Sometimes I miss my ex. Its been 6 weeks since we split. We were only together a year and a half; I’ve been through way worse breakups. And at the time it felt like a massive weight had been lifted, and, just to be clear from the outset, I still feel like that.

But yesterday I missed my ex. I saw a family in a car. Dad was driving, mum sitting next to him, kids in the back. It just looked so secure, so comforting, all traditional gender roles, estate car and wellies. It was so “we’re going to have a family day out, then mum will cook the dinner while dad plays football with the kids, then we’ll watch a movie from the family section on Netflix while eating popcorn before the kids go off to bed and mum and dad have quiet semi-satisfying, mostly predictable sex, before waking up and doing it all again tomorrow (except maybe without the sex because ya know, you can’t do it two nights in a row because we’re in a long term relationship).” It was that Facebook-family, that always look like they’re having a jolly time and isn’t it just wonderful family.

I had a few days like that with my ex, as a pre-blend blended family. And those kinds of days became pretty regular for us. But oh, my, god, at the time, I was actually rather frustrated and bored. I know that I most definitely do not want a “blended family”, I love my little family with my boys and have no intention of changing that. So why did seeing that family make my heart hurt fleetingly?

It wasn’t the family that I was attracted to; it was the relationship. When you’re in a relationship there is always someone who has your back, and there isn’t that occasional slightly panicked “I’m going to die alone” feeling that generates a full-blown existential crisis. In even in the strongest, most passionately independent single person (me) who never wants another relationship again, I do believe there is always a tiny part of them who feels this way at least sometimes.

And honestly, I am happy single. I love my life and feel so much happier out of the relationships I’ve had these last few years. That doesn’t mean I will be single forever, I do believe as humans we are meant to be in relationships, I just don’t think it’s healthy to get too independent. Its just not the right time for me right now. So, what exactly is making me yearn for that relationship when my life feels so full and rich?

Having pondered this extensively, I know that it is intimacy that I am missing. Not the sexual kind of intimacy (which is easy to get), but that intimacy that can only come from the comfort and security of a long-term relationship.

I now believe that you can only get true intimacy when its coupled with true love; where you can spend hours and hours with someone and them not get on your nerves or feel like you need a break, and when you know you are both fully on the same page, where you feel completely connected. But sadly, that’s pretty rare in reality. I can honestly say, I might have had that just once in my lifetime, at least I thought I did, then I seemed to lose it. And maybe I was lucky to even have it at all. 

Maybe the reason why the intimacy in my past relationships felt so wrong and uncomfortable was because it never really felt REAL. At the beginning of a new relationship, lust can convince you that they’re the one and everything’s just wonderful thank you very much. You push down the nagging doubts and ignore the red flags. But you have to step back and wait for a year, maybe even two before the daily grind sets in, and only then, if you manage to maintain those early wonderful feelings despite the trials and general crapola of life, can you call it true love? 

Either way, you HAVE to put the time in, have to be in it to win it, and decide whether to stick or roll the dice, it’s always a gamble. Can I really be arsed? Nope.

I’ve even tried to force the intimacy by getting it on with friends. Which in my mind has felt like a genius way to bypass some of the early do we get on, do we have the same kind of life values, is this person a psychopath etc crap that you have to get through with any new person to your life. But that has felt just as fake as when I’ve got into relationships with strangers through OLD (online dating).

But maybe I just don’t have the time or can’t even be arsed to have to go through another relationship and have to face another year of relationship yes, yes, yes… No.

Sometimes I miss my ex. I miss being told I’m beautiful every day. I miss being held in big strong arms. I miss knowing that there will be someone to hold my hair back for me if I’m sick. I miss someone making me a cup of tea in the morning. And yes, I miss sex. But what is most heart breaking and makes this whole thing feel so futile, is that all of these things are universal and could be provided to me by pretty much any man (or woman, I’m open) who wasn’t a complete wanker. It’s all so meaningless.

And that’s why clearly just any relationship isn’t enough for me, and why my heart just isn’t in looking for a relationship right now, and why I have ended up feeling so rotten in my last few relationships. Because I need all of the above but ALSO that intimacy that I will only ever find with my one true love, and there’s a small part of me that worries that maybe finding them is just too much to ask.

I just want the right person to come along and then I won’t have all this stupid emotional trauma, and I can just get on with my life.

To paraphrase Charlotte, I’m fucking exhausted, where the fuck are they?