Local heartthrob, Geoffrey McTurbot (20), is pretty sure he’s just stolen the heart of a girl he shared a canoe with during Year 10 camp.

Geoffrey’s heist technique involved sending a series of unanswered greetings over an extended period of time.

The messages range from ‘the classy Hey,’ to the politely inquisitive ‘How was your day? :)’ to the enduringly bold ‘What are you up to this weekend?’

‘Humans are persistence hunters, we’ve been doing this for millennia,’ sniffled Geoffrey.

‘It’s all about the chase, I know she’s playing hard to get. If only you’d been there for that conversation in the canoe, we connected on a spiritual level.’

Unfathomably, the last fifteen of Geoffrey’s messages have gone unread after Isobel Rostron (20) gave up responding to them out of politeness. We caught up with Isobel to ask whether Geoffrey’s analogy, comparing her to a wild gazelle that would be chased down by a primitive hunter over the course of a day, has sparked her interest.

‘He keeps banging on about this canoe but I honestly cannot remember it for the life of me,’ said Isobel.

‘I mean, by all accounts, we were stuck in a six foot boat for three hours and had a polite conversation. Now he’s planned our lives together and has commissioned an artist’s impression of our three hypothetical children. I actually didn’t even realise that he sent another one, I’ve had the convo muted for a couple of years.’

Scientists believe that this lack of social awareness is caused by the shame and embarrassment receptors in the brain being overridden by an overwhelming desire to procreate.

Unfortunately for Isobel’s inbox, there is surely more to come.