Having completed Tinder, OkCupid, Match and Bumble, I can honestly say I prefer GTA4.

The rules of the game are simple; “swipe until it’s empty”.

I have done that at “Boss” level. It’s not difficult. Just takes loads of time. Time I clearly had.

I have a whole method for efficient swiping… It’s tap tap tap… Swipe.

Any sedated tigers, chihuahuas, pouting, or loads of gym photos, or a guy’s name on seemingly a woman’s photos, or all serious photos with no smiles, swipe left.

The slightest possibility I might be attracted to them and they seem normal and their smile actually reaches their eyes, swipe right.

Works just as well as randomly swiping left and right with my eyes closed (I have tried it).

And you have to have lots of uncomfortable chats where you try way too hard to be charming and funny – think pickup lines without the alcohol and background noise to distract from the utter awkwardness of it, a few slightly awkward dates (now video calls, which is the “advanced” level difficulty), and end up realising you can’t work out the most basic reason people are attracted to one another – that magical unknown quantity of “chemistry” – without actually meeting the person in person.

It is at that point that you “complete” the dating app.

And, just because we are creatures of habit, we then go try other dating apps, because maybe, just maybe, doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is not the definition of insanity.

Once we have completed all available dating apps, and come to that same realisation time and again, with friends and strangers egging us on the whole time by dangling that “I have friends who met online and got married and are really happy” magical power up in front of us, do we officially “complete all levels” in the online dating game.

There is no winning. It is realising that we are simply confirming the uselessness of it all that means we have “leveled up”.

That is why it is called “gamifying”, or the “gamification” of, dating.

It’s a game, and the only ones to win are the companies that make money from us endlessly swiping.

So we get frustrated and delete the apps, only to return a few months later in desperation, hoping against hope that, somehow, this time it will be different.

For proof of this, just see how many profiles say, “I had deleted this app but I am back now hoping to delete it again…”

I think we need a “Dating Apps Anonymous” group.