She is thirty-three years old. She understands that this man has taken up a space in her life, space that could have been filled by a proper partner. She has not had a proper partner since she left Lucy, in a forest in Oregon, almost ten years ago. But then, in the intervening years, she has come to suspect that Lucy was never really hers.

She is seized by a sense of desperation. She will try Guardian Soulmates. It is the only sensible option. She chooses a photograph of herself from Hannah’s hen do in Greece. It is taken from a distance and she is sitting on a wall and she doesn’t look too fat. The drop-down option gives her pause:

Women seeking Men.

Men seeking Women.

Women seeking Women.

Men seeking Men.

For simplicity’s sake she chooses number one. She calls herself LitChick, talks about her love of books, of politics, of Modernist writers, of the history of the East End.

She goes on a date with a guy who is in a band. He is skinny and short and Scottish and wearing black jeans. He has no bottom. His eyes scope the room behind her while he speaks. After one beer he gets a text and stands up. Gotta go, he says, and leans over to kiss her on the cheek.

She travels to Covent Garden, to a huge outdoor pub in the plaza that is full of tourists. She meets a man in a suit who looks shifty and depressed. He is recently divorced, he tells her. His wife wants custody of the kids. When she is with him she feels as though she can’t breathe. She excuses herself to go to the toilet and walks quickly out of the pub towards the tube.

She carries on, more dates, more men, aware that this is not good for her—that it hurts her—but like gambling, like an addiction, she is compelled to carry on.

In despair, one afternoon, she goes downstairs to Lissa’s flat.

She is nervous as she knocks. I wouldn’t have come, she wants to say, unless I was desperate. I know you don’t want to see me. I know you’re still angry.

But Lissa, when she opens her door, is pleasant enough.

She shows Lissa her profile. “Jesus,” says Lissa. “Do yourself a favor.” With Lissa’s help she chooses another picture—one closer up, of her laughing.

“And boobs,” says Lissa.

“Really?”

“Definitely a bit of boob.”

They craft a different profile, one that sounds less serious. “You want to sound as though you’re OK without a partner,” says Lissa. “Nothing scares men off like being needy.”

She wonders when and where Lissa learned these rules.