EVER since her very public split from Brad Pitt in 2005, there’s been a special place in the gossip columns reserved for speculation about Jennifer Aniston’s love life.

The magazine industry’s favourite single girl only has to stand next to a member of the opposite sex and the gossip mills are whirring into action with reports of Jen’s “mystery man”.

“It’s always a funny feeling when you’re walking down a street shooting a movie and all of a sudden, the paparazzi are there and everybody flees, because they don’t want to be the person who is stuck with the mystery gu’ arrow,” jokes Jen, when we meet to chat about her latest film Love Happens.

“My poor girlfriend – we were going on holiday and her boyfriend happened to walk with me onto the plane, so snap, snap, the next thing you knew, mystery man. and it was my friend’s boyfriend!”

The latest rumours concern her friendship with one Gerard Butler, with whom she recently finished filming action movie The Bounty.

They’ve been spotted dining together, but Jen insists there’s nothing romantic going on with the hunky Scottish actor.

“No, but he’s a dear friend, I do adore him,” she says, a broad smile lighting her already tanned face.

With the world’s media scrutinising her every move, it’s hardly surprising Jen seems to have been unlucky in love since her split from Brad.

She dated The Break Up co-star Vince Vaughn, then model Paul Sculfor and had an on-off relationship with singer John Mayer, which ended in last March.

And with her latest film casting her as a free spirit, who keeps falling for the wrong guy, there’s due to be another wave of press intrusion into her love life.