by Janet Harris

Created on: January 20, 2009

Everyone loves a Blind Date' story and so I will tell mine which I hope will be even more enjoyable because it happens to be true !

Nineteen years old with long straight and rather stringy hair, thick rimmed glasses and slightly overweight. That was me back in 1972. I was very wary of boys my experiences with them at school had not been good ones, teased because of my glasses and my size I had never been invited out by anyone and I avoided social situations like the plague, preferring to stay in every night and watch TV. I had an office job I enjoyed and a couple of friends I saw now and again but my experience of the opposite sex was nil and I had never been to a pub or a club.

My friend Lynn changed all that. She and I had been quite close at school but lost touch when we went to different colleges. However, we literally bumped into each other one lunchtime as we discovered that our places of work were virtually next door to each other. Lynn was really grown up', she wore a black coat with the most amazingly huge fur collar, she smoked and what's more, she was engaged. It all seemed very adult to me, and I felt like a schoolgirl by comparison. I had never smoked and I tended to wear sensible' clothes, although the sight of that coat did put the idea into my head that I would go hunting for a fancy coat of my own on payday.

Lynn rang me one day and said that she and Steve, her fianc would be going to a local nightclub on the following Friday night, and their friend Terry was going too would I go along as Terry's date. I said no at first, the very thought of going out on a date, let alone a blind date, filled me with horror. It was a totally alien world and one that I was extremely reluctant to join. But of course, Lynn talked me round well she bullied me really, telling me it was about time I got off my backside and joined the real world, that I was missing out on so much fun and that everyone has to have a first date. What's more, Terry was just my type tall, dark and a nice, gentle kind of guy. In fact, Lynn told me that she rather fancied him herself. In the end I agreed just to shut her up, but lay in bed every night, trying to think of an excuse so that I did not have to endure this strange and new situation.

The days flew by, and the date was all set for Friday night. I hardly slept a wink during that week. I was totally petrified. What would happen if he hated me, or I hated him, what if he tried to kiss me? I practised kissing the back of my hand but it

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