Your trash is another's treasure

Ever been hounded by someone who loves you, showers you with presents, poems and trips, but whom you can't bring yourself to fancy?

Well, now there's another alternative to emigrating: you can deposit them at a Left Luggage party. Or as 10 Tokyo Joe's put it, in an e-mail invitation to 12,000 people last week: "Each person has to bring a date who is obviously interested in them but they just don't fancy. So bring that date you don't want any more, dump that girlfriend or boyfriend and pick up someone else's luggage." The party is to be a monthly fixture.

A bit cruel, you're thinking? Well, I assuaged my conscience by remembering that everyone - Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Moss, even Madonna - has been dumped at some point or other. And isn't it nice to give a depressed dumpee a better option than noose, gas or gun? Now, they can drown their sorrows in the arms of someone new.

I thought hard about who should accompany me. I did wonder which reject would agree to come. The secret, I soon realised, was to invite someone who's got over you long ago, and doesn't care. Or - the nastier and more cowardly option - "forget" to tell your left luggage the true nature of the party, and leave them to work it out for himself. I chose the first option, obviously. But many had not.

In fact, some people in the club were not following the rules at all. There were groups of single men and single women, hoping to pick up someone else's rebounds and catch them while they were vulnerable. "One woman's trash is another woman's treasure," one told me. But, cheats aside, all around me were dumpees and dumpers, hissing and spitting at their former lovers.

For quite a few, the party was the first they knew that their relationship was over. As we came into the club, one guy was storming out. "I can't believe you brought me here to this," he was yelling at the woman he clearly thought was still his girlfriend.

Things were no less straightforward elsewhere. Meeting Julia Harrison, 27, and Richard Brennan, 30, I found it difficult to detect dumper from dumpee. Each kept claiming to have done the honours. "We met because I'm her personal trainer," he told me. "I started training her in July and it didn't progress. We ran the London Marathon together, but she wasn't available so I was dead professional, even though she was number one on the Top Totty chart at the club, and she's the spitting image of my mother."

"I took it to mean he didn't like me - and I got cross," she interrupted. "We broke up and made up, and broke up and made up. I heard that he'd been with everybody at the club. So I just dumped him." She interrupted indignant denials from Richard. "Did you know you were dumping me before we came here?" she asked him indignantly, "Speak the truth!"

Claire Williams, 24, appeared to be with two rejects, her advertising colleagues Dave Jones, 23 and Sean Kerrigan, 24. "We're all friends now," she explained hastily. "Dave and I got together over too many drinks at the Zac Bar in July. It was very casual. I got the e-mail invitation for tonight, and didn't tell him the story, but it's cool. We all thought, 'Great idea, a bar full of single people'." Sean was rather more indignant. "She's double ditching!" he hissed.

For administration officer Davinah Lutchniah, 21, and 25-year-old project manager Rishi Ranijotton, it was all very amicable. Though he claimed he dumped her, it seemed obvious it was actually the other way round. "We started going out in 1998," he said. "She chatted me up at a wedding, and we'd had a lot to drink. I guess it was me that broke up with her ..." she rolled her eyes at this point "... I got the e-mail invite and told her about it today in the car coming here. If we spotted someone else we fancied though, we wouldn't do anything, we'd show some respect. I don't want to get my head kicked in."

Violence is always going to be a worry at such an emotionally charged event. Edwin Lue-shing, the club's 30-year-old DJ, said: "I don't agree with the whole idea. Why bring the devil with you? You've got your ex here, they have your dirty laundry." And, as I left, Tam Thompson told me about the next Left Luggage party. "Instead of a Valentine's Ball," he said, "it's going to be a Valentine's Brawl."