Before this goes any further, I think we should establish exactly what we’re doing here.

If you’re reading this because you intend to fall in love with me, thank you for your interest. I admire your optimism. Before either of us makes a decision we’ll inevitably describe to our friends as “character building”, I’d like to direct your attention to the following document because I’ve reached the deeply unsettling conclusion that romance is the only significant life event conducted with absolutely no onboarding.

Think about it. We receive instructions for everything else.

There are doors labelled “Push” and “Pull” as though I might otherwise attempt a third option involving telekinesis, microwave meals warning that the contents may be hot, and every software update asking whether I’ve read the Terms & Conditions when we both know nobody has. Even the printer has a troubleshooting guide, despite its preferred method of communication being silent resentment.

Love, on the other hand, has somehow escaped regulation entirely.

Nobody explains when eye contact becomes flirting. Nobody clarifies whether lighting someone’s cigarette is an intimate gesture or just a perfectly reasonable response to watching another human being repeatedly attempt arson against themselves. Nobody tells you whether “we should do this again” is a date, a farewell, or the verbal equivalent of “kind regards”.

The official guidance appears to be: You’ll know. And you know what, I won’t. I’ve accepted that now.

I spent years assuming I’d eventually wake up fluent in whatever language everyone else seemed to be speaking. Apparently there comes a point where you instinctively recognise chemistry, distinguish flirtation from friendliness, and understand why someone replying after eleven minutes is romantic whereas replying after eleven hours is emotionally unavailable.

I appear to have slept through that lesson.

For a while, I assumed technology would help. It did not.

At one point I realised I was using Hinge the way everyone else was using LinkedIn. People were looking for life partners. I was recruiting participants for my psychology research on risky sexual behaviour (it was a success!). Occasionally I’d remember that I was, in fact, supposed to be attracted to these people, not assessing whether they’d make interesting data.

In hindsight, this may explain why dating apps never really worked for me.

My first crush lasted five years, despite the rather inconvenient detail that he had absolutely no idea he was participating (plus he was seeing someone else). I’ve spent entire lectures convinced everyone could hear my stomach growling, only to discover it was the projector. I’ve laughed at jokes I didn’t hear because everyone else did, and then had to improvise an explanation when someone asked what I found so funny.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about myself, it’s that I can commit to almost anything except correctly interpreting social cues. Which leaves me with a problem: nobody can tell me when a relationship officially begins. I find that, frankly, an irresponsible way to run a civilisation.

So, in the absence of any recognised authority on the matter, I’ve taken the liberty of drafting the necessary paperwork or rather, attempting to.

Unfortunately, the complete document is still under revision because I’ve been editing it in my head for years. Every crush has added a sentence, every awkward interaction has produced a footnote, and every avoidable mistake has resulted in another policy update.

Until the final version is approved, however, I think we should begin with something much easier. Before we decide whether we’re compatible, it would help to establish what position you’re actually applying for.

Are you looking for a partner, or a therapist? A parent, or a roommate with benefits? Someone to admire you, someone to fix you, someone to validate every decision you’ve ever made, or someone willing to witness your life as it unfolds?

We use the word “relationship” as though it refers to one universally agreed-upon arrangement, when in reality two people can enter the same relationship wanting entirely different things while each assumes they’re reading from the same script.

In the interests of transparency, I should also disclose that if you ever intend to share a bed with me, you’re going to have to shower first.

I know. My mother has already informed me this is why I’m single. Apparently, expecting people to wash off a day’s worth of dust, sweat, pollution, public transport, and whatever else they’ve collected before getting into bed is an unreasonable standard.

“Nobody is going to marry you if you keep making them bathe before bed,” she reminds me every time the subject comes up. I love that she thinks this is the deal-breaker. Not the fact that I’ll eventually turn you into a case study based on the available evidence or that I voluntarily watch emotionally ruinous films because I consider catharsis a legitimate form of self-care, and certainly not the checklists I make for fun.

She insists compromise is the foundation of every successful relationship. I agree, I just don’t think compromise should begin with my bedsheets.

The shower itself isn’t really the point.

The point is that everybody has some version of it. We all come with strange little operating instructions that somehow never make it into the introductory conversation.

I’d like to know whether “I’m fine” means you’re actually fine, or whether I’ve just been enrolled in an emotional escape room with no clues. Whether you genuinely don’t mind where we eat, or whether we’re about to reject every restaurant within a five-kilometre radius until we accidentally end up at the one you wanted all along. Whether silence means comfort to you or punishment. Whether you disappear when life gets difficult or ask for help.

We spend so much time asking people about their favourite films, favourite bands and favourite foods, as though two people have ever built a life together because one preferred Interstellar and the other Shrek.

The questions that actually determine whether two people can build a life together don’t usually appear until much later, by which point you’re already emotionally invested enough that the answers matter.

Which feels like a remarkable design flaw.

Imagine if airports worked like that. You’d check in, board the flight, settle into your seat, taxi onto the runway, and only then would somebody wander down the aisle asking whether you happened to be afraid of flying.

It feels backwards.

I’d like to know these things in advance because I’d like to know what I’m accidentally agreeing to.

Unfortunately, every time I try to write the questions down, they become less useful.

Take, for example, the entirely reasonable request that you tell me who you are. It sounds straightforward enough. Until I remember I’ve spent twenty-two years repeatedly surprising myself.

There are versions of me that only existed for one summer. Entire belief systems I’ve now misplaced. Opinions I’ve defended with embarrassing confidence that now make me wonder whether somebody else briefly borrowed my body.

The girl who somehow managed to end up in the emotional collateral damage of a relationship she wasn’t even part of would’ve answered this questionnaire very differently from the woman writing it now. I’m not entirely convinced she’s gone. I think she just lives in an earlier draft. Which raises an administrative difficulty.

If I no longer agree with previous versions of myself, which one exactly am I asking you to fall in love with? The current edition? Version history? Or the complete archive?

I suspect most of us never really leave any of them behind.

We introduce ourselves with the highlights, the polished edition – the one that’s survived several rounds of editing. We don’t usually mention the deleted paragraphs, the contradictory footnotes, the chapters rewritten after somebody left, or died, or stayed.

By the time we think to mention them, they’ve stopped feeling like old versions of ourselves and started feeling like the only version we’ve ever known.

Perhaps that’s why these Terms & Conditions have taken so long to finish. Every time I think I’ve reached the final draft, I discover I’ve been editing a document that’s still being written. Which is deeply inconvenient.

It’s difficult to provide accurate onboarding materials when the software keeps updating itself.

Cover image by Taarina Therese Chandiramani