Page 71 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

8 p.m. Blimey. Computer messaging somehow whipped itself up to fever pitch.
At 6 o'clock I resolutely put my coat on and left, only to meet Daniel getting into
my lift on the floor below. There we were, just him and me, caught in a massive
electrical-charge field, pulled together irresistibly, like a pair of magnets. Then

suddenly the lift stopped and we broke apart, panting, as Simon from Marketing
got in wearing a hideous beige raincoat over his fat frame. 'Bridget,' he said
smirkily, as I involuntarily straightened my skirt, 'you look as if you've been
caught playing with matches.'

As I left the building Daniel popped out after me and asked me to have dinner
with him tomorrow. Yessss!

Midnight. Ugh. Completely exhausted. Surely it is not normal to be revising
for a date as if it were a job interview? Suspect Daniel's enormously well read
brain may turn out to be something of a nuisance if things develop. Maybe I
should have fallen for someone younger and mindless who would cook for me,
wash all my clothes and agree with everything I say. Since leaving work I have

nearly slipped a disc, wheezing through a step aerobics class, scratched my
naked body for seven minutes with a stiff brush; cleaned the flat; filled the
fudge, plucked my eyebrows, skimmed the papers and the Ultimate Sex Guide,
put the washing in and waxed my own legs, since it was too late to book an
appointment. Ended up kneeling on a towel trying to pull off a wax strip firmly
stuck to the back of my calf while watching Newsnight in an effort to drum up
some interesting opinions about things. My back hurts, my head aches and my

legs are bright red and covered in lumps of wax.

Wise people will say Daniel should like me just as I am, but I am a child of

Cosmopolitan culture, have been traumatized by super-models and too many
quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its
own devices. I can't take the pressure. I am going to cancel and spend the
evening eating doughnuts in a cardigan with egg on it.