Last year when my friend was dating, she did it in a way that quite frankly terrified me. She would book multiple dates in one day, seeing one man for lunch, another for a drink later, and sometimes maybe even one for dinner too.

I usually have a moment after six hours of travelling abroad that you may relate to; it’s somehow 2am even though you left home at midday, you’ve got that furry feeling in your mouth, it dawns on you that you forgot to put the bins out, and you think to yourself ‘this better be worth it’.

It seems like there’s a special term for every trend these days, whether it’s Vanilla Girl fashion, Coastal Grandma interiors, or beauty methods like ‘hair skinification’. Dating trends are no exception, and while we can all agree ‘ghosting’ is pretty savage, there’s another trend among singletons that’s getting a worse reputation than, I believe, it deserves.

When you’ve got your menstrual routine down to a tee (albeit crampy and agitated), trying out new period products can seem a bit daunting – especially because there’s always the chance they won’t work for your body, lifestyle or blood flow. To help give you some confidence in alternative, sustainable period products, I tested out a range of brands to see what they’re really like…

I had read about the benefits of journaling plenty of times before my mum bought me a journal for Christmas in 2020. Like many other people, I’d spent most of that year bitter and frustrated that my life had been put on hold due to the pandemic. I’d lost the remainder of my early 20s. I would go over and over all the experiences I didn’t have that I was supposed to. All of the progress I wanted to make that just didn’t happen. Oh, and all the fun I was planning that went out of the window, too.

If our fluctuating hormones can play havoc with our minds when we’re awake—and make me randomly cry when I remember George Michael died—then they must be doing something when we’re asleep, too.

It is a tradition in Asian families that after marriage, the bride goes to live with her husband and in-laws. This can include grandparents, parents, siblings and their children all living under one roof. A Japanese study found that women living with an extended family have higher risks of heart disease, but what of their mental health?

It wasn’t so long ago that we were stuck inside our homes, prohibited from leaving for more than an hour unless it was to exercise or go to the supermarket. How we yearned to be back in the world, hugging our loved ones, dining in restaurants, socialising and, well, living.

I had a line prepared for whenever someone asked me about my heritage. Whether it was in person, in my Instagram DMs, or on a dating app, it was always the same. ‘I’m of Indian heritage, but I’ve never actually been to India,’ I would say.