es, yes, it's achieved the impossible: brought back watercooler terrestrial TV, united the UK's viewing habits, healed our divided nation. But more importantly, The Celebrity Traitors has given us a lens through which to look at life. Currently, the only conversation worth having is what you think you, whoever you're talking to, and all your friends and family members would be like as contestants on the show. It's a quick-smart way to evaluate society, a new shorthand. Describe a stranger as having "Faithful energy" and there are surely about two humans on these islands who wouldn't understand exactly what you mean.

Can you handle the truth, though? It was a poignant moment on my journey of self-acceptance when I was forced to acknowledge that I'd be terrible as both a Traitor and a Faithful. However, confronted with most of the people who know me best being absolutely certain, laughing through tears at the idea of any other outcome, there was no getting away from it. The accusation was levelled that I would jump out of my skin and squeal if my shoulder was touched at the initial roundtable, meaning my Traitorhood would be over before it had begun, which was futile to deny. I suggested I might try to make the squeal seem like a double bluff – which was met with further amusement. Apparently my poker face is even less convincing than I thought. I'd make Richard E Grant look like a slick covert operator.

And, as a Faithful, I'd be a nervous wreck, over-wary of everybody, including myself, incapable of not analysing each aspect of all interactions to the point where I'd be so suspicious I'd probably try to banish Claudia Winkleman and several of the viewers at home.

There's compelling evidence my nearest and dearest are correct in their assessments of me, because I've actually played the game at The Traitors Live Experience in central London. I went with my then 11-year-old son, his friend, and the friend's mum. The rest of our roundtable was made up of strangers, and presided over by an intimidating Winkleman wannabe; there was dramatic music and ominous spotlights. It all felt very real.

The other mum was murdered immediately. My son went rogue, like those players you watch through your fingers wondering, "Whyyyy?": he made a completely unnecessary speech at banishment, and was then banished. I felt bad for his friend, now just hanging with me, rather than his best mate or mum. To try to make the poor boy feel better, I told him we should stick together. Clearly desperate for reassurance, he looked up at me with puppy-dog eyes: "Promise me you're not a Traitor?" he whispered. I assured him I wasn't – which was true – knowing that sadly he wasn't going to be able to believe me, bless his little heart.

Yup, obviously he was the last Traitor standing, and won the game he had kicked off by cheerfully murdering his own mother. I was clueless throughout, like those naive suckers round the fire at the end, with no doubt in their mind they're about to share the prize pot with the brand new lifelong friend they totally trust. The ones we pity and laugh at.

Weighing up those around you as potential participants can confirm what you've always thought about some people, and make you see others in a new light. My husband would be a brilliant Traitor, a realisation that has made me fancy him more, because: Hello, edgy! His natural labrador persona could so easily conceal a darker mwah-ha-ha side, and as long as I don't think about how this could be perhaps not entirely brilliant for a marriage, we're on to a winner. I can imagine some friends being unexpectedly good Traitors, and others only able to exist as honest, dependable Faithfuls. One of my cats would be ruthless, the other hopeless.

Of course there's always a chance I'm reading everyone wrong, and vice versa. We can speculate, guess and presume, but we can't really judge until we've walked a mile in the Traitors' cloaks, looking a bit like ET under that hood, carrying a lantern. That's the thing with The Traitors, isn't it? That's what keeps us hooked. You never really know.