Emma was on top of the world when I saw her for Sunday brunch at Lucky 7. Her new guy was perfect. But in the evening she called me in a panic after a conversation with her friend Olivia, ‘She is adamant it will never work. She didn’t say it to be mean but was talking from her own experience.’

Olivia believes that you should wait two or three months before sleeping with a guy if you think he’s relationship material and Emma had committed the cardinal sin of sleeping with her guy at the end of the second date. Too soon and it’ll never be more than sex/he’ll think you’re a slut/there’s too much pressure on the relationship too soon.

Should we really wait two or three months, though? The Gentleman’s wise friend had said that there is also too much pressure if you leave it too long. She recommended waiting until date three to five. Apparently, ‘getting naked and getting together is a great leveller.’ Natasha agreed but for a different reason, ‘If you leave it too long, you’ll lose the initial passion and end up just being friends’.

In my teens a friend’s mum said, ‘Would you give a man your bank details after only meeting him a few times?’ She didn’t wait for an answer before adding, ‘Then why give your body?’ (While the same friend’s animal print-wearing, hard-partying grandmother advised, ‘Find a rich man and sit on him.’)

All we can do is follow our own instinct. In my experience, if a guy is pushy (like the American), then never sleep with him; if he doesn’t have any potential (like Pierre) then whenever you like (or ‘use, abuse and leave him confused,’ as Emma likes to say) and if you like him then when you feel you trust him enough. Of course, that’s easier said than done but, as the filmmaker Billy Wilder said, ‘Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.’