Let me take you on a voyage of etymological discovery. It began on a Sunday, when I was talking about myself. Do you know what, I said. Sometimes I look stupid, and it's because I can't talk proper. There are words I would like to use but whose meaning eludes me. Other people use these words and, when they do, their confidence implies not only linguistic competence but also intellectual deftness. It is profoundly galling, I said.

But so often I cannot quite recall what a word such as, say, egregious means. I get it confused with lugubrious, which I think means mournful, and associate with the word lubricated in the sense of tipsy, which makes me think of a teary drunk. I am pretty sure that a teary drunk is egregious in some way, but I don't think egregious actually means weepy. Does it? And what about gregarious? Is that the same thing as egregious? Or is it like garrulous? How will I ever get ahead in life with so shaky a grasp of the English language? Dammit, at the risk of lugubriousness, I might have to hit the sherry if I cannot work this out.

Fortunately, in the opposite armchair was a pragmatist, who hauled me from this quagmire of ignorance with the muscular power of reference books. Reaching for the dictionary, she informed me that egregious comes from two Latin words. Oh good, I said, I like Latin. Me, the Pope and the Finnish radio news, we're big Latin fans.

Quite so, said my practical friend. It comes from e, meaning out of, and grex, meaning flock. So, standing out from the crowd; and it now means outstandingly bad. Oh, I said. Well that puts some comments I thought were praise into context. Never mind. Let us continue. Please turn to G and look up gregarious. This is most illuminating. You'll never guess what, said my friend. What? I cried. Well, she said, it transpires that gregarious is also from the Latin word grex. No, I said. Yes, she countered. No wonder you got them confused. However, gregarious means part of the flock, one of the crowd, easy and relaxed in the company of your fellow mortals. Much like you will be if you keep at that sherry. Well blow me down, I said. Let's have another, to celebrate this acquisition of knowledge.

Settle for less in love

If you want a family, find a man and marry him. Don’t waste time waiting for the one, says this 40-year-old singleton

This was some time ago, and life continued. When I say life, I mean, of course that I ate, slept and devoted about 73 per cent of the remaining time to discussing people's romantic relations. Does this happen to anyone else? I feel like my life is slipping down the plughole while I listen to the whole human race in all its foolishness banging on about what he said and whether she should have let him put it there and whether infidelity counts if it takes place on moving public transport.

This has been the case for 12 years or so now and the discussions have yet to reach a fruitful conclusion. It's like the Middle East out there. And, although it would be very difficult to find sufficient topics to fill the resultant conversational chasm, I think that my extremely sensitive emotional intelligence has perceived a desire for answers. What do women really want? Can a man desire monogamy? Is one ever too old for bondage? We must decide. So I'd like to propose a solution, based on my etymological discoveries, for the overarching question: are relationships worth the hassle?

The depressing conclusion that suggests itself, looking at the thriving sales of alcohol, chocolate and tissues, is that the answer is probably no. But despite the obviously poor returns on the investment, the yearning for fulfilment through one person means that people continue on this doomed quest indefinitely. This is so irritating. Why must this idiocy continue? Obviously, these instincts are the ones that guarantee the survival of the human race. But why beget another generation that will squander much of its lives in a fruitless quest for perfect love? What's the point?

I contend that the flaw lies in the idea of happiness only through one other person. Loneliness is indeed a terrible burden, but when one is blessed with friends and family, why do we insist on worrying so disproportionately about finding a partner? Are not the many better than The One?

Many have sought the answer to this but only I have triumphed, although along the way I have had a little help from the dead American poet Robert Frost. Frost makes a wee suggestion about love, which is included in a new book, The Collected Prose of Robert Frost. He briskly refutes Freud's suggestions about shagging as humanity's driving motivation. He says: “The ruling passion of man is not as Viennese as is claimed. It is rather a gregarious instinct to keep together by minding each other's business.” (Do you see what's happened there? The use of the word gregarious! Good thing we worked out what that means, or it might have gone over our heads, eh?)

And for his next trick, Frost coins this glorious maxim: “Grex rather than sex.” (Ah yes, you'll be saying now, grex, Latin, meaning flock). How splendid! What a marvellous motto for anyone who has striven to keep a horrible relationship going, or wept over their unsuccessful quest of a sweetheart. If grex is better than sex, then when your one true loves fails you, and they will, you can console yourself with the flock who care. And, indeed, if you were once crazy in love, and it fades, then the wise grex maniac will appreciate that the longest lasting pleasure is companionship like sheep huddled together in a pen.

Because Love with a capital L, for all that it's exhilarating and beguiling, is too often a load of rubbish. Instigated by instinct and perpetuated by poets, it is in fact the world's most egregious con. I say, be grateful for the love that you get. Put the Valentine from your mum on the mantelpiece and be gregarious with your flock when you get lonely. Grex addiction never put anyone in rehab.

A surfeit of slimness

The prevalence of extreme slimness in female role models has always seemed to me to have an obvious cause. Its co-existence with the rise in obesity is not a puzzling contradiction, but a case of cause and effect. As the fat have become fatter and more numerous, slimness has become a rarer commodity. Rare things become prized for their very scarcity. And so thinness has been valued these past few years.

Which brings me seamlessly to global economics. Food prices are rising and there will be good and bad consequences of this, among them perhaps a glimmer of hope for those concerned about the slightness of the supermodel. For, if food is more expensive, perhaps obesity will fall, the slim will not be so scarce and we will have no further need for exaggerated twigginess in our icons of female beauty. Excellent news. Expensive cheeseburgers all round.

Turn to the volume

I have found yet one more reason not to look up things on Wikipedia. It is the serendipity of alphabetical adjacency. While on a quest to discover the speed at which the Earth spins, I found in Encyclopaedia Britannica an illustrated entry about earplugs. It contained an intriguing picture of Polynesian earplugs carved from whale's tooth and an assurance that, far from being designed to block out noise, they were ornamental and, in fact, the direct forerunner of today's pierced earrings. It also noted that Mayan earplugs were made from jade and a Masai earplug once weighed in at 1.3kg. When it said that the people who used rags as earplugs were the Japanese race known as Ainu, I was forced to go back to the bookshelf for Volume One: Aak-Bayes. I will be very surprised if the contents are not Arresting, Beguiling and more besides.

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