You will be pleased to know that I have a date tonight. You would think it was the first one I ever had the way I am feeling about it. I have a strange sensation in the pit of my belly that rather stubbornly won't go away. I think it's trying to tell me that this one might be different.

Why? It might be the fact that I spent two nights running this week on IM with tonight's date. I can't say precisely how long we spoke for, but suffice it to say that it was long enough for Facebook to shut down my Chat box, accompanied by a sharp message telling me that I had been blocked from further communication. Which is pretty hilarious, given that this is Facebook we're talking about. I'm trying not to read into the symbolism. But it's not just the IM conversations.

Struck down by illness and sofa-bound as I have been [Thank you for your concern, I'm much better], he has texted me every day, many times, to cheer me up. As far as one can tell from the pictures, he's handsome, in a Love Actually Andrew Lincoln kind of way – and I never realised I had a crush on him. He does fun uncle activities with his niece and nephew, and I think that extends beyond sellotaping their faces into such bizarre contortions they could be extras in Shaun of the Dead [I am reassured they do not wake up in the night screaming, and that they got their own back].

This man can quote freely from When Harry Met Sally, even the lesser known lines - a feat so impressive that on that basis alone I would happily prostrate myself before him and propose. Indeed, it appears that we are now referring to each other as Harry and Sally. It is a thing of pre-date intimacy that fills me with a delight greater than a Buy One Get One Free offer on Green and Black's 70% Dark, or the sight of Giles Coren in a toga.

He disarmingly speaks his mind, and from his heart. He confidently asserts that I am beautiful, even though all he has to go by are some portraits of dubious quality taken on a friend's mobile phone, just after I had been peeled from the floor after too many shots of bourbon at a 'Dolly Parton with Beards' theme party, wig slightly askew, eyelashes creatively affixed - but no beard, thankfully.

I applaud tonight's date for his spectacular imagination and ability to trust to his instincts, but I don't think he'd have stretched to that. He thinks nothing of acknowledging his desire to be a dad, even though he knows it's likely to be hard work, he doesn't know how he'll cope, but that he'd like to do it anyway, preferably sometime soon. On hearing this news - and clicked my lower jaw back into place – that first date was a done deal, baby. And maybe two or three after that as well. It frightens me, this date.

It's not like the Sunday afternoon shag with the gym bunny and his sunflower tattoo fetish. It's not like the hairy guy with the wall of happy, smiley dad and kids pictures. It's not like another guy I road-tested whose only other online date had been with a woman who turned out to be a man [he stayed for a drink, just to be polite]. It's not even like the guy who made marionettes for a living, and he was the master of some pretty nimble finger skills. Such interludes were fun, exciting even. But I had no trouble leaving them behind. Occasionally, I broke into a run.

And that's the difference. As I've sat in the bath shaving my legs, lotioned my limbs into a silky polish, agonised over and assembled my first date armoury (black jeans, cleavage-loving black top, cute cardigan, select pieces of quirky but cool jewellery, wedges, generous fine-spraying of Cabaret by Parfum Gres), and tousled my hair into what I hope will look like a mass of golden waves rather than, say, Wild Woman of Wongo, every moment I'm thinking about this man.

And it makes my hands shake. It makes me short of breath. It turns me to jelly. This isn't just about whether or not it'll end in a bit of mutual back-scratching and bed-warming. I hope for something else from him. He hasn't played games. So far, he's given me all the things I've asked for in my [entirely Atheist] prayers. I hardly dare hope that he's the real deal, the One period, rather than, say, the one who serenades women on Facebook, while the mother of his children, or adoring partner, sleeps without dreams, blissfully unaware, in the conjugal bed upstairs. The Dick.

I want him before I've met him. But now I need to go. I'm five minutes late. And I'm not sure that women can bank on that prerogative any more. A last look in the mirror. Frankly, how could he not want me? I look absolutely f***ing pony riding gorgeous. Yeah, I'll let you know. And if I don't, feel free to assume it's because I've bought one-way tickets for two on the Express train to Gretna Green.