Promising messages from two different people came in around the same sort of time over my Christmas break.

The first said he’d seen an enormous number of plays and musicals in 2025 but that it was a mixture of work and pleasure as he was a theatre reviewer. I thought ‘oh gosh’ I’m going to love this conversation. And I did. He asked my opinion on the different plays and musicals I’d seen recently, my favourites, we talked about his favourites. And I was so thrilled by it all. That is until we had nothing more to say to each other about musical theatre. Sadly, conversation didn’t extend to any other topics though several were attempted.

The second person had started his message with a picture of his absolutely stunning 10 month old puppy. I shared a picture of my equally gorgeous dog and I was so excited to send and receive messages to this man absolutely gushing about both dogs. And then we had no more to say about our dogs and attempted other conversation… all of which stalled and died.

Two bright sparks. Neither of which were cut out to go any further.