly) arrange a date

CANDID, CONFESSIONAL, CONTROVERSIAL

So, White Ferrari Guy* Whatsapped me. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of two blue ticks for, like, 14 episodes of Love Island. When I finally did read it, he had messaged me not to say, well, old people don’t matter. Children can go take a running jump. Teachers are lazy. Funerals? Who gives a monkey’s? The person is dead already. Or, I don’t have a maths O-level, but let me destroy the business you built from the ground up with huge personal sacrifice. Or, let’s scare the pants off people. Or even, I look great!

Nope. He wrote: ‘Hi Liz. Your columns make compelling reading, but I guess that’s the idea. You endure huge amounts of stress and life sounds tough.

‘I’m house hunting at the moment… My tenancy runs out soon, so the race is on. I think it’s time we got together for dinner, unless of course you have grown accustomed to inferior guys and you feel more comfortable in their company. Maybe I can make you smile… Over to you (no emoji). David.2

Oh, dear God. He is renting. I manifested a billionaire. And I think there was a dig in there somewhere.

I replied: ‘Well, you are brave. I just think meeting someone I don’t know for dinner is too long a commitment. It’s two hours out of my life to find out you order octopus and have never read Jane Eyre or seen The English Patient. I think a drink not far from me is best.’

You see? Boundaries. A sense of my own self-worth. At last. Or it may just be that my hair has a two-inch stripe of grey, and my pedicure has grown out. Also, I’m currently growing my lashes with Augustinus Bader serum but, like my tulips, they’ve yet to sprout.

Ooh, he’s read my message. Blue ticks! Pause.

Long pause. Season two of Next in Fashion-length pause. He replies. H’even-tu-ally. ‘You made me smile.’ Oh God. Please don’t be

JONES MOANS... WHAT LIZ LOATHES THIS WEEK

★ People who don’t answer emails or open Wetransfer as they are ‘abroad’. Listen, mate, I filed my copy from up a mountain in Kashmir, and from the foothills of the Himalayas. You’re in a Dubai five-star

★ Estate agents. They tell you, ‘The property has been renovated and refreshed’ patronising, and that wasn’t my intention.

‘Well,’ he continues. ‘I don’t like calamari and I am not keen on red meat.’

Is calamari octopus?

‘Not read Jane Eyre, but I can’t when all that’s been done is a bit of cheap laminate put down and an old-lady sofa shoved in

★ The clocks change again. Am off to land a plane – ie change the clock on my Smeg range cooker

★ Flakes. And I don’t mean the chocolate ones somehow see you playing badminton with me either.’

I don’t really think you can equate great art with shuttlecocks. Then again, my super-intelligent ex-husband refused to read female authors.

He continues: ‘I can’t recall a dinner date lasting less than four hours [no wonder the stomach] so I guess I can live with a couple of hours with you. I am sure you are worth it. I am away in Vegas seeing Adele. Thought you were going to Australia?’

I think he has the wrong end of the stick here. I was talking about not wanting to waste my time, not his.

Can I be bothered? I reply. ‘OK, well, when and where?

I can’t go to Sydney until after the press awards. Adele was a rude cow to me.’

I’m seeing if he has initiative. He replies. ‘If you know a good, convenient-for-you restaurant, let me know and I will book.’

So, I’m the man again. Oh well. I type: ‘Middleton Lodge.’

He googles it. ‘You’ve got good taste. Saturday the 25th?’

Me: ‘I was barred but think the manager died, so, Yay!’

Him: ‘We can start the conversation with why you were barred.’

A boyfriend with a Ferrari. Now, that will be a first.

*I’m 23-year-old RAV4 Diesel Gal, with seats and seatbelts destroyed by Gracie, the paintwork scraped as I can’t reverse, cobwebs and moss growing inside. The worse your car is the more class you possess. The late, great aristocratic supermodel Stella Tennant once picked me up in an old estate car filled with labradors, dry cleaning and a mouse nest in the boot. ‘I’m driving slowly,’ she told me, ‘as I think Mouse is pregnant’

He says, ‘Not read Jane Eyre but I can’t see you playing badminton either’