Some months earlier

Always take advice on your sex life from a 16-year-old.

When I decided to re-enter the world of dating after a long dry spell, Darla was the one egging me on and astonishing me with how much she knew about how to behave in the online dating world.

All the more surprising given that she attended a single sex, expensive private school.

Me paying heed to her advice was the indirect result of my half-sister's interference. Towards the end of the year, Josie had invited me to dinner one evening. I arrived, expecting a cosy supper in the kitchen, only to realise her motives were less than pure—the set-up obvious the minute she ushered me into the living room where two other couples waited. A man to the side of them nursing a whisky in a crystal glass, whose eyes gleamed as he took me in.

He was ghastly. A type I recognised all too well. Josie introduced him as a colleague. Recently divorced. After the third bout of mansplaining, the bit where he described how the FTSE 100 worked, I said I needed to help Josie clear the table and fled upstairs as soon as I'd dumped the plates in her kitchen.

I rattled my knuckles on the bedroom door on the first right, the old-fashioned china name plate 'Darla' in Gothic script hanging there. "Darla, let me in!"

The door swung open. "Sophs! Favourite auntie!"

Only auntie. The bar wasn't that high. I snuck in and shut the door. "Oh God, that was dreadful."

"What, the lawyer dude?" she said, grinning at me and patting the space beside her on the bed. I sank into it gratefully. We lay back, looking at the glitter stars on her ceiling as they twinkled, a leftover from her childhood. In the background, the sublime-voiced Joy Crookes begged someone not to let her down.

"So, Mum's idea to hook you up with a lawyer didn't work, then?"

"No! If we ended up on a night out, I'd be bored to tears in seconds. Forced to exit out of the toilet window to escape."

"She'll only dig up other guys," Darla said. "All dweebs. She said to Dad you've been on your own too long and it's not good for a person to rattle around in a house that size all by themselves. Hence, Mission Fix Sophie Up."

Josie and Alastair must not have realised their daughter was now old enough to listen in to what were supposed to be private conversations. The world's most precocious teenager. Born just as I reached a turning point in my life, my niece took up a special place in my heart. At the time, she represented something new, a metaphor for the direction my life would take from then on.

"Who says I want to be with anyone?"

She gave me one of those under the eyebrow stares. "Your birthday, remember?"

Ah. Oops. Josie's birthday present to me did not end well. When I ended up at her house post the disastrous cook school lesson she'd splashed out on, I drank too much champagne and burst into tears. Ranted about how few truly decent blokes there were in the world and the impossibility of meeting anyone.

Last steady boyfriend? Eons ago.

"Be proactive," Darla said. "Find men to go out with yourself."

I sat up, propping a pillow behind me, and wrapped my arms around my knees.

"Proactive? What do you mean?"

"Sign up to dating apps," Darla said, rolling herself up too. She held up a hand up when I shuddered and shook my head, aghast at the thought of putting myself out there.

"Not Tinder or Match. Bumble. It's, like, the feminist dating site because only women can make the first contact. That means you won't get all the dick pics."

"Unless you want them?" she squinted at me, smirk in place.

As I said—always ask a 16-year-old for advice on your love life. I dug my elbow in her side. But when Darla had said, 'find dates yourself', seeking out a partner, a friend, a soulmate presented itself as an exciting, thrilling opportunity.

Yes, yes, yes...

Josie's dinner parties always included plentiful wine—the quality stuff, too. I was two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon down. Any inhibitions I had left about the wisdom of letting my niece loose on a dating website dissolved in a puddle of 14.5 percent proof.

"Okay then," I said, "do your worst. Set me up on there. But give me the final say-so on what you write about me."

As she searched through my phone looking for the best (most flattering) picture, another objection struck me. "What about my surname, Darla? People might make the connection. It's too risky to put that out there."

She shrugged. "You don't put your second name on your profile, Aunt Sophs. Like, duh. And the new norm is not to reveal your surname until you are sure of your partner, anyway. Y'know, waaaaayyyyy down the line. In case he Googles you and finds you've got dodgy political opinions on your Twitter account. Best to wait until you know the guy before you reveal your ultra-right-wing views."

I thumped her. Politics had nothing to do with my reasons for anonymity, as she was well aware.

Photo selected, one she ran through filter software to make everything that little bit better, I slid back on the pillow and watched through half-closed eyes as she reached for her top-of-the range-iPad.

Fingers dancing on the keyboard, lightning fast, she created me a profile in minutes. She illustrated it with the picture, added a tagline that made me sound far too exciting, a biography that was half fantasy-half aspiration and an age that hadn't been true for some time.

"Darla, that's too much!"

But when she ignored me and pressed the click button, I didn't order her to take down my profile straightaway.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

"What happens now?"

"We look," she said, those fingers back to flying across the keyboard. Various options presented themselves. I said no to them all. But I gave in, eventually, and agreed to a guy a bit older than me who described himself as an outdoor enthusiast and theatre lover.

Various messages fired off and replied to, we agreed to a meet-up the following Thursday.

"Maybe he'll be the love of your life!" Darla exclaimed, clapping her hands.

"Don't be silly!"

