There are two questions the boy knows there’s little point in asking me. The first is ‘Do you want to suck my cock?’ and the second is ‘What are you drinking?’

Red, white, sparkling or Rescue Remedy, if it’s grape-alcohol based, I’ll drink it. I have my preferences, obviously, but, I’m not, y’know, what you’d call fussy.

While thinking about this post, I did a bit of research into how often I mention wine. It gets some kind of reference in just under a quarter of my posts. So, yeah, it features heavily in my life, both as a single girl, and within my relationship with the boy.

I’ll get to the latter, but it was the single girl thing that made me want to write this in the first place. Over the weekend, I read this and, to be perfectly honest, I found it pretty depressing. I’ve since briefly tweeted the blogger in question about it, and she explained that she only wrote what was true to her and her friends’ experience of drinking alone, which is fine.

But. One thing I find really depressing is when women say ‘Is it ok to go for dinner/to a bar/to the cinema by myself?’ Now, I can see that you might prefer to go with someone else, but is it ok to go to any or all of those places by yourself? Yes!

And for me, drinking alone falls into the same category. The implication in the Bridget Jones books is of course that she drinks because she’s single and unhappy, but that’s never been my motivation. I drink wine because I work hard and therefore deserve a glass with dinner, because I’m interested in how it’s made, and even because I (shh!) like to wander round Selfridges and stroke the bottles. “I just like the …’ I’ll start, when I find a particularly pretty one. ‘…label, yes, I know!’ my friend will finish, dragging me away.

And, despite that last bit, it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m single.

Likewise, it plays a major part in my love life, but it doesn’t define my love life. The boy and I met at a wine tasting. One of his best features is that his postcoital moves include fetching the half drunk bottle from downstairs and bringing it back to bed and yes, I probably do find it easier to be honest and open with him when I’ve got a drink inside me.

But equally, he’s the first guy I fucked stone cold sober. The first time, in fact, when he jumped me in the kitchen and all I could think was ‘Oh holy fuck, no, it’s still light outside, you want to take my clothes off, and I am not skinny enough for this.’ So no, our relationship isn’t defined by alcohol either.

I’m uneasy with stereotyping. Maybe I like wine, maybe I like ice cream, maybe I like to take it up the arse on minibreaks. None of that makes me Bridget.