Finally – finally! – the lighter nights are coming and spring is on its way. I’m beginning to feel it might be time to crawl from under my stone and shake off the dark shackles of winter. And about time, too.

The little guy is also on a roll: the big boy bed is well and truly bedded in, there are no more after-dark escape attempts and all that’s required of me is to sit outside his door, fending requests for water, furry companions and a complex spectrum of lighting arrangements until he falls asleep five minutes later.

He’s talking lots, and understanding more, so communication has become simpler and, correspondingly, toddler riots fewer. If only things were so harmonious in my love life.

I’m still in touch with Smiley Man, but we’ve turned into message buddies: neither of us have suggested meeting up lately, and neither of us seems particularly bothered if we do or we don’t. So friends it is, and that’s that.

I’ve got a date scheduled this week with a guy who runs his own coffee bar, but whether I’m jaded by experience or just fed up of the whole thing, I can’t muster up much enthusiasm. I know it’s wrong to be put off by excessive punctuation, but when someone tells you that they’ve, “just made a coffee!!!” or that they’re, “at work!!!!!” it’s hard not to feel that your enthusiasm levels could never match theirs.

Still, you never know what fate has in mind, and many a match that seemed perfect on paper has been thoroughly disappointing in real life, so there’s no reason to doubt that an unpromising pairing can turn out to be something absolutely fabulous. So bring on the date.

But honestly, it feels like I’ve met, messaged or discounted pretty much every guy in the local dating pond.

(And before you pick me up on that ‘discounted’, know that, as previously noted, my criteria have been relaxed somewhat. And anyway, let’s be clear, I’ve been rebuffed by just as many candidates as I’ve rejected, if not more.)

So I scroll through the list, seeing the same old faces – gentlemen who presumably are having about as much luck as I am in finding their soul mate – and I can’t help thinking that there must be a better way. I just don’t know what it is yet.

To make things worse, social media is currently full of articles telling me how much better I’ll sleep if I sleep with a companion, how my health will improve if I sleep naked and how much better my sex life will be if I sleep naked with a companion. (Thanks, Einstein; I’d worked that one out for myself.)

It seems that all I need is a naked, snoozling partner and all will be well with the world … which pretty much tallies with my own opinion, but short of clubbing an unsuspecting victim and dragging him back to the cave, what’s a girl to do?