Unless you have the ego the size of a small country, there will come a point in your dating life, male or female, when you will question whether someone likes you or not. None of us wants to show our hand, no one wants to make the first move, lest we are rejected, none of us wants to admit liking someone for fear that it is not reciprocated, no one wants to get dumped, rather than do the dumping. So we are left in an eternal state of stalemate and an infinite game of sign reading, interpreting and more often misinterpreting that is worthy of a couple of chapters in The Da Vinci Code. It’s enough to drive smart, sane women to the insane asylum and grown men back to the safety of the barstool.

We may think we’ve come a long way from plucking petals off daisies while reciting ‘He loves me, he loves me not’ but if we are honest, haven’t we just replaced it with more advanced, high tech petals.
This includes counting the time he spends chatting you up, or later, the amount of texts or phone calls he makes to you or the amount of money he spends on you, or, in the extreme, reading through his texts in his absence to see if you merit a mention, what that mention is, or whether there are a hundred missed calls from the ex. Cher might have told us it’s in his kiss but it’s a lot more cryptic than that.

The danger is everyone will beg to differ on what the signs mean and, if you are truly paranoid, as you will no doubt be after years of dating and therefore sign reading, you can interpret a ‘So, I married an axe murderer’ scenario out of any gesture.

Cases in point. He doesn’t try to jump your bones on the first date. Does he respect you or does he just not find you that attractive? He does try to jump your bones. Does he just want to get laid and get out or is it that he just can’t help himself. He doesn’t pay for dinner. Is he a feminist or a stingy bastard? He does pay for dinner. Is he misogynist or does he think he has just secured a roll in the hay for later? He tries it on with your best friend in the back of the taxi while you pay the fare. Is he a friendly feminist or is he trying to tell you something? We might never know.

Of course, signs are only difficult to read when you like someone and/or are hugely paranoid, as most women in the right minds are. The good news is that by the time you are married you will probably have cracked Da Dating Code. Probably...