Ten step program

If dropping round to a scarce-known acquaintance’s garage sale on a whim proves you can talk for three uninterrupted hours, there might be a spark.

If your insides lurch when they confesses to having feelings for someone, and that someone isn’t you, you have a crush on them.

If, when you hear their newly-realised affections were spurned, and are sorry for their pain - but secretly hopeful - you definitely have a crush on them.

If in the course of hanging out with them on a moving day, they suggest a plan to see a musical, a plan which rapidly escalates into a pact to see it Gold Class and with wine - maybe there’s hope after all. (Especially if you then talk for around ten hours and consume two meals together.)

Look out for half unslept (but secretly happy) nights spent trying to wrestle that hope into submission.

If you can consume wine with them ’til all hours, and have them beat you soundly at Scrabble and not care, let that hope breathe a little.

If they respond to a flirtatious SMS with “*swoon*”, there’s a chance.

Twelve or more e-mails exchanged each way in a day should confirm that.

So maybe it should not be a complete surprise when, after drinks and dinner, you find yourself taking them by both their hands and leading them to a hesitant kiss.

There will be moments of doubt, seemingly impossible uncertainties, times when life may offer choices at odds with your feelings, things will find their small points of tension - but when there is someone always ready to greet you with a kiss, someone who wants to call you when they’ve had a bad day or a triumph, someone who refers to you as “the boyf” – you’ll feel richly rewarded for nurturing the little hope that brought you here.