Steve and his best friend, Jeff, head for the wine bar where Steve has decided he is going to dump his longstanding girlfriend once and for all. Meanwhile Susan and her best friend, Sally, are heading towards the same destination with equal determination. Is this the evening when 'he' is going to propose? But all is not as it seems.

The boys are sitting in the bar looking at a beautiful girl with the casual lust of no-hopers. When she glances at Jeff, the others encourage him to go and talk to her. A man on his way to an execution, Jeff plods off in the direction of the bar. Before long he's babbling away — but she seems to understand nothing. The girl is from Israel — she hasn't understood a word. The next day the girls watch the same beautiful girl in the bar. Suddenly...

Jeff is about to have a job interview — and he's pretty nervous. Jane appears on Steve's doorstep and is clearly very, very upset. Her aunt has just died and she wants Steve to go to the funeral with her. Meanwhile, Susan is busy inviting Patrick to the funeral while he is inviting Sally, who has a pathological fear of growing old, to be his decoy date. Before long, all six of them are heading up a suburban street dressed in funereal black...

Steve seems incapable of making any decisions, and Susan is beginning to despair. When her new French client starts picking holes in her work over the phone, she tears her off a strip - in fluent French. Richard, a pleasant looking guy of the same age, grins oafishly at her - he really likes French women. "But I bet you've got a boyfriend", he says. Susan hesitates. "Oui" she replies. A guilty Steve finds himself exchanging phone numbers with an attractive...

On his morning train, Jeff has glimpsed paradise sitting several rows in front; she's shapely, long, and usually wears a red shoe. Susan is amazed that Sally has been seeing someone for two whole weeks. Two new relationships, two lies, one bar...

Steve is in the bar with Jeff and Patrick, cringing at the memory of watching tv with Susan the previous evening - a documentary which mentions that men in stable relationships frequently continue to masturbate. Jane and Sally are intrigued to know whether Steve still goes solo. To add to Steve's misery, Susan has invited her parents for dinner - her parents who are in the habit of talking about sex as if it were a completely normal thing. Meanwhile,...

Steve has lost his apartment keys and goes to Susan's to find them. But instead he finds Sally stepping out of the shower... How can he ever tell Susan that he's seen her best friend's bottom? "You have seen into the heart of the forbidden lands," Jeff tells him, "You must never speak of what you saw!" Steve must also steer clear of Captain Subtext, who will collude with the Prickles, the Blurts and the Head Laugh to tell Susan everything. All this...

Jane's boyfriend doesn't have sex. Steve doesn't have eyes in his bottom. A quiet night in with Julia leads Jeff to a Nudity Hoovering problem. Steve is troubled by a freckle on his bottom and reaches for the Book of Death (The Medical Health Encyclopedia). Sally and Patrick have become new partner-hating best friends and possibly mole-buddies. And if all that wasn't enough, it's time for them all to meet James, Jane's religious broadcaster boyfriend...

Three eggs, three women, three possibilities. Now Sally's blurted out how she feels to Patrick and has convinced herself it's not meant to be. More importantly, she really, really doesn't want to produce a bald, noisy thing that will destroy her life - and decides to use Jane and Susan as a pregnancy control test, which leads to some unexpected revelations.

Jeff, a beautiful woman, and an offer he cannot accept. A very nervous Jeff has arranged to have a friendly drink with gorgeous Wilma who comes clean – she likes him like mad and she wants to 'borrow' him from his girlfriend. After a spectacularly awkward, drink-sipping silence, Wilma offers him unconditional sex and Jeff is a man without the emotional software to say no. Steve inadvertently compares his own relationship to the Cold War and Sally...