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There’s nothing new about these insecurities. Perhaps what’s different is that the folklore of this generation – the standard narrative in novels, films, TV shows and magazines – provides a hopeless caricature of relationships, reducing them to animalistic mating rituals: man and woman meet in a bar/restaurant/post-nuclear holocaust/alien invasion, and an hour later jump into bed together.

In my time, at university, nearly 20 years ago, those same insecurities were bubbling away in every dorm. As they leafed through their copies of FHM magazine, 3 out of 5 students in every flat were in despair, wondering what was wrong with them. Mostly they’re all now happily married or in long-term relationships. They probably look back on their naive, impatient youth with a mixture of self-loathing and tragic embarrassment.

But here, in the Muslim community, we have our own set of insecurities, or uncertainties, in the simplest of human relationships, such as a greeting on the street or a conversation on a public forum. When does a lowered gaze become I’m ignoring your existence? When does a greeting of salam become a huge faux pas? I admit that after 18 years navigating the Muslim Community, I’m largely none the wiser.