Let me just start off by saying: I haven't been on an actual date in almost half a year.

In fact, I haven't even come remotely close to swiping on anyone at all; from Tinder and Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB) to Bumble, I had deleted all supposed cupid indicators from my phone and decided that the online dating scene just wasn't for me. Some called me fussy (they weren't entirely wrong), whilst others attributed it to a bout of dating app fatigue. But after getting on and off the apps for a good three years now, I didn't really see a point curating my profile over and over again as if I were a piece of meat readying myself to be sold off at the butcher's. And day by day, I found it increasingly meaningless to find someone I could potentially connect with from just their photos alone, or worse still, their one-liner comments that sat somewhere along the lines of 'I like dogs and travelling'. Yeesh.