But the Cabernet Sauvignon kicked in, foolish optimism bubbling up inside and dashing aside all the worries that had held me back from dating for the last eight years.

Thursday couldn't come soon enough... 

*****

The hillwalker turned out to be dull and bitter about his ex. All the lovely anticipation I'd built up (naively?) trickled away.

Five other disappointing first dates later, I told Darla the soaring expectation swiftly followed by crushing disappointment was too much to face. No more. The relief behind my words. No need to worry about crossing the 'explaining my past' bridge. And that was that for a while. Christmas came. New Year. I took myself off skiing. Life rumbled on.

But you can't keep a good cheerleader down. Darla appeared at my door one Saturday in February, hopping up and down in excitement.

"Found him! Your Mr So Right!"

I rolled my eyes and let her in. She followed me through to the kitchen where a solemn-voiced newsreader interviewed a virologist, the fixation on what was going on in China and Italy worrying—health experts lining up to say the world was now facing not an epidemic but a pandemic.

"Do you want lunch?"

"God, no. Not anything you've made. Where's your iPad?"

I handed it over, wondering if I ought to worry more that Darla knew my passcode. She pulled up a stool and scrolled through webpages.

"Him," she said, pushing the iPad into my hands. "TimTam. I've been checking the site on and off, trying to find the perfect guy for you. He's yummy!"

"Fingers crossed, that's not his given name," I said, but the pictures intrigued me.

Nothing so crass as a naked torso, but a man in a tight T-shirt, back-lit by the sun hanging low in the skies above what looked like Loch Lomond and grinning at the camera. He was dark haired, and freckle faced. Certain smiles can make a guy look smug or arrogant. TimTam's spoke of laughter, kindness and generosity.

"I found him on Instagram and followed him for a few weeks just to make sure. Y'know? See if he posted anything that flagged warning bells."

If MI6 doesn't sign my niece up the minute she leaves full-time education, they'll be missing a trick.

"And?"

"No red flags. Pictures of dogs and the odd selfie with his mates. He's Irish too," she added, pointing to the brief description he'd given himself. "Bonus points, right? A guy chatting to you with that scrummy accent."

"Have you ever noticed how many of your compliments are food related?" I remarked, squinting at the screen. "Yummy. Scrummy. What do you think that says about you?"

"That I think food is so crucial, it's the ultimate comparison tool?"

A key bit of information in his profile caught my eye, and I glanced up. "No way, Darla. Did you notice how young he is?"

She pulled a face and wagged a finger at me. "The man needing to be older than the woman is, like, lame. So last century. Nice guys don't care about that anymore. You don't look your age, anyway."

Thank you, Botox and fillers. The modern women's saviour—even if was something you only admitted to the doctor who injected you. I let everyone else marvel at my lack of wrinkles, thinking I'd lucked out in the genetic lottery.

But age was no longer relevant to nice guys? In my early 20s, I 'dated' men who were often 20 to 30 years older than me. Perhaps there was something in what Darla said. None of them fitted the 'nice guy' classification by a country mile.

"Too late anyway! I've sent him a message. Here!"

"Darla!" I wailed, but the protest was half-hearted. The man's picture and profile made my heart flutter. "All those emojis make me sound like a half-wit," I said when she held up the iPad, showing me what she'd done.

She shook her head again. "No, they don't. They help you appear younger. And current. Can you turn the radio off, Aunt Sophs? All that news is dead depressing."

She paused—eyes luminous and serious. "Do you think it's the end of the world? I haven't even left school. Or lost my bloody virginity."

I flapped a hand. "I should hope not. And no. Probably won't affect us here that much. Our healthcare system is better than Italy's, and I guess the government will ban travellers coming in from affected parts of the world."

Was it? Would they?

Darla nodded, fiddling with her handbag where she kept the ever-present asthma inhaler. I'd witnessed one or two attacks, and the memory of them made me shudder. A pervasive respiratory condition that was frighteningly contagious... Small wonder she shied away from listening to the news.

"Are you sure I can't make you anything to—"

The Bumble app on my phone beeped, and we both leapt a mile in the air.

"Let me see," Darla demanded, as I snatched the phone out of her grasp. Any conversations from now on would come from me, even if I might need help translating the acronyms and emojis.

"Hi there @Soph17, my real names Tom and its lovely to hear from you."

"Doesn't know where to put an apostrophe," I told Darla, who rolled her eyes. "Like, not important? Apostrophes slow you down. Maybe he does know but isn't using them. Me and my friends don't when we're messaging each other."

Reply fired off, his return came seconds later, Darla muttering the speed proved her theory about punctuation making replies too sluggish.

"Are u as gorgeous as your pic?" he asked, and I panicked. Real life me might prove a let-down. In my early 20s, I'd used the 'currency' of youth as a selling point in relationships. Did I want that to apply here and now? I shouldn't have let Darla use those filters. What if Tom's photo was misleading too, both of us destined for disappointment if we met?

I put the phone down. "If you don't want lunch, Darla, are there places you should be? Friends to meet, or rather to go to coffee shops with where you buy expensive hot chocolates, spend the entire time on your phones not talking to each other, and then leave?"

