Maybe love is the answer to my problems!

Welcome to my delusional era

When I hear the song Ever Fallen in Love by The Buzzcocks, the lyrics of which go:

Ever fallen in love with someone/Ever fallen in love, in love with someone/Ever fallen in love, in love with someone/You shouldn’t have fallen in love with.

I always think, “Yes! Exclusively.” (And not just love: infatuations, flirtations and passing fancies — disasters, one and all.)

What IS wrong with me? Well, quite a lot as it turns out but we have limited space so this will have to be the abbreviated version.

To my surprise and inconvenience (considering I’m starting a PhD, need to overhaul this flat and haven’t begun preparing to welcome a cat), there have been times since my mum died when I’ve been convinced that what I need to help me feel better is… a relationship.

Partly, I blame Chrishell.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Chrishell Stause is the star of Netflix’s reality series Selling Sunset, which is allegedly about being an estate agent but is actually about catfights and short skirts (I say this without criticism; I’m not that interested in houses).

Having lost both her parents in the last few years following a very public divorce, she’s now thriving in her work and home life with her partner, Australian musician G-Flip, in a way that makes the hell she’s been through almost seem worth it.

I’m not someone who typically longs for love. I’m more of a “shut down and run away from it” type.

My tendencies to keep people at arm’s length and only be attracted to men who don’t like me as much as I like them (if at all) can probably be traced back to my parents’ divorce, that boring trope that I wish I could rise above but it’s a cliché for a reason.

If I had been more lovable and deserving, my family wouldn’t have fallen apart, is the myth most children of divorce tell themselves and the myth I thought I was too clever to have internalised until I went to therapy years later and found out how predictable I was.

Worse still, I was a feminist. (Still am, I guess, although now I’m more interested in anti-oppressive frameworks that neither centre able-bodied cis white women nor celebrate Kamala Harris as any kind of “empowering” figure.)

I internalised my mum’s warnings that you can’t trust anyone, combined them with the second wave motto “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and concluded that ultra-independence was the key to happiness.

It’s true there are many reasons for women to run screaming from heterosexual relationships.

Men assault and kill us in huge numbers, discriminate against us as a matter of course and condescend to us on a daily basis.

Growing up, the wives I knew seemed trapped in lives of endless drudgery and I was determined not to be like them, gleeful that I’d discovered a loophole: just never have a relationship (and certainly don’t have kids!) and you’ll always be OK.

I’m not clear, looking back, how I imagined my future would look in a world that encourages us to prioritise romance to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Maybe I thought I’d magically stumble across the non-condescending, housework-loving man of my dreams. Perhaps I envisaged that I’d still see my closest friends every day, or that I’d live with my mum until I was in my mid-40s… Oh.

I did have one long-term relationship when I was younger with someone who was my exact opposite in almost every way but after that, I shut down for good. It was too painful to break up and I wasn’t looking to do that again.

I also increasingly conceived of my body as unacceptable.

The longer I’ve been chronically ill, the more I’ve seen it as too fat, too ugly, too scarred and too defective. I didn’t want to look at it or live in it, let alone let anyone else see it.

When dating apps became popular, I was naively incredulous that people would match and date and sleep with people they hardly knew, based on how they looked.

I assumed that if I ever had another serious relationship, it would be after undergoing an intensive makeover and/or nourishing a decades-long friendship.

I wasn’t bothered that I had no prospects and no way to find them because I’d shut down my feelings, boxed them away, and told myself I was happy fine as I was.

When my mum was here, I didn’t feel lonely, didn’t miss out on hugs and had someone to talk to about the minutiae of my day.

Her death has broken my heart and in casting about for a solution, my mind keeps returning to the idea that romantic love could put the pieces back together.

I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way.

I went to a grief workshop in the first weeks of my bereavement where I spoke to three other women whose parents had died suddenly.

One was traumatised not only by her mum’s death but by how quickly her dad had moved on: within two weeks, he was on the apps, and within two months, he had a new partner. I was shocked when we spoke but although that still seems quick, I get it now.

Grief is so unbearable that sometimes our brains just think, NO MORE PAIN, NICE THINGS ONLY PLEASE.

My own longing hasn’t been helped by Nobody Wants This., the Netflix drama where podcaster Kristen Bell falls for star-crossed rabbi Adam Brody, who does things like anticipate her needs, embrace her weird family and place both hands on her face when he kisses her. Swoon.

Unfortunately, I’m not half as pretty as either of its stars and being Covid Cautious has narrowed my potential dating pool to almost zero, plus it would take a really weird person to be looking for someone who cries all the time, is dreading the future and could accurately list their current interests as nothing.

The good news for my fragile heart is that until my self-cut fringe grows out and my eye circles fade, I don’t have enough flattering photos to even think about making a dating profile, let alone bumping into a eligible religious leader at a dinner party.

I also feel like maybe I should heal some of my psychological issues so I’m not replicating an unhealthy dynamic.

There’s a theory that you go for people you shouldn’t because they give you something from your childhood that you’re still seeking.

I’m not saying it’s true for everyone but I still remember the shiver of recognition I felt when my ex came to pick me up from a friend’s baby shower and instead of coming inside, he sat in the car, reading a paper and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, just as my dad would have done.

But addressing your issues, learning to love yourself and building real connections takes time and sounds like hard work when you just want someone to tell you that you look pretty today.

And it’s complicated by the fact that I’ve diagnosed myself as suffering from one of the most disgusting-sounding afflictions known to humans: “skin hunger”.

You know things are bad when you go for a silly little mental health walk and find tears streaking down your cheeks as you internally scream, I WANT A HUGGGGGG!

You know they’re disastrous when you’re jealous of two German shepherds in a misspelled social media post.

Obviously, a romantic relationship isn’t a moratorium on your worth: some horrible people (and dogs) have them and some lovely people (and dogs) don’t but not having one when you’ve belatedly realised you might want to does make you feel a bit like a social leper.

Of course, I get that none of this is my real problem.

This is just how my grief is manifesting right now, a way for my brain to fixate on something simultaneously hopeful and hopeless that keeps me from thinking about the fact that the person I loved most in the world has gone away and is never coming back. (How can that be true? How?)

I just want NO MORE PAIN, NICE THINGS ONLY PLEASE.

Or another series of Nobody Wants This, literally yesterday.

Or a flat that someone else has put the effort into overhauling, and for the love of god, at least one cat.