Later I find myself telling her that the Japanese wall-hanging came from a female friend who sadly isn’t a friend any more. ‘So why is it in your house?’ she asks me with a glint. ‘Every time you see it, it’s bringing you down subconsciously.’ Then a killer question: ‘Is it also in your friend’s interest that you remain single?’ I gulp. Possibly. She’s happily married; while I had the role of the jolly single friend.

Hey, thanks for planting this bitchy, suspicious idea in my head, "therapist!" I feel much more able to go about my life with healthy attitudes towards people!

Why are people like this? Like, OK, maybe the wall hanging of a single woman is part of a sinister plot to keep a friend single . . . or maybe she noticed that her friend likes images of women, saw a unique piece that fit that aesthetic, and since she knew her friend well, thought she would like it? No, no, it must be the sinister one. Knowing a friend's taste and buying something you think they'd like? Nah!