A friend in her late thirties confides that she intends to end a four-month relationship with a man who initially came round to plaster her living room ceiling. We do have very good sex - and I'll miss that - but I would like to have very good sex with someone I can talk to afterwards.
Sounds reasonable. I wonder when she intends to inform him that his services are no longer required. I suggest she deals with it sooner these things are never easy, but cruel to be kind and all that. She explains: 'He's putting up shelves. I'll wait until he's done the bedroom because it's driving me nuts, having nowhere to put my magazines. I am reminded of my three-year stint as editor of more! The whole premise was that men were to tease, have fun and frolic with; not 'please' or 'turn on' or crowbar into commitment as the previous generation of women's magazines had kindly instructed us.
The editorial team - in their early twenties, like our readers - dreamed up 'features'; games involving the staff consuming enormous quantities of alcohol and pouncing on men enjoying quiet after-work drinks.
On one occasion, the sole male staffer was 'auctioned off' and dispatched on a trip to the States with a young female reader who yelped with delight at having 'won' him. Which is precisely how young women are supposed to behave. We were raised on Just Seventeen - all cockiness and no-messing sex advice - not Jackie, in which agony aunts Cathie and Claire would sternly warn readers not to 'go too far' or 'let' boys fiddle with the clasps of their teen bras.
In the Corinthian, a vast, ornate bar off George Square in Glasgow, there is major hair, make-up and flirtation going on. I meet a lively group of women. The beginnings of relationships are great, that heady rapture, all that adrenaline flying around, but it's not a state that lasts. You can derive that excitement from other places like landing a great job. She is pragmatic about the arrangement: 'We met, like each other and I was looking for a flat - I feel OK about it. But I've been married before and am more cynical, less naive.
