There's one question that, as a single girl, you get asked almost repeatedly.
No matter who you talk to, no matter their relationship to you; close or not, good friend, or someone you've just met, aged 27 or 62:
"So, any men on the scene?"
The answer, of course, is always the same. My eyebrows raise slightly, my mouth purses together, the shoulders hunch up and shrug a bit while my head shakes.
"Nooo, no...." I say, staring at my plate before quipping "...not for a while. Off men! Yeah. No. No, no. Well, it would be nice, but well - you know! Where do they hide! Har har. Ahhh. Sooo..."
And while I don't think I'd like the answer to be "Yes, I have a boyfriend and we are planning babies" just yet, I would quite like it to be "Well - got a few options but, you know - nothing serious".
Because immediately after I've answered that question, I'm overcome by the feeling that I'm not quite making the most of this single malarkey; that I'll look back and regret not being more carefree and saying "yeah, why not" more often, and only have myself to blame.
After all, everyone else seems to manage it. At a time when it seems like all my friends are going on one-off dates, re-kindling old flames, bringing boys back to their houses and kissing their co-workers, it's all I can do to sit there and wonder out loud where they find the cast of these inappropriate, exciting stories, while I have none whatsoever to tell.
It can make you feel a bit silly, a bit like there's something wrong with you. It can make you wonder if, in your darkest hours after the break-up, you drunk dialled T-Mobile customer services and demanded they block every male in your phone book from ever contacting you again, so frequent is the tumbleweed blowing through your text message inbox.
And then sometimes, you remember that the other week you walked out of the doctors surgery and a bloke followed you, asked you for the time, whether you had a boyfriend, and then whether you'd like to go for a drink. You remember that you politely declined, standing, as you were, in the rain outside the doctors clutching your futile prescription for the pill and wondering when people started picking up girls in waiting rooms. You remember that you took his number anyway purely at his insistence, "in case you change your mind".
You remember, of course, that you didn't.
And so, you stay single, dateless and the question is repeated the next weekend: so, are there any men on the scene?
No, you sigh, there are still no men on the scene after year and four months of singledom, but for now, at least, the thought is there.