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It’s date one, and you’ve bonded over Ellen jokes/Melissa Etheridge/mungbeans/cats (delete as appropriate).

It’s date two, and you confirm, while talking for a solid thirteen hours over dinner, that you are connected by at least four different exes.

It’s date three, and you’re planning a long-haul holiday together - upon which you embark the following week.

You return from your holiday to discover that your friends have found creative ways to merge your names into one.

It’s month two, and you’ve moved in together.

It’s month two-and-a-day, and you’re deciding on cat names.

It’s month two-and-a-week, and you’re both congratulating yourselves on how you no longer have to put up with the god-awful “scene”.

It’s month three, and you are leading the campaign for the right to marry.

The contents of your respective wardrobes appear to have been swapped entirely since week two.

You have developed a witty and inciteful form of coded language which, unfortunately, is understandable only to you and the misses.

You use up your entire overdraft on lavish gifts to mark a random month’s “anniversary”.

Your apartment contains at least two copies each of various books by Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters and Radcliffe Hall.

Very early on, the thought of a quiet night in with a DVD and bottle of wine is much more appealing than the idea of boozing till the wee hours with your mates.

You’ve barely reached your first anniversary, and the inevitable happens: Lesbian Bed Death.

You happily console yourselves with copious amounts of the duplicate books, DVDs and bottles of wine.
Alternatively, you happily console yourselves with copius amounts of sex-toys and role-play.