D ear Vix,

After a tough upbringing in a foreign country and then a rushed migration and botched settlement period here in the UK, what emerged from my twenties was a young man scraping the bottom of the confidence barrel when it comes to relationships. I used to just assume I was shy, but there’s shy and then there’s “slipping-anonymous-notes-onto-someone’s-desk-with-cryptic-messages -that-only-subtly-hint-at-me” weirdo shy.

I baulk when I think of those times, now. I can confirm I grew out of the notes phase. Eventually, I was approached by an older woman online and we became lovers over a three-year period, but we lived in different cities and could only see each other every fortnight or so.…