THE first date after the end of a long-term relationship was always going to feel a little odd. Add to that the fact it was someone I'd met in a club and, while I was pretty sure he was a nice bloke, there was always the possibility that he was a serial killer.

The trouble is, having been with someone for almost 12 years I'd learnt very little about the rules of dating.

Sure, I know all about maintaining a long-term relationship but, in terms of knowing what's appropriate on a first date, I'm definitely in the novice class.

As the evening loomed closer I had a traumatising mix of emotions. I still don't know why my body thinks the appropriate reaction to going on a date is wanting to throw up.

I was excited but also desperately worried that I'd have nothing to say, we wouldn't recognise each other, that that urge to hurl would come back with a vengeance, that he wouldn't like me or that he wouldn't turn up at all.

In fact, I was so worried that we wouldn't recognise each other that I got him to collect me from home, which, looking back, would have been a really bad idea if he had turned out to be a serial killer.

I also decide to quell my nerves with alcohol. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that the young man in question - let's call him Sam - ever encountered me entirely sober. I know it's not big, it's not clever and it can get you into rather unfortunate situations but it did kind of help. Anyway, I wasn't plastered; it was just a little Dutch courage.

As I waited, tales of my friends' first dates went through my mind and they didn't make me feel any better.

Take Clarissa: after a slightly uncomfortable meal, her date took her to a near empty pub where he got extremely drunk and danced on a table by himself while she hid in the toilet.

Faith was also pretty perturbed when, at the end of her first date, the man in question said: "You know the film True Romance? That's how I feel about you." So murder, prostitution and major drug dealing were what he figured they had in store? She didn't return his calls.

Chloe, on the other hand, decided to take the alcohol route herself and at the end of the evening demanded of her completely sober date: "so, are you interested?".

Luckily, when Sam turned up at my house he was as nice as I remembered and, if he did notice how ridiculously flustered I was, he didn't mention it.

We went to a pub, met his friends and went to a gig. And it was great! He was nice, they were nice - heck, I was nice!

I wasn't labouring under the illusion that we'd follow a linear progression to marriage and children but I'd done it: I'd been on a date and I'd survived. AND he called me again!

In fact, it was a major milestone in moving on from my last relationship. Obviously it was rebound-a-go-go but that's not the point.

The point is I did it, I survived and I actually enjoyed it.