Today, as I was leaving the house, a casual comment thrown over my shoulder to my housemate made me realise that I’ve been single for Far Too Long.

“Will you be around for dinner?” was the innocent question.

“Probably not,” I replied. “It’s Body Combat tonight – the highlight of my week!”

For the uninitiated, Body Combat is a high-intensity aerobic work-out, based on martial arts moves. That is, it exhausts you, and makes you sweat. A lot.

Now, I don’t want to draw any uncouth parallels, but surely, if I were not single this wouldn’t be the highlight of my week? A highlight, possibly. But THE highlight? Dear Lord!

It’s not as if my social life isn’t active: five or six nights a week, I can be found meeting friends for dinner, for coffee, for cinema trips and countless other stimulating and cultural activities. There are plenty of day trips, city breaks and weekends in the countryside, quite apart from the hectic gym schedule. In short, I’m bloody busy.

And maybe now we’re getting to the crux of the problem; maybe I’m just too busy to find a man.

Because the cold truth of it is this: if I had to choose between a blind date and hurling myself sweatily around the gym, I’d almost certainly choose the latter. Sad, but true. Now, whether this is some kind of self-sabotage, or merely a silent comment on the calibre of male I’ve encountered lately, I can’t be sure.

One of the Great Platitudes of Singledom is the old chestnut that you should get out more, take an evening class, join a gym. Believe me, I have done all of the above and more. The only way I could spend more time out of the house is if I went to live under the bridge with the Three Billy Goats Gruff.*

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve met some great people at the gym. But the only ones that fall into the category of Likely Singles are weedy-looking chaps that I could probably break with one swipe of my fist, or the serial grunters in the corner whose boobs, muscle or no, are twice the size of mine. There MUST be some normal guys out there, but they obviously don’t keep the schedule that I do.

To be honest, it’s probably for the best. Imagine if he was a devoted Zumba-goer, just as reluctant to cede his fix as I am. We’d never see each other.

One of my exes was, in fact, a dedicated salsero. Co-ordinating our schedules was quite a task, made all the more difficult by my irrational and pathological hatred of salsa. There were sighs of relief all round when he finally found a class that coincided with mine; our diaries were suddenly vast, snowy fields of potential, just waiting to be filled with theatre trips and cosy dinners for two.

But now, my schedule is already bursting at the seams, and I’m not sure I have time to accommodate anyone else. Or at least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.

In the meantime, if you happy to know a bright and buff bloke with a serious Body Combat habit, be sure to pass him my way…

*Upon reflection, I think the Billy Goats Gruff crossed the bridge, while the troll lived under it. But no matter. You get the idea.