We don't like women who dress to impress men. Go on, admit it, we don't. It may make us bad sisters, but they're worse ones for pandering to the enemy in the first place.

The concept of dressing to impress a man has a bad reputation: synthetic fabrics, dresses that are a size too small and the kind of bonehead who high fives his friends about Steak and Blow Job Day. The thought of choosing an outfit based on whether some guy will like it just seems a little regressive, a little simplistic, desperate even.

It’s not really for me. I’m a scruffy but sophisticated Londoner who uses jokes and links to cultural and social phenomena on important news websites to seduce; I’m the type of person who doesn’t care about what men think about her outfit. 

Except that I suppose I sort of do care really. Because well, no matter how evolved or intelligent any of us are (or think we are), we also want the people we fancy to fancy us back and, in the early days of dating, the clothes that we wear are one of the easiest ways to facilitate that. Straps that fall down, skirts that ride up, heels that are high and jeans that are tight. I mean not all at once, obviously, but alongside flirting, flattery, fourth drinks and that brilliant unbridled genuine attraction, these are the things that lead to good first kisses.   

"Straps that fall down, skirts that ride up, heels that are high and jeans that are tight... Not all at once perhaps, but these are the things that lead to good first kisses."

I just find it difficult to admit that I sometimes do something so basic as dressing to impress a man. 

My boyfriend and I used to have an ongoing joke about who had fancied who first: who followed who on Twitter, who happened to call by which party, whose hand brushed against whose leg, who made what could be described as the ‘first move’. ‘Well obviously I knew you fancied me when you wore those leather hot pants to that bar,’ he would say. ‘Oh my God, they’re called shorts, nobody has said “hot pants” since the 1970s, and I would have been wearing them anyway. I absolutely did not wear shorts just because you were going to be there,’ I would counter, almost angrily. 

Eventually I conceded that maybe I might have possibly worn the leather shorts because I knew he would be there that day, but really I couldn’t be sure, it was equally likely, I frantically pointed out, that I could have worn them anyway, just for myself, you know. What I didn’t admit to – what I don’t even like admitting to myself – was that on other occasions, I had rushed home from work and gotten changed entirely, swapping a sweatshirt for a camisole, a pair of brogues for a pair of strappy heels. Solely for the purpose of what? Seduction, I suppose… No one else was going to see the outfit, I was only going to be wearing it for around 15 minutes. 

"I rush home on the bus, pull out a variety of outfits, considering the way you can see through that blouse slightly or the way cardigan falls open."

Why do I find it so hard to admit? Why do I think the concept of dressing to impress a man has such a bad reputation in the first place? I suppose for me it boils down to a certain sense of 'unequalness'. Not inequality in any sort of real or political sense (I’m talking about dressing to get men to fancy me not dressing to get men to give me a job, which is a whole other can of worms), just the feeling that it’s unequal for a woman to put as much thought into the way she looks when men simply don't bother. They seem to be able to rely more fully on their wit and repartee than we can. Our personalities seem to matter less than our appearance does.

I mean, I like a strong forearm or that V of abdominal muscles as much as the next straight woman but the thought of a man wearing a T-shirt or a pair of trousers that would highlight their best physical attributes is a little bit ludicrous. They just don’t do it – the men I fancy lope around in the same shirts and jeans day in and day out, they don’t rush home on the bus, pull out a variety of outfits, considering the way you can see through that blouse slightly or the way cardigan falls open, before casually opening the door, pretending to have been caught completely unawares. 

But I do. And you probably do too, even though you huff at the idea of it.