Trading in insecurities, dating is one of few services in which dissatisfaction leads users to question themselves instead of the product, and even increase spending to up the odds of success.

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

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.

A study out of Stanford showed that a staggering 80 per cent of single straight adults had not gone on a single date or hooked up in the previous year, leading the researcher to conclude that the main utility of the apps for heterosexuals might be ‘for flirting or for browsing’.

In one study of singles on the pull in a bar, researchers observed 109 distinct ‘attraction tactics’, including offering to buy someone a drink, sucking seductively on a straw, puffing out one’s chest, and maintaining eye contact.

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.

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.

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.