I was looking for a new boyfriend.

The first candidate was lovely – tall, dark, and handsome – and we did have some fun together. However, he was much younger than me, a smoker, and offered limited conversation. I really needed someone on my own intellectual level.

Then there was QQX, who I’d admired for years – and a non-smoker with a PhD. Age-wise there was still a problem. He was almost two decades my senior. When we first started dating I also believed that he had a wife hidden away somewhere. In fact she had died two years earlier. If I took him on permanently, however, it was inevitable that I would end up with the responsibility of nursing him into his old age (unless he died sooner in an unfortunate glider accident).

As candidate number 3, NDX was far superior: a tall, handsome (though not dark), non-smoking professor, just a couple of years older than me. When we first met six years ago, we had both experienced a form of love at first sight across the dinner table. Now we were meeting in secret, waiting for the right moment to tell our friends and family about our romance. I hoped that everyone would agree that this was the right relationship for me – even TPR.