‘Don’t ask for grey when you mean black,’ a friend recently advised. It’s a good piece of advice for everything – relationships, work and fashion. We shouldn’t be vague about whether we do/don’t want kids; we shouldn’t apply for a job we don’t really want (who hasn’t been told they’re too experienced or, worse, not experienced enough for a too-junior role?); and we shouldn’t buy a dress without a lining (or square-fronted shoes with rubber soles, as Hot Danish is wont to say).

This doesn’t mean we should sweat the small stuff. Phoning mum about boy trouble provides a good benchmark. She’s been known to say, ‘He doesn’t beat you, does he?’ Certainly don’t call pre Primark-born gran – she comes from a time when if something broke, you fixed it; you didn’t throw it away.

Comedian Ophira Eisenberg jokes about the trivial problems in good relationships; ‘He drinks, gambles and cheats on me, but he tidies up after himself. What a dreamboat!’ If you are the one who ends up taking the rubbish out at least that means your man isn’t finding excuses to escape the house to call the mistress.

For relationship trouble, the friend advised writing that ‘black’ list of things that you want from the other. That can be the tough bit; it’s easier to say what you don’t want than what you really do want.