If what I’m hearing on social media is true, this season is “Hot Girl Summer” which is all well and good and empowering (woo!) but also of very little use to me as no-one is making use of this hot girl right here. I won’t lie to you, despite wading through an inbox full of endless marriage proposals from men who haven’t even read my bio to see where I’m based, my current romantic encounters are few and far between. It’s funny because a few years ago, my love life was unrivalled. Men were my hobby – I’d spend days at a time hunting them out, be it in real life or via dating apps, and because I’ve never had a “proper” job with proper working hours, I had more time than most to devote to my hobby. I only wish I’d put the same determination as I’ve put into finding men as I have following a career path or trying to buy a house as I would have been incredibly successful by now.

At my peak, I was collecting on average at least 10 numbers a day from dating sites and those figures were boosted exponentially on weekends, where I’d be collecting pins – of the Blackberry variety – like a cash machine. I am a very polite woman; I will answer every text I get or every catcall from across the road and so believe me when I say it was a full time occupation juggling all of these men and making time for as many of them as possible. When I was attempting to go cold turkey from the opposite sex and was clearing out my phone book, I found myself deleting over 100 names alone that were prefixed with the acronym “POF”. That’s not even counting the ones who got promoted to being saved as their name– or at least the name they gave me – in my contacts.