She picked up her bag and tossed her hair back, a lock of it whipping across my nose. "Okay, boomer."

I play thumped her for that. "Boomer's your gran, not me. I am nowhere near that old. And don't be cheeky or I won't tell you what happens with Tom."

She blew a raspberry—me asking if her mother, an experienced tax lawyer, was aware that Darla's expensive private school education had given her no debating skills whatsoever.

Protesting about how ungrateful I was after she had done all the hard work of finding me the perfect man, she let herself out of the house. I took my phone through to the living room and picked up where I'd left off.

"How nice of you to say so! Not sure it's a question I'm qualified to answer... What about you? Are those pictures real or am I not going to be able to recognise you if we meet up?"

The message he sent back was him holding up a newspaper, the date on it underlined. "Proof my pic is up to date? If we meet up?????? Awful forward of you. Me mammy warned me about pushy British girls😉"

'Awful forward of you'? Mate, you don't know the half of it... But his punctuation was much improved, and the gentle teasing amused me.

"Who wants to waste time," I replied, another Darla piece of advice. Meet them quickly, Aunt Sophs. You can only figure out if you've got chemistry when you're face to face with someone.

"... but promise me you're not a hillwalker/theatre-goer/fan of Oasis the early years only."

Disappointing date number three was a rabid Oasis fan who quoted their lyrics at me all the way through our evening.

"No, no. Oasis, who are they?!"

Ouch.

The messages flew back and forth. I glanced at my watch later and realised it was late afternoon. Where had the time gone? When the phone rang, his name flashing up on the screen, my heart pounded. I was almost at the stage where I might invite him around to the house this instant.

Someone that witty had to be amazing in bed, right?

The sound of his voice when I pushed the accept call button... The Irish accent would always be a clincher. Show me the man or woman who didn't melt to the floor in a puddle when someone drawled at you, Eire-style, 'Hello, is dat the Sophie I've been messagin' almost all of de afternoon', and I'd be astonished. How could you not?

When he spoke, there were nerves there too, ums and ah's, which doubled his appeal. Confident entitled men, sure of their place in the world, ceased to impress to me a long time ago. When Josie's dreadful lawyer colleague had suggested he run me home post the dinner party, his jaw dropped in astonishment when I knocked him back.

"What are you doing tonight, then?" Tom asked.

About to say, "Nothing at all! Hey, would you like to...", sense kicked in. Bumble was meant to promote more meaningful connections than Tinder with its reputation for instant hook-ups. He was still a stranger, a potentially dangerous entity. A few more phone calls before meeting up in person would give me the chance to get to know him better.

On the other hand, Tom—the voice, the pictures, the text and actual conversations we'd had—made my heart race.

"Off out with friends. And you?"

"Nothing so exciting. I'm about to lose meself in Minecraft for a few hours. That's why I phoned. To prove I can do human contact. It's up to you to save me from being that nerd guy."

That made me laugh. And the rest of the conversation, where he gently poked fun at himself and entertained me with stories of life as a postman in Glasgow's east end.

"What time are you heading out?" he asked. I'd almost forgotten my lie about the friends, happy to spend the evening chatting to Tom instead.

I feigned shock at the time. "I'm sorry. I better go. My taxi's due in ten minutes."

"Fair enough. And I've worlds to build and gangs to fight off. D'ye mind if I phone you again some time?"

"Not at all," I replied, hanging up with a smile on my face.

"Sexy hot AND a brilliant conversationalist!" Update fired off to Darla, I re-read the messages Tom and I had exchanged earlier.

Can't understand why you haven't been snapped up.

Ditto. What's that tattoo on your arm...?

A photo—him having stripped off his T-shirt to show me the dragon on his left arm, its head breathing fire over his pecs. What would it look like in the flesh? My groin tightened, a flush of excitement I hadn't experienced in a long time and I fast-forwarded to the bit where my hand pressed onto the dragon's head. Slid lower, fingers pulling at his waistband.

In bed later that evening, I turned the picture on my bedside table to face me. My mother and I, taken when I'd graduated all those years ago, her hugging me and both of us raising glasses of champagne to the camera.

Who'd held the camera? I couldn't remember but whoever had taken a fabulous picture, the lighting perfect as it picked out the foliage behind us and captured radiant smiles and carefree joy. When had I last felt that?

Her dark chestnut hair matched mine—identically styled. I'd never minded sharing that same haircut, a long, graduated bob and a heavy fringe. And now I was closer to her age in that picture, albeit a less wrinkled version thanks to injectable interventions.

Still, I could super-impose my face on hers in that photo and be hard-pressed to tell us apart.

I brushed my fingers down the glass, the habitual 'Sorry, Mum'. What would she make of Tom? The trouble with conversations in your head is that you often assign people magical powers. Beg them to make a wish come true.

Please, please let him be as wonderful in person as he is on the phone. Mum, can you make it happen? Don't I deserve this?

But the reply to that question boomed back at me.

YOU DESERVE NOTHING.

AUTHOR'S NOTE -  hope you are enjoying the story so far. Some of the dating apps experience relates to me... :) but my personal story had a happy ending in that I'm married to the man I met... <3