”The last time I suggested someone try online dating, she replied: ”I’m not that desperate, you know.” Mere seconds before, she had been asking that terribly hard question: ‘Where on Earth can I meet a nice man?’ Her distaste at my suggestion surprised me,” writes Goda Ellis.

”Remember that guy, the one who was married!” one cried. ”My mother ran into the love of her life at a conference and nearly left my father,” another friend added quietly. ”I left my bag in his boot,” someone confessed. And the winner: ”I shagged him in the conference room.”

Pre-summer fever in the gym change rooms: 7.30pm, Thursday. I step up on to the scale. I close my eyes. I open them. I turn pale. In a panic, I cover the digital display on the scale. Did anyone see? I’ve gained 4kg since last summer. That’s eight blocks of butter, smeared all over my body. I feel like I’m about to fall off a cliff.

‘What are you wearing?” It’s one thing if you send this SMS to a girlfriend before a party. Quite another if you accidentally send it to the wrong number. Your boss’s, for example. And what if he replied? SMS is dangerous stuff.