For those of you on Facebook, there is now a fan page for Me! Glorious! Me! located here.

For everyone else, apologies for lack of updates - simply snowed under at the moment. Hope you are all keeping warm and enjoying truffles!

Happy-making things from the past week:

Loads of lovely nights out! Have not had so many invitations since I don't know when, making this the nicest December in years. Though the dry cleaner is sick of the sight of me already.

A girl at a gentleman's club (of which more another time) dancing to the Rammstein cover of Depeche Mode's 'Stripped' - and asking for my number later. Soz boys, but when you're hot you're hot.

Burn After Reading. How good is that film? Also saw that Angelina Jolie one which, while indisputably the feel-bad movie of the year, did at least offer another opportunity to worship the man, the legend, the Malkovich.

Speaking of cinema, delighted to notice in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi that Shah Rukh Khan has a left-side fang just like mine! Wonky teeth rule. Also that in undercover geek mode he looks distinctly like my father's older brother - am now uncertain whether it is strictly kosher to continue fancying SRK.

Tucked away not far from my house, a pub serving perfectly kept Deuchars and Sunday dinners of shocking proportions. Yay for gentrification!

So now we have discussed N's Quantum Theory of Relationships, here is a new one for you: Belle's Bayesian Theory of Relationships.

For those of you not au fait with the ins and outs of probability theory, rest assured, I don't know from Fermat either. In fact my main source of statistical knowledge was an Irish gambling addict I lived with back at Uni. Here comes the science bit - Bayesian probability, as far as I understand it, is a method of predicting future performance based on past results. As A2's Canadian mate D likes to say to his toddlers when they are mid-strop, 'what we have here is an example of inductive reasoning.' Through observation and experiment, we can upgrade our opinions.

Or in other words, you choose the horse at the track based on its last few races, not because you like its name.

You might be saying to yourself, well Belle, this is bleeding obvious. Who doesn't assess a relationship in this way? And the answer would be, nearly everyone. Regular readers will have a sense of how exactly how flipping long I didn't factor in past unacceptable behaviour in my choice of mate - never, never again. Being perfectly honest ladies, we are excruciatingly guilty of this in almost every instance.

'What that implies is there is no place for faith in a relationship,' N groused during another of our marathon bath-chat sessions. I find I think more clearly in the bath. Pity I can't work from there, but ah well.

'What I'm saying is that faith is earned, not given,' I said. 'You are permitted to disagree.'

'Cheers, I will.' He would. He's hung up on a woman who has treated him like a cock-for-hire without giving back anything significant for, oh, I think about three years now. He is invested. She is not changing. And her personal track record would seem to suggest she can't.

'When she figures out what she wants, she'll see how good I am for her,' N said.

I rolled my eyes - thank fuck for phones sometimes. 'When she figures out what she wants, she'll start fresh with someone else,' I said. 'They never realise what they have until it's too late.'

'Last of the romantics, you are,' N said.

'Like the clown said, you only get one chance with Edna Krabappel.'

I have the feeling it's going to take a lot more time in the bath before he finally sees sense.

You are probably wondering, then, how things went with the Norwegian.

Come to think of it so am I.

We met for lunch rather than in the evening. A few last-minute work concerns, he said. No worries - I am generally forgiving on the matter of men and their busy schedules. I had decided to save anything potentially upsetting for the end of our meeting, as it would probably not be an aid to digestion. Also I hadn't yet decided what to say, apart from a few salient points:

1. Your situation makes me uncomfortable

2. Your feelings for me make me uncomfortable

3. If there is nothing we can do about that, could we take a step back, please?

(At heart, I believe all emotional content should be delivered in bullet-point form. So much less messy; so much less scope for misunderstanding. But I recognise that is not how other people work. More's the pity.)

The Norwegian ordered. He paid - unusual, we typically split 50/50. We talked about Heroes, recent films, and which superhero we would be (him: Spiderman, because he has girl problems; me: Batman, because he isn't a real superhero, just a man). He ate quickly, sloppily, and apologised profusely. He talked about his girlfriend, about her new job, about interest rates. Superficial things. Easy things.

