I went to visit a friend who works on a glossy magazine the other day and her office seemed like another world.

The reception area had huge plasma screens playing MTV music and young waifs wearing stilletoes with pop socks wafted in for their modeling shoots. Some were so young that their ambitious mothers were accompanying them.

I shrunk further into my cheap nylon Hennes blouse. Office workers popped in and out of the loo in this season's haute couture. These people were wearing what I would consider my best going out outfit to the office.

A stunning girl flicking a thick mane of hair and chewing gum walked in with her mother and plopped herself down next to me.

Her mother, trying to find an ally among all the young, coltish bodies surrounding us, turned to me and began telling me about her daughter.

She spoke with an unconcealed pride and a smugness that she had given birth to such a beautiful creature who, she explained, was hot property at the tender age of 14.

"She's been scouted by so many agencies. Storm wanted her the other day, they all want to book her," she said with a pantomime eyebrow raising gesture of mock exasperation.

She then turned and, without any apparent malice, looked over at the skinny model next to me, who was filling her mouth with all five sticks of her juicy fruitgum to stave off starvation, and said: "Is she yours? She's very pretty."

How on earth had she mistaken me for someone who was old enough to have an anorexic teenage daughter? Tragically, as I ranted to a friend about this afterwards, he reminded me that as a 30-something it was entirely possible.

Glossy magazines may well leave women feeling pampered and glamourous but their receptions rooms do nothing for your confidence.

I met a man a couple of years ago at a party who I developed an instant crush on and had nurtured the hope that we would bump into each other again and become soul mates.

The idea had become a full blown future for me and, with the help of a mutual friend and hours of Internet research, I managed to keep tabs on him to know where he worked, lived and that he was a committed vegetarian.

I telepathically knew, or convinced myself, he must be doing the same and seriously considered giving up red meat. Or, at least, until my reality check when I dropped him into the conversation with the same mutual friend.

"Oh him? His baby boy has got to be at least three months old," she said.

The words came crashing down on years of self delusion. It felt like the panic of a genuine break-up when you think of all these wasted years... but no-one will ever love him like I did.