Oh, just remembered mate, here's the plan..
Turn up with a mate or get him to 'accidently' bump into you as soon as you've just met your date. Mate then starts talking to your date and says 'sorry, John didn't introduce you, he's very rude, what's your name'. she says 'Sarah'. Mate makes sure he's got it or asks for it again to confirm then says
'Nice to meet you Sarah, I'm just on my way to <wherever>, have a nice evening you two' then the mate disappears to the bog, goes elsewhere etc.
Always used to do this- had a mate (straight as well) who worked in lingerie dept. of a small department store in an Irish regional town (lucky git). He had many female customers (and men not knowing what, or what size to buy- err about this big) so what I've described above was our plan when we'd meet the aforementioned ladies out in the town. T'was an excellent plan as he'd do the approach work then I'd wade in as 'the friend' after I'd left him suffering for about a minute. Name fishing worked 100%.