I’m not going to lie. My relationship with you has been the longest constructive relationship with a man there’s ever been in my adult life. I mean, my dad’s fine, but he’s – he’s over there, you know? On the right wing, with the money to send his daughters to boarding school. So when we do spend time together, as adults, it’s nothing meaningful. Matching eyes mean don’t mean a lot.

I’ve never married, and I don’t intend to. I don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend, and I never have, for long. (I’m only telling you this because I choose to. To give you credit, you haven’t asked, which is just as well, because no one has any right to.) I get bored, especially with people who can’t keep up with a decent debate. I need intellectual stimulation. I haven’t found enough of it in one person to make it worth making space in the wardrobe for them. And why should I? I’m happy. I don’t buy the ‘one is lonely’ narrative. One is enough. Enough for me, anyway.

So you, John, are my long-term meaningful man. I think you’ve listened and I hope you’ve learned. Talking to you has been interesting. It’s helped me to think about the world we live in, me and you, and how it’s the same world, although we experience it oh, so differently.

But all good things must come to an end. Times change and things move on. It’s time for us to part.

I bet you’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself right now, John. I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, I really can read your mind. You’re thinking – well, we must have done it. They must be equal, the women. It must be sorted. Because there’s no way Leonie Barratt would give up before she’s got what she wants. If she isn’t writing to me anymore, it’s because I know everything there is to know about women and equality.

And you’ve helped, haven’t you?

You’ve read this column, right to the end, most of the time.

You’ve defended your wife’s right to go back to work to your parents and hers, when they pulled faces about it.

You can go to the supermarket with the best of them, and there was that time you tried to sew a button on.

We’ve won. We can share a victory lap, hand in hand, you and I, completely equally.

I see you, John, pointing at all the women in power. Thatcher, ruling over her nest of fawning, subservient men. Billie Jean King, who came out and the sky hasn’t fallen in. We’ve even got a black woman newsreader.