LIZ JONES: I never flirt with married men: it’s a rule, like exfoliating

It was just so nice to dress up for the wedding at Hever Castle. Pile on the make-up (I’d been growing my eyelashes for a few weeks prior: M2 Beauté, I salute you. It’s like nurturing a mini allotment). Tong my freshly inked hair. Secure a headpiece and pull on a £4,000 (borrowed!) gown. I always apply fake tan when in a hotel, so their sheets and loo are dyed, not mine. My toenails matched my dress. It was never going to get any better than this.

I shared a taxi from the hotel with four fellow guests; I was like their new child. I’m so used to travelling for decades with an assistant or a PR to steer me, I feel safer following, like an imprinted duckling (I am very OCD; I check I have my wallet and passport every few seconds). 

As we walked through the grounds of Hever Castle (the guests, from Holland, had never heard of Anne Boleyn – or me, thank god), tourists with prams exclaimed at my outfit, pointing. (I’m not over- sure it was in a good way, as I’m so out of practice in heels and on ancient flagstones I resemble Dick Emery rather than Dua Lipa.) I took a selfie in front of the lake and sent it to all my girlfriends who were virtually accompanying me excitedly at the other end of WhatsApp. ‘I would marry you in that dress!’ exclaimed Andrea. 

When the bride walked across the lawn to the pergola, followed by a train of bridesmaids, several daughters deep, I was in tears. She looked so happy, not at all nervous; my high anxiety has ruined every moment of my life, sapped every pleasure. 

The handsome couple (my friend is in her 50s but looks 35) read each other their vows and I was sobbing. I’m so deaf I missed every moment of my own wedding, even when asked, ‘Do you take…?’ A string quartet was playing, which I could hear, given my new aids; the expensive sitar player I had hired for my own nuptials had been silent to me.

We trooped to the wedding breakfast, me on the arm of my new mum. The handsome Dutchman I had spied at the ceremony, who was without a partner, was placed at my table (I swear I didn’t swap place cards), so I sent a surreptitious photo of him to my girlfriends. Just my type: hair snaking over his collar, a cream suit with narrow hipster trousers and brown shoes. No ring. As soon as my neighbour went to the loo, I slid into the seat next to him (why waste the Brazilian?), exposing my Turkey teeth. He had a scruffy dog as his screen saver, which I said was sweet. I immediately whipped out photos of my animals. He asked what I do (at least he didn’t say, ‘Do you still work?’). I told him vaguely that I write about fashion.

‘Yah!’ he exclaimed. Upon hearing an accent, my stomach churns: not just that it’s sexy, but there’s a faint hope he can’t read English, knows nothing of our tabloid press. ‘Yah! My wife has a fashion shop!’

I imagine I looked as if I had swallowed a wasp; I never flirt with married men: it’s a rule, like exfoliating. The bride came over to say hello, showing off her happiness and her wedding band. I gasped at the size of the engagement rock. My husband bought me diamond studs so small they fell into the pierced holes, became infected and had to be removed at UCH A&E. Private Eye later wrote the only reason I got divorced was because my husband bought me diamonds the size of a pin head. Which is only partly true.

As we all stood by the lake watching the fireworks, the happy couple with arms slung around each other, I realised it’s not me that’s unlovable, it’s the men I allowed to orbit my brilliant sun. Back at the hotel, the bar was packed with sweaty blokes watching England beat Panama. The old me would have slunk to my room; the new me got a glass of wine and sat among them, crazily overdressed, transfixed. At 96 minutes, I stood to leave, all near 5ft 10in of me, and a young man asked if I wanted a drink. ‘They called last orders,’ I said, and he made a Charlie Brown wiggly mouth.

As I pulled off the dress, kicked off my painful shoes, my only lesson was that I need to get out more. Stop hiding. Stop mistrusting. Start living.

JONES MOANS… WHAT LIZ LOATHES THIS WEEK 

• At Lingfield Park Marriott they were holding a horse-race meeting in 30C heat.
• No water in my hotel room, just a ‘hydration station’ miles along a corridor. How do they come up with this rubbish? £500 for two nights, room only.
• Mini’s ashes are being held hostage by my vet until I settle my £900 bill… It’s the first time she’s been left, all alone, in the dark.