YES YOU'RE on a blind date. You have arranged to meet at a bar and you have spoken to your date on the phone and she sounds OK. There is a hint of gravel to her voice that indicates dusky looks and Lauren Bacall lines. You arrive at eight and scan the bar for the person wearing the blue dress.
And there she is. A moose of the first order. A hound. Thighs like slaughtered swine. Breasts that sleep under her armpits. Eyes like a leering rabbit and a mouth so drawn and taught with tension that you can envisage a lifetime of nagging before you've even spoken to her. Stained and crooked teeth are wrapped around a whisky and Coke while particles of make-up float on the surface of this awful concoction. Lauren Bacall? She makes Humphrey Bogart look like Kate Moss.
But it's OK - the innocents tell us - she has a nice personality. Well, bully for her, but the fact is, she is a Baskerville and before you know it, you are slinking out of the bar and hitting the nearest pub for a restorative triple, nervously listening for the baying as she comes after you.
Does this make me an awful person? If your answer is yes, chances are you are ugly. Look, some of my friends are ugly; it's just that I don't like them as much as the good-looking ones.
I don't want to end up on a drinking session at three in the morning gazing into the face of some sweating troglodyte. In the same way that I wouldn't surround myself with paintings of little kittens playing with a toilet roll if I could look at a Chagall, I find it easier on the eyes and brain to ensure a certain standard of looks among my friends.
Isn't it natural? Think back to school. Didn't the good-lookers hang out together? Think back to college. Wasn't there always a group of bright and beautiful young things forming their own clique? Similarly, didn't the uglies hang around together, sweeping into the bar like a herd of misfits.
It's simply the workings of evolution. Procreation is the driving-force of the human race and good looks make us more sexually attractive. It is natural to select the best-looking person available because it increases the chances of your offspring finding mates and continuing the species. Good looks are nature's way of hedging your bets.