All of a sudden Simon becomes aware that there’s a man in the audience. Shock, horror. And he doesn’t seem too pleased about it.

“But of course. Go ahead,” he says, a wary glint in his eye as he gestures for Jay to stand up.

Jay stands, his eyes on mine the entire time. I send him a silent look of thanks. “Okay, my ideal girl will be classy, funny, beautiful, sensitive, and she’ll have a great fucking rack.”

Furious giggling breaks out all around us, and I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly embarrassed. Apart from “sensitive,” I’m not sure if I’m any of those things.

Simon chuckles. “You do realise this is a seminar to teach women how to find men, right?”

Jay shrugs. “I must have missed the memo.”

“All right, well, a lot of what I teach will be useful for dating women, too. So you’re welcome to stay.”

“Gee whiz, thanks,” says Jay with no small amount of sarcasm before sitting back down in his seat. Simon gives him a hard look but then plasters a big smile on his face seconds later.

“Okay, the next part of this exercise requires you to take those five attributes, and I want you to focus mainly on the personal qualities rather than appearance, and turn them on yourself. I want you to question whether or not you possess the qualities you want your partner to have. If you don’t, then do you have a right to demand them of others? Furthermore, what can you do to cultivate those qualities in yourself?”

I look down at my list: funny, smart, protective, motivated, and handsome.

Jay nudges me with his shoulder. “How are you doing so far?”

“Well, I am the handsomest lady I know, so that’s a start.”

“And I’ve got a fucking awesome rack, but remember, we have to leave out anything related to appearance.”

“Right,” I reply, half laughing as I bite my lip nervously.

“So…?”

“I’m not very good with self-analysis.”

“Let me see.”

I hand him the list, and he looks it over. “Funny? Check. Smart? Check. Protective? Check. You’re always looking out for your dad. Motivated? Check again. I don’t know anyone who’d work a forty-hour week and then come home every evening to work more on making dresses.”

“Jay! I hate to admit it, but you’ve just made me quite like myself.”

He frowns. “Why wouldn’t you like yourself?”

“I don’t know. Self-loathing is kind of a human disease, isn’t it? I mean, I wouldn’t be here right now if I went around thinking I was flipping fantastic all the time. If I did that, I’d have no trouble picking up men.”

Jay’s about to say something when Simon starts to speak again. “Well, how did you all do?”

There are a number of grumblings from the audience. “Yeah, I get it. We’re all guilty of wanting the perfect person, but we never think to look inward and see how totally imperfect we are ourselves. But that’s okay. The key is to be constantly trying to improve. None of us are ever going to be perfect, so let’s cut that thought out right there. All we can really do is try to be the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be. We need to be comfortable in our own skin, and when we achieve that, we suddenly become more attractive to the opposite sex.

“Take me as an example. When I was younger, I had zero confidence. I might as well have been invisible to women. I didn’t believe in myself, and believing in yourself is the most important thing. One day I walked into a shop and bought a self-help book. It was nothing special, but it planted the seed in me to become what I am today.”

He continues with a few more anecdotes, though it feels more like an opportunity for him to waste a bit of time patting himself on the back. I don’t really come away with anything useful. Then we’re broken up into groups to role-play. One of us is the guy and the other is the girl, and we have to pretend we’ve just met in a bar or some similar environment. The one playing the girl has to take the lead in chatting the “guy” up. And yes, it’s just as painful as it sounds.

I get stuck doing it with a woman wearing a paisley shirt and a corduroy skirt, while Jay is practically bombarded with women who want to role-play with him. Surprise, surprise. In the end, though, he pairs up with the blonde who’d been sitting beside him.

I still have a slight urge to stab her with my pen.

I hardly get to speak to Jay for the entire two hours, and then it’s already lunchtime. I’m making my way out of the ladies’ room and heading toward the hotel restaurant when he appears from behind a column. He immediately links his arm through mine and leads me in the opposite direction.

“Hey, soooo, I was thinking we’d do lunch at the café across the street. Turns out you were right about the stampede.”

I burst into laughter that’s full of “I told you so’s.” “What happened?”

“I got asked to eat with about ten different chicks. One started squeezing my bicep, and another actually pinched my ass.”

“Oh, God, lucky you. Okay, I suppose we don’t have to eat here if it’s all too much for you.”

Jay raises an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, Watson?”

“Why, I do believe it is, Holmes.” My grin couldn’t get any wider.

“Fine. We’ll eat here, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

When we enter the restaurant, I can practically feel the eyes on us like laser beams. Jay makes sure that we get a table only big enough for two in the far corner of the room. A waiter comes along quickly to take our orders and then leaves just as swiftly.

“Ah, I’m starving. I hope the food comes soon,” I say just before the blonde Jay had been partnered up with appears at the table.

“Hey, mind if I join you?” she asks.

Jay coughs. “Sorry, Joanne, but I don’t think there’s room.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll manage to squeeze myself in somewhere,” she tells him with a wink.

“We’ve already ordered, and I actually came today to support my friend, Matilda. So, if you don’t mind….”

Her expression sours. “Right, well, I apologise for interrupting.”

There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence after she leaves, so I occupy myself by unfolding my napkin and placing it on my lap. When the quiet becomes too much to bear, I make a joke. “You know what, single men should crash these things all the time. It would be the perfect hunting ground.”

“Yeah,” says Jay, but he doesn’t seem much in the mood for conversation.

I reach across the table and put my hand on top of his. “Are you okay?”

He turns his hand palm up then before lacing his fingers through mine and giving them a tight squeeze. He still hasn’t responded, but he’s giving me some kind of meaningful eye contact. Tingles rush through my veins. A moment later the food arrives, and I quickly pull my hand away.

I spend the next while focusing on eating my salmon salad, at the same time berating myself for ever agreeing to let Jay come here. Not only has it been a cringe-fest, but it’s also been a bit of an awkward-fest, too.

The second half of the day is less about role-play, and more about sitting and listening to Simon drone on and on. Along the way, I come to the epiphany that I’m never going to become the best version of myself like Simon wants us all to do. The best version of myself got lost somewhere in the past, destroyed by a whole range of experiences.

Number one would be seeing my own mother killed in front of me.

Number two was spending an entire year as a confused child trying to pull my father out of his grief.

Number three was meeting my teenage boyfriend, a boyfriend who then dumped me out of the blue by text after two years together because he decided he was in love with someone else.

And the constant underneath all of that is an ingrained fear of taking chances. I’ve lived my entire life at home, with the comfort blanket of my dad as my constant companion. The funny thing is, Jay’s recent presence in my life has made me start to want to take a chance, break free and do something crazy. Consequences be damned.