Be reassured: I do not have a very large nugget weighing down my wedding finger. I am not lately of Gretna Green. I do not carry an official document about my person bearing the pre-fix 'Mrs'. But, I have to tell you, since the last time we got together, it feels like my life has been shaken upside down. I am all at sea. Tossed like a salad. I am in the throes of something BIGGISH.

What can I say? That date. That man. If Jesse James himself had rolled into town, hurled me across his shoulder, mounted his steed, given my ass a good slapping, and high-tailed it out of there in a cloud of dust, shooting off his Colt-45 in a veritable blaze of glory, towards a psychedelic sunset on the horizon, I could not be more swept off my feet.

It started with one of those rare moments in one's love life. The ones you never see coming, mainly because you have shed every last remnant of hope and become a hard-bitten cynic. I arrived at the bar, gave it a cursory glance to see if he had already arrived, trying not to have the look of someone on a first date with a complete stranger. Other bar frequenters can tell, you know. It's like you're giving off extra pheromone. Nope. No-one skulking in a corner. Okay, breathe. Shake out the shoulders. Order a gin and tonic. Make it a double. Man, why do I always have to feel so darned clammy on a first date? For God's sake, get a grip.

Then, a voice, behind me. And there we have it. The moment. 'Hello', he said, 'It's okay, I was just checking you out.' I would have come back with something brilliantly off the cuff, a deadly retort, delivered with my sexiest smile, if it wasn't for the fact that I was distracted by the neon sign flashing over his head, one that only I could see, that read F**K, THIS ONE IS GOING TO HURT.

Let me tell you. He's beautiful. Hotter than the sun. Eyes like shards of blue ice. A gaze so penetrating I was pretty sure he could see straight through to my underwear [Thank God for Bravissimo]. A jaw line so gorgeously chiselled, he's a walking Gillette commercial. A smile so cute, I hear babies for miles around are calling him up for tips. This is quite without the effortless way he wore a plain white Gap tee and slouchy, yet perfectly hugging jeans. The heart-palpitating waft of some alluring scent. The aura of sweet-naturedness that clung to him like a delicious honey.

You see what I mean... pretty hard to resist, right? And you weren't even there.

So, you will understand perfectly about the next part. Because, after the drinks, the sharing of life stories, the gentle poking about at each other's relationship history, a few moments of obscure but delightful funniness, and finding ourselves the last to leave the little Italian place [yeah, it was the waiter blowing out the candle in our faces that was the clincher], he walked me home.

I had a plan about the final straight. I guess he thought we were having a conversation. But, actually, I was doing some serious bargaining with Desire. As I watched our feet moving in tandem, became strongly aware of the brush of his arm, I looked it in the eye, and said, with all the firmness I could muster, 'You can kiss him, that's fine. But that's it. You're not sleeping with him. This is non-negotiable.'

But I should have known the kissing would do it for me. The gentle, tentative, firm, deep, sexy kissing. [Excuse me, I'm starting to feel a tiny bit warm just thinking about it, hand me a fan somebody.] It's just the best, better than all the stuff that follows in many ways, maybe because at the kissing stage you still have the luxury of wondering what that other 'stuff' will feel, look, and smell like. I'm a sucker for it. I have no defences.

And now I see why. Emil Ludwig, a German guy who has obviously spent a lot of time kissing, and thinking about kissing, is a man after my own heart. 'The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.'

Mmmm. The kiss contains within it that final surrender. Oh yes, it certainly does. Thus, reader, I'm afraid I surrendered. Big time. And several times the following week. I appear to be turning into something of a serial surrenderer with this person, night after night. I'm afraid it is doing something for me that is refusing to go away, and indeed, getting rather better all the time.