This weekend's columns: dating apps and chocolate.

Guardian and Observer.

My Saturday Guardian column was one of the most read in the Guardian this weekend. I can never really tell what will make the top ten (it made the top four). Anything with the word sex or penis or breasts in the headline usually makes it, but we don’t tend to overuse the last two because we’re not Viz (I loved Viz btw).

I’ve never used a dating app. I love technology and am generally all over it, but dating apps came in late for me. I met my husband in early 1997 (that’s us in the picture above) and haven’t dated anyone else, since. When I worked at the Home Office in the 1980s there was a man there who had met his wife, rumour had it, through a dating agency and everyone spoke about it in hushed tones. I’m glad things aren’t so taboo anymore.

In real life a lot of the young people I meet met or meet people through dating apps but my reader this week had had enough of them and was wondering whether to give up on them. There was a huge response BTL (below the line), with people offering their thoughts, sometimes criticism (for me or him). I read all my comments and often do go BTL to answer readers when I can.

(This reader did mention he felt suicidal at times and one always has to take these comments seriously. Often they’re made to sound flippant. We discuss this in my podcast on suicide: Difficult Conversations Around Suicide with Dr Joanne Stubley.)

Do you think it’s harder to meet people these days, despite all the technology that’s meant to connect us?

I spoke to Susanna Abse about this problem. Susanne is one of the therapists I’ve worked with for many years and she introduced me to the idea of ‘emotional load’, most often carried by one person in a relationship. Susanna is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and they are some of my favourite kind.

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It’s been two weeks since my column stayed in the Observer but moved to its new owners, Tortoise and I rather like the new look. My column this week was about these really, really tasty shards of dark chocolate from Cox & Co. The ones I bought and tasted were the 85% with cocoa nibs. It’s really difficult to find chocolate over 85% that’s still smooth and creamy tasting and has any sort of inclusion. Not impossible but it’s not easy. I really rate these.