Claire Whiteside, 40, from the Wirral
Sitting at home, a notification popped up on my phone. Hi there. How are you?
It was a message on my dating app from a guy named Martin McCrea.
Flicking through his profile, he looked nice. Handsome and friendly. So I decided to reply.
It was 2016, and although I was single and in my 30s, I wasn’t really looking for love or a relationship.
I mostly just used dating apps to pass the time. Sat at home alone, it was nice chatting to people.
Hey, I’m good thanks. How are you? I replied, hitting send.
We began exchanging messages and I found it easy to chat with him.
It turned out, despite him being 11 years older than me, neither of us were after anything romantic, but we quickly struck up a friendship.
I felt totally at ease talking to him and so, when Martin invited me to his house for a cuppa a few days later, I took him up on his offer.
‘Come in,’ he beamed.
Martin and I got on like a house on fire. He told me all
