It takes three or four episodes to get completely hooked, but then…

We watched this show because the “New York Times” said it was one of the best foreign series of the year. And at first I didn’t get it, it seemed too light, too surface, but then…

What we’ve got here is Amanda, who works with her mother and sister, who hasn’t had a boyfriend for ten years and decides to dip her toe into the dating world.

But it never works out. Ergo, “Diary of a Ditched Girl.”

Now it’s hard to avoid politics these days, everything seems to hang in the balance, but the truth is most people are just trying to live their lives, like Amanda in this series. She’s not setting the world on fire career-wise, she doesn’t dream of being an influencer, she just wants the basics, work and someone to come home to, someone to talk to, someone to relate to, someone to have sex with.

And there’s a lot of sex in this show. You’ll be shocked that Amanda is frequently topless, but the Swedes don’t have the same puritan values as Americans.

So… Amanda has friends. But except for her friend who is a doctor, they all seem to be much more fluent in relationships than she is. As for her sister Adina…she’s got a boyfriend, Filip, who is nice, and they include Amanda in their lives, but to be the older single sister…at times that’s wrenching.

And that’s what makes this series so great, the emotions Amanda goes through.

How do you play the text game… Do you even call?

We’ve all been there… What does it mean if they don’t respond… What does it mean if they don’t respond quickly… Are they just not into you or are you too neurotic and should just roll with the changes.

Amanda is thirty one, and if you’re older you’re done with this phase, unless you too are now single… Then again, so many single Boomers and Gen-X’ers have taken themselves off the market, they just don’t want to get hurt again, they can’t handle it.

But Amanda is in the throes of it. How does she play it? Coy? Or does she go for it? She’s trying out different strategies and getting different reactions. It all doesn’t seem to make sense. Do these men want to see her again? Should she go along with their sexual shenanigans, should she insist on orgasming herself? She’s lying in bed, right next to him, feeling far away…then again, how does he feel?

Carla Sehn as Amanda is incredible. The facial expressions, the way she displays emotions. She can be thrilled and smiling and then pensive and then destroyed, just like you and me. Her moods resonate. This is the most accurate depiction of the ups and downs of the dating world I’ve ever seen. But it’s not only the interactions between two people, but Amanda’s inner dialogue.

And her mother is involved with a man who is unavailable and her father is demanding and never there for her, he’s invested in his second family. At times it’s torturous… Just going through the days, existing, hanging on…

And, once again, do you get aggressive or do you hang back and wait for the world to come to you? And how come it seems so much simpler for other people, how come it never works out for you?

“Diary of a Ditched Girl” is only seven half hour episodes.

It’s funny, before this we watched the new “Knives Out” movie, the only one I’ve seen… It’s the opposite of “Diary of a Ditched Girl,” it’s flat. There are twists and turns in the plot, but you’re watching and never involved, you don’t feel it.

That’s the advantage of series, the characters are more fully developed, the story slows down, not everything needs to be resolved in ninety minutes or two hours.

I was disappointed “Diary of a Ditched Girl” ended… I was invested in Amanda, I wanted to know more.

And I think you will too if you watch this series.

I’m not sure it’s for everybody, but I’m stunned there’s no buzz on it.

Once again, Carla Sehn rings so true as Amanda…it’s the best portrait I’ve seen of a young woman this year, fully three-dimensional, she doesn’t seem to be playing the role, she is the role.

I just want to hip you to her and the series.