Now I’m dating again, I’m skipping all that blather about books and films | Megan Nolan

After so long in lockdown, I'd rather sniff my dates than talk about our rich inner lives

God help me, I'm dating again. I thought about this with reverent anticipation for so long and now it's here. Of course, I have forgotten how to speak, and what an attractive woman is supposed to wear, and how many messages a day it is legal to send to someone you fancy.

There are, unsurprisingly, several differences between dating now and dating before I spent months on end living alone, becoming eccentric and fundamentally intolerant of other people. One of them is that I have lost all interest in the traditional dating foreplay of trading cultural interests with the object of my desire.