‘Intimacy isn’t champagne and candles and foot rubs. It can be part of it – but it’s not all of it.’ He continued. ‘Modern life – all the “having to be at places at certain times, the bills, the responsibilities”, we’re over-burdened. We complicate things and make ourselves busy, and we think that gives life meaning.’

I thought about all the times I worked late, or Alexander worked late, or the weekends we sat in the same room but on our laptops, eventually ordering a takeaway and leaving the dishes for the cleaner.

‘On top of all that,’ he continued, ‘we all live apart from our families, often apart from our oldest friends, too, and we put all this responsibility on our relationship to fulfil what we need financially, emotionally, not to mention the sex. We ask a lot of our romantic partners, and I wonder at what cost.’

A waiter appeared at our table, order pad in hand and drinks tray under her arm. We’d been in the pub so long that they’d switched from afternoon bar bites and empty tables to full-blown restaurant-style menus and table service. I was glad he hadn’t said he had somewhere to be. He hadn’t even looked at his watch.

‘Two more?’ the waiter asked, pointing a pen at our table. Patrick looked at me. I looked at the waiter. The waiter looked between us as if to say, I can’t decide for you, can I?

‘Go on then,’ I capitulated, passing over the empties. ‘Shall we eat, too?’

Patrick nodded.

‘Do you have pizza?’ I asked the waiter. ‘Or burgers?’

‘Both,’ she replied.

‘Pizza,’ Patrick said. ‘Good old-fashioned margherita pizza?’

‘Biggest you’ve got,’ I agreed. ‘And can you bring a bucket of mayonnaise out with it? Thank you.’

Patrick looked at me and uttered, ‘Mayonnaise?’ as if he was disgusted by the very thought of it.

‘I’m not defending my condiment choice to you,’ I stated. ‘And, please, continue with what you were saying … I’m interested in where this is going, because it still sounds to me like you’re one big player.’

‘Where was I?’ he mused.

‘We expect too much of each other,’ I supplied, feeling guilty all over again about how much that resonated.

‘Oh, we do,’ he warned. ‘But we’re all having bloody iAffairs, too. There’s three people in every relationship! You, them, and bloody technology. We’re glued to our phones and wonder why our partner doesn’t feel glued to us.’

‘You didn’t even put your phone on the table,’ I said. ‘Do you even have one with you?’

Patrick patted his coat on the bench beside him. ‘In there somewhere,’ he said. ‘You deserve my full attention, after all.’

He really was a charmer, but I let him get away with it because he was also totally charming.