Alexa had reluctantly reconciled herself to the fact that Ben – who had seemed so promising – wasn’t going to be a goer, after all. It was a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Tinder – which had, of course, changed the rules of the dating game immeasurably and irreconcilably for their fickle, overstimulated generation. Anyway, after the two of them had matched on Hinge, on a wet Wednesday a few weeks ago, there had been an exchange of hundreds of messages over the course of the next few days, not to mention a first date that had hit all the right clichés: easy conversation; laughter; lingering eyes; knees pressed close under the table; a long, tantalizing kiss outside the pub. There had been three further charming dates (pub, Basquiat exhibition, theatre – she could recall the contours of each one perfectly).

She’d had high hopes for their last date, even though it was to the theatre – his suggestion, which Alexa had fretted about because you couldn’t talk much at the theatre. But afterwards, when she’d suggested a drink, he had brushed her off and ended the evening quite abruptly, saying that he needed to get his train. So she didn’t get the chance to invite him back to hers – and she’d hoped that might be the night, because it was a Friday and she’d shaved her legs that morning. He didn’t text until the morning, and even then it was a rather disinterested message (she’d asked Ellen to read it, and she had agreed sympathetically with Alexa’s assessment).

And ever since, he had continued to cool. He took a little longer to reply to her texts, and when he did so, he was less inquisitive, less interested in her. His messages were more perfunctory, less sparkling, not crafted to make her laugh. Crucially, they no longer called for a response, so when she did reply, it made her feel rather foolish.

And so that was almost certainly that, she’d thought. They’d last messaged on Wednesday: she’d sent him a link to an article about a Netflix documentary they’d talked about on their last date – unsubtle, she conceded – and he’d replied a little later, picking the funniest, most obvious line from the article, plus a fire emoji. Alexa couldn’t be bothered to reply. She shouldn’t have sent the link in the first place. She had spent too much time wondering about Ben: replaying the date in her mind, worrying at it, searching for missed clues. She was talking to someone else now, a guy called Malachi – who did, regrettably, use the crying laughing emoji, but who would do for now.