‘Perhaps you have seen someone you like in a cafe, bar or a shop; you may have passed each other on the street or caught their eye on a train. It is fate that you were in the same place at the same time. Don’t let that chance pass you by.’

No, this is not the strapline for the next Jennifer Aniston/Ben Affleck romcom. It’s from fatepod.com, the website offering ‘chance encounters’ with complete strangers. You no longer have to pluck up the courage to go and speak to your future love – the internet can do it for you.

The romantically minded can upload an ‘encounter’ on the site, in the hope that they ‘track down’ that special person they don’t actually know. Obiter, for example, has asked to meet that fine specimen found last Friday sitting behind a bench and wearing a wig.

Solicitor Louise Roper set up the site after meeting her husband, also a solicitor, a few years after leaving law school.

‘We fancied each other, but never connected,’ she says. ‘We hope the site will be useful to fellow lawyers who are too overworked to find love in the usual way.

‘So many eager glances are exchanged across a court waiting room, and now there is a cool way to do something about it.’