So my current flatmate has finally decided to move in with her boyfriend (a mere technicality really, seeing as she stays there about five nights a week), and once again, I find myself searching for someone else to live with. No, that’s great. I mean, on top of the million and one things I’ve had to sort out and organise this year, now this as well. What fun. Bring it on.

I’ve only seen two people so far, both female. Both were lovely, but at the moment I’m more drawn to the second one. I was initially reticent about her, as she’s 32, compared with my 25. I wondered if it would be too much of an age gap, and sought the advice of my friend Claire, who put it into rather depressing perspective by informing me “May I point out that that’s only seven-and-a-half years older than us?” Well quite. Thank you, dear.

But while I’d like to give up the whole maddening jamboree right now and just go with the second girl, I’m trying to organise meeting up with five others. As much as the idea strikes me with equal measures of weariness and horror, I’d like to meet as many people as possible. I’m fortunate, in that the absolute latest my flatmate wants to move out is November 1st, meaning I can take quite a leisurely approach to my hunt, compared with when I met her, and I had a mere two weeks to find someone or I’d would have had to move out too. My flatmate was the second person I met and she got the job purely by virtue of the fact that she seemed friendly, easygoing, and not obviously sociopathic. Thankfully it worked out, but I’d like to take a more serene, thorough, less crazed approach to finding someone to share a bathroom, bills and a year of my life with this time around.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to see if any other professional, non-smoking females aged between 22 and 30, who have a good sense of humour, like to sink a bottle of wine now and then, and who possess an extremely stoic attitude towards 80s music and pink things (they’ll need it) have flooded my inbox…