By Josh Gardner, who is just as unpopular on Bluesky as he was on Twitter

THANKS to 5G and Facetune, approaching potential romantic partners is easier than ever. On the internet. Anywhere else is inappropriate. 

But with so many suitors, bots and romance scanners, your seductive ‘hey’ sent to a Hinge match could go overlooked. Indeed, women can be overwhelmed by gentlemanly introductions – dick pics – they struggle to whittle them down.

And my eight-month dry spell has me thinking: what if older generations were on to something when they flirted with each other in real life? They were wrong about everything else from the Millennium Bug to Will Smith, but perhaps IRL advances are different.

It was a triggering thought. The potential for cringe when chatting up a woman in person would be high. What if she LOLed at me? Or worse, what if we hit it off and planned a life together, and now I’m expected to fund a wedding, house and baby?

But I admit I one day hope of posting photos of a romantic holiday with the caption ‘so we did a thing’ onto Instagram. So I had to try it. After all, projecting a false image of happiness on social media goes better for two.

The first hurdle was finding a woman I wanted to chat up. They won’t just line up to be swiped on out in nightclubs! I did ask. Nor can you tell their hobbies just by looking at them. How was I to know if they wanted ‘nights in and nights out’?

And what would I even say if I found the right person? It’s hard to quickly convince someone you’re not a creep, which is why us men have hand-crafted one-liners which are good for 1,400 consecutive uses.

That doesn’t work in a pub, however. Women can actually ‘see’ you going round the tables and ‘hear’ you using the same line. What am I expected to do, improvise a new line every time? What about the risk of creative burnout?

Rebuffed and belittled, puzzling as to what this strange species of IRL girls could possibly want, I slunk off and took a friend’s dog for a walk, popping in at my local independent bookshop on the way. And to get clickbaity, you’ll never guess what happened next.

Women were throwing themselves at me. Asking the dog’s name, how old she is etcetera. I know, I know, pics or it didn’t happen, but they would have ruined the vibe. All out of ideas, I just talked to them and they responded. Why? How?

Anyway, I got a couple of numbers and they wanted to meet up again, as if that was the point. Aberrant behaviour but I’m going along with it. But should I bring a couple of dick pics with me? Etiquette guides are silent on the subject. So probably yes.