I Support Women’s Rights. So Why Do I Still Need a Man to Fancy Me?

I could tell you exactly how many men looked at me on a night out with the girls. Not because I have Spidey senses or I’m particularly observant, but because I was conducting a real-time self-performance review. Every time a man glanced in my direction, I was ready to forgive every minor inconvenience life had ever thrown at me.

It’s deeply embarrassing.

Dating apps have only amplified the problem by turning validation into a metric: every like, every comment, every match is another insatiable dopamine hit. It’s only when I stop to actually check my likes that I realise Bartholomew, the grave robber, probably isn’t my type.