Sitting in a posh restaurant with food smeared across my cheeks and hair and my torso doused with wine, you'd expect my appearance to have prompted double-takes from my fellow diners. But it didn't.

Why? Because they couldn't see me. And I couldn't see them. Inside the restaurant it was pitch black.

I took part in the very first Dinner In The Dark event to be staged outside London five years ago. The concept started in America and was billed as "the ultimate blind date".

Dozens of single men and women were invited to The Glass Boat restaurant on Bristol's Welsh Back to eat a meal in total darkness and get to know each other without looks being a factor.

TV channel Living is currently promoting its new series Dating In The Dark, a reality TV show centred around the same concept.

Ever since I'd been invited to Dinner In The Dark I'd been dreading it. What if someone tries to manhandle me in the dark? What if someone steals my wallet? What if I get stuck next to a real bore?

The waiters, the organisers said, would be wearing night-vision goggles, all handbags would be checked in beforehand and kept safe and if I didn't like who I was sitting next to I could wordlessly raise both arms and a waiter would silently move me.

Feeling slightly reassured, I arrived at the restaurant and a waiter led me into a room which rang with laughter from all directions but was pitch black dark. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face.

I took tiny steps, convinced I was going to slip on something I couldn't see. The waiter guided me to my chair and put one hand on my wine glass and the other on my plate.

Being in total darkness was incredibly disorientating. The disembodied voices around me introduced themselves and asked my name. I instinctively put my hand out to shake before realising no one could see it, so when I felt another outstretched hand it made me jump.

The waiters brought us course after course of finger-food, refusing to tell us what it was to heighten our other senses.

I picked up something slimy and ate it, but some of it stuck to my finger, and when I tried to lick it off I felt a cold, wet stripe of unidentified food across each cheek.

I tried to brush my hair away from my face, but because I couldn't see, I used the hand with food all over it, so now I could feel blobs of food stuck in my hair.

Then I felt a wet splosh across my chest. In the darkness, the waiter who'd tripped and spilled it apologised. It smelled like wine – I just prayed it was white, not red.

Everyone on my table was chatting nervously, but the guy sitting next to me reeked of cheap aftershave, and from his increasing voice-volume and stink-pungency he was getting closer, so I silently raised both arms and a waiter moved me without a sound, oblivious to Mr Hai Karate.

I introduced myself to my new table of invisible diners and the chat flowed. During the dessert course, some lights were turned on so we could see who we'd been chatting to.

Seemingly, the event had attracted busy women who had no time to meet a partner and men who'd failed to get dates with lights on and thought it was worth a try with them off.

I saw a few couples swap numbers, but many female diners scarpered to "the loo" once they saw who they'd been chatting to in the dark, never to return. So is love blind? No. And it also has an acute sense of smell.