In communities around the world in which there is a surplus, or perceived surplus, of women, men pursue a mating strategy geared towards multiple casual relationships.

One study showed that half of Tinder users had not gone on a single date with a match made on the app.

In a study of the most successful words for men to put on an online profile, ‘physically fit’ upped response rate by a whopping 96 per cent;10 in another, the number-one word for men to use on a profile was – wait for it – ‘6ft’.

The average person in medieval times is thought to have laid eyes on fewer than 100 people in the course of a lifetime. An attractive young woman can rack up that many matches in minutes.

One study showed 44 per cent of millennials were on Tinder for ego-boosting procrastination – more than were looking for either hook-ups or relationships.

The problem with the minimal-investment approach to seduction – bred by an overload of options on dating apps and infiltrating courtship more broadly – is that it is difficult to drum up desire in the absence of effort.

With a googol of profiles to get through, 75 per cent of men say they swipe on the basis of only the first photo.

Natural rewards, including orgasm, contain a built-in satiety at consummation relying, inter alia, on endogenous opioids. But when we’re stuck in the dopaminergic excitement of seeking, Kringelbach explained, there is no signal telling us when to stop.

The matching potential of the genome is not entirely without merit: kissing is hypothesised to be subconsciously used by women to gauge the health and genetic make-up of a potential mate through saliva, as well as for eliciting arousal through the exchange of hormones.