**Setting the scene**
I’ve always been a reserved and shy boy, and found myself beginning my final undergraduate year at university without ever so much as having held a girl’s hand. As my anxiety and depression improved, I made a promise to myself that I was going to lose my virginity that year. Various blundering attempts on Tinder and Bumble followed, a few disastrous first dates that make me cringe even writing this. Gradually, the idea of paying for it, something I’d always joked about, became more serious in my mind. After my Tinder profile was discovered and mocked by someone I know irl (and who I thought of as a friend) I decided I was done with that, and was going to take a more practical approach to my problem.