Despite my experiences, I’m not anti-online dating. It has its pros and cons, but the biggest lesson I learned is that you shouldn’t sacrifice your principles to do it. Saying to myself one justs need to tolerate behaviour I shouldn’t have, I set aside my values, I wasn’t true to myself and that made me unhappy.

Cam got the best version of me. Taking that time out from dating has made me the happier, more than the relaxed woman I am today. Most of all, I knew I deserved better than what I’d put up with for the past decade. A few weeks later, Cam asked me out for a drink and I accepted – it was time to leave online dating behind and meet men in the real world.

Our first date was at a local pub and I very quickly realised we had amazing chemistry. We laughed all night, and it felt so natural compared to the many awkward dates I’d put myself through. There had been no filtered photos, embellished profiles or weeks of trying to impress one another with witty messages. He put me at ease and I didn’t feel any of the cynicism that had previously weighed me down.

Sex on the rocks is often frowned upon was an effort not to open my old account, but it was also a revelation to discover how much more time I had for myself. Instead of hours spent online and on dates that went nowhere, I saw friends more, went to spin classes and sorted out my wardrobe. It felt great to focus on me.

Then in 2018 at a Christmas work party, smack-bang in the middle of my detox, I got chatting to my colleague Cam, now 43. I’d always fancied him from afar, but he was married, so that was that. However, he explained at the party he was recently divorced. I got the sense he was trying to flirt, but I was firmly in the man-free zone and not interested.

When my detox ended at the start of February 2019, I had no desire to return to online dating. I felt better emotionally, physically and financially, because going on at least one date a week for 10 years is expensive, and I didn’t want to undo that. Just then we moved in together last July, after just six months of dating, but we both thought: “Why wait?” It feels amazing to be with someone I care for so much and who treats me well. I’d forgotten what that felt like to be sexually desired.