And then...

'I have to ask you something,' he said in a detached tone.

'What is that?' I said, smiling, wondering what it could be.

'Do you... have you done something to your eye? It's all red.'

'Oh! That,' I said, wiping the corner with the edge of my sleeve. 'I'm a little run down is all. A bit of a cold, nothing serious.'

He nodded. Then he disappeared to the toilet for a quarter of an hour.

I sat at the table, sipped my drink, and looked at the other tables in the restaurant. Was that an established couple or an early date? Were those people family or co-workers? Was the insanely joyous greeter at the door on drugs, or was I simply imagining she must be in order to muster so much wide-eyed enthusiasm for talking to hungry members of the public at a midweek lunchtime?

He came back to the table. Said he had to be off. Hoped we would meet again before Christmas, or maybe new Year, or sometime in January. A half-wave.

I wonder what he knows.

There is this man - the Norwegian.

I met the Norwegian in late spring. We bonded over a shared love of backgammon. I know, I know - backgammon? Does no compute, right? File under 'Belle likes Ivor Cutler and real ale and the Simpsons' and let us move on, shall we?

Anyway. The Norwegian and I meet regularly for mutual appreciation of beer, board games, and Simpsons (as far as I know he is unaware of the specific charms of Mr Cutler). Every time we part my face hurts from smiling and laughing. He is tall and kind and has nice hands and impeccable taste in watches. He is the sort of chap I typically find attractive, a sort of which A2 is the most notable example.

We call these meetings Dancing in the Donut Rain. This appeals on several levels, being a keen dancer often found at the recreational classes at... um, a studio near me. If you don't get the Donut Rain reference, watch more Simpsons. It represents an alternate present. For an hour or two I bask in friendly companionship and the knowledge that whatever this is, it isn't going anywhere. Because he has a partner of ten years and I have a line I will not cross regardless of my own relationship status.

I know. The whore has standards after all.

There are several reasons why the line holds firm: the Norwegian idealises me too much. His distaste for even the most peripheral mention of T is no secret. He is, by his own admission, in love with me - or at least the me he knows, the me whose fierce deployment of the doubling cube, habit of arranging beer mats parallel to the table edge, and opinion on all things Bill Murray are defining characteristics - the pre-Belle me.

Post-Belle me sees his behaviour and recognises three things:

1. Regardless of whether I was single, being with him would hurt his girlfriend, a woman I've never met,

2. Being with me would hurt him whether he stayed with or left her, and

3. Even if 1 and 2 were manageable, he is not a man who could handle my past.

This is where an affair diverges strongly from sex work. This is how I could have clients who were married and never care, but a friend with a significant other is off-limits. He cares more than I think he should and it is worrying. Lately he has been starting arguments with his woman, and last month even moved out. Maybe that was coming anyway. Maybe not. What my existence does to his relationship is very much my business. Because any involvement wouldn't be about just sex, because something I do could hurt someone I don't even know.

His interest, in other words, is very flattering but simply not sufficient reason to play. Oh, the irony - sex work made me more selective about which men I pursue and why rather than less so. A bit more ethical. More of a grownup, perhaps.

Tomorrow, I think, will be our last dance in the Donut Rain. It is not an ultimatum, it is not a threat, it is simply the way it has to be. I will miss him but know it is the right thing to do.

I'm happy and I'll punch the man who says I'm not.

In the last few days I have had:

• 1 job offer
  
• 2 job interview invitations
  
• 3 visits from concerned neighbours (no, I don't know either)
  
• 4 plants delivered to the house (a tea rose bush, a poinsettia and two hyacinths)
  
• an offer of impregnation (courtesy of a friend's husband), an indecent amount of alcohol (ibid.), a sore throat (courtesy child of said couple), a long talk with someone I expected never to see again (of which more another time), and my body volume in roast dinners (ta A4)
  
• an unexpected change of heart...