TWO things have happened recently which have called me untold stress and sleepless nights.
The first was Christmas. Phew what a palaver! Thank goodness that’s over for another year!
And the second was my first date in a year. And ditto, with the phew and palaver.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but I really had no idea it would cause me such angst.
It all started with the work’s Christmas party.

It’s possible that I’m totally deluded, but I thought I looked pretty gorgeous (for a 47-year-old single, working mum teetering on the edge of physical and mental exhaustion, that is).

Anyway my mum had given me some Christmas money and my younger sister had given me some fashion tips (very high boots and skinny jeans, she said). I thought I looked a bit like the principal boy in Puss in Boots, but I did feel glam. And it was better than looking like the Dame, I suppose.

And I was looking forward to our Herald night out because the best bit about working for a newspaper is the people I work with. I sit all day surrounded by quick-witted, funny slightly mad people. And, the job itself is infinitely fascinating, although due to boring stuff like the laws of the land and the rules of public decency, a lot of the juiciest bits never make it into print.

We started the evening by meeting for dinner at 6.30pm (I could drone on again about boring veggie eating out and paying £18 for a godawful cheese pie, but the carnivores also had a ropey meal, and at least nothing had to die on my account, so all in all it was a result).

Then we met for the party and by the time we left eight hours later things were getting slightly hazy. Apparently I invented a new party game, danced with the Herald Express Christmas cake and there is photographic evidence that I was pole dancing, but I suspect digital jiggerypokery.

But anyway, the next thing I remembered as we walked back along the harbourside towards the taxi rank at about 3.30pm was stopping to eat chips from two well-dressed gentlemen who had been to a ball at The Imperial. I can’t remember exactly what was said, but one suggested that his friend and I should swap mobile numbers.

Now you should know here that I am practically a virgin when it comes to both texting and dating. I met the father of my children, my ex, He Who Shall Not Be Named, whatever you want to call him, at 17.
In those far off days, back in the halcyon summer of 1976, the closest thing to a mobile phone was the “Beam Me Up Scottie” transmitter on Star Trek.

I know this must seem hysterically funny to anybody under the age of about 40, but if we wanted to communicate with members of the opposite sex, we had to speak to them. What, I hear you cry, no texts? No MSN? No emails. It seems primitive now, but often we would walk to other people’s houses just for a chat! It’s true, you couldn’t makethis up…

So anyway here I was, the morning after the night before, with a hangover and no memory of the man I had met on the harbourside, except that he had nice chips.
For some reason which now escapes me, we never spoke on the phone. We began texting each other and, because of Christmas and work and life and his kids and my kids we couldn’t meet up for an actual date for another six days.

The textual tension over that next six days was unbearable. Nothing rude or coarse, just ever so slightly, politely flirty. I’m not saying it wasn’t fun. In fact it was probably the most fun I’d had all year.
But I stopped sleeping. I honestly had no idea why, but all of a sudden I was taking hours to nod off, waking up and taking another couple of hours to get back to sleep and then waking again another half-hour later. For six days I averaged three hours a night.
And when I was awake, my heart was racing and I was having heart palpitations.
I was expecting to wake up and find myself wired up to monitors in Torbay Hospital’s heart unit.

If I ever get asked on another date, ever again, I’ve asked my teenage daughters to confiscate my mobile. The agonies of trying to work out what those short little messages and digi kisses, and the length of the silences in between, really mean. The horrors of agonising over what is, or is not, an appropriate response.

Added to that there’s my way too overactive imagination. It was essentially a blind date, but by the time we actually met, 50 or so text messages later, I had built it up into Casablanca or Brief Encounter or the episode of The Simpsons where Homer first meets Marge.
Despite all that, and the fact that I was so over-tired I looked like an old hag, we got on fine, no embarrassing silences, lots in common to talk about, and had a perfectly nice night out.

But suffice to say, I am sleeping fine again. Back to my usual sleeping like a log (woke up in the fireplace, ho ho).
Turns out I was just plain terrified. What’s strange is that I didn’t recognise that feeling was fear. Because dating, after years and years (and years) of being with the same person, is like spinning into space without a lifeline (obviously I’m guessing a bit on the analogy here, not being an actual astronaut, let alone one who has experienced being lost in space for eternity).

Now the big question is whether I will ever be brave enough to go on another date. All those kindly friends (usually happily married ones) who ask why I haven’t met anyone else yet, and blithely ask if I’ve tried internet dating, have no idea of the degree of courage involved in taking such a step.
I think I’ll gather myself first and wait ‘til next Christmas before I try again.