Still, I decided to wheel it out once more on my 25th birthday, encouraging strangers to sit in, even though by now I was surrounded by solid, real-life friends and had a loving partner. “This is horrible,” the latter said quietly, after one round that saw me identify the friend “most likely to cheat”. “Why are we playing this?” I felt indescribably grubby. There was no good answer to his question. The round petered out – the last gasp of my obsession with these sorts of games.

Playing the Whisper Game is one of my few regrets in life. The spicier the questions were – which I encouraged, with the view that they would lead to greater knowledge of one another – the more devastating the outcome. Feelings were hurt and offence caused. A fight broke out on one occasion between two participants, and, while they screamed at one another, the rest of us hurriedly shuffled out the door, party over.