.

I went for a run today and it cleared my thoughts. I felt as if I had a halo or a beam of light emanating from my head because I felt like I had come so far in just half an hour. I was going to speak to Harry about everything that was in my head, the things that were there after speaking to Gabriele about it, that life-changing moment where you don’t realise it until it’s over and another cloud has been lifted from your reality.

What I was going to tell him was this; I am a woman, this is different from a man. A man can be intimate with a woman and feel nothing. As a woman I feel things, not love but what can best be described simply as feelings. And as a woman I can do things, see things, experience things and sometimes I am funny. I am a woman, and that is why I need to be treated as one. I want to do things, cuddle on the couch, go to the movies and have dinner. All of these things do not mean that I will fall in love with you, because it is hard for a woman to fall in love. The behaviour a woman demonstrates when she is with a man can sometimes be misconstrued as love. But no, more than our need to love comes our need to FEEL loved, and that is why we want to do all those things a real couple does as it insinuates the man cares for her. The things a woman can do like be clingy, want to be near the man all the time and want to do things for them and want the man to do things for her isn’t her falling in love; this is her wanting to feel loved. And I would only EVER fall in love with someone who was intelligent, funny, sincere, has integrity and who loves me. So you don’t have to worry about me falling in love with you.

But when Harry walked into the living room, did not bother to say hi and when I asked him for a cigarette he threw it onto the couch next to me and walked off without a word, my halo vanished. Anger saturated me and I knew that this was it- I was going to do better.

I realise I am very angry, angry and hurt and upset. Because I feel as if I will never be loved and that I am unlovable. I am now 24 and am still as single as I was when I broke up with David four years ago. Four years- that’s  a sixth of my life or even more than half of the period in my life when I started dating boys. The ratios don’t look promising. I find myself feeling jealous of every girl who has what I don’t, especially when they talk about it or I see her cuddling her man, I feel sick and cynical but really I feel SAD. So sad I can barely admit it to myself.