Look at you. So special, so self-absorbed. Who will take you like that?
And you are no better — entrenched in the interviewer's chair, trying to pin down a feeling that cannot be pinned down, longing for a relationship but furious when the other side realises you have developed a dependency on them.
I see a great many good and worthy women and men withering in unnecessary loneliness. It does not have to be like this. I want to help.
One. The compromises you make are supposed to hurt you a great deal. This is not a malfunction.
When a relationship becomes serious, there is a moment of freezing water — difficult but essential. Until the real meeting, you lived in a fantastical and untruthful world. Now, when she agrees to be held in your arms, you finally understand one of the things that separates a child from an adult: in order to live as well as possible, you have to be capable of giving up things you never thought you could give up.
Two. We are afraid of dying alone. Do not you dare be ashamed of that.
"I'm fine on my own" is usually a foolish defeatism dressed up as resilience. We are social creatures and we long to belong romantically to another person. Anyone who acknowledges that openly will more easily draw another lonely heart towards them.
And anyone who looks down on you because you fear loneliness is probably not fit to be your partner. It is that simple.
Three. Your friends are on your side. Social media is on your side. Do not listen.
It is far more comfortable to be surrounded by a herd of yes-sayers, and above all by a cluster of two-a-penny psychologists who see your time between four walls as evidence of being a strong woman.
Anyone who cannot give you a kick up the backside or a slap of reality is probably not a good friend.
Anyone stroking your ego online probably covets your money.
They will not hold you on the cold nights. But the irritating man who pulls faces at you every weekend will not let you cry yourself to sleep.
Four. Sex is simply a hurdle you have to get over. Stop making an issue of it.
A relationship differs from a close friendship in that you have sex. Between the male eagerness to settle the matter quickly and the female wait until I feel safe, an essential negotiation takes place over a not especially critical question that is dressed up as fateful.
You will have continuous physical intimacy at some stage. It is not a prize somebody awards and it is not a test somebody has to pass. It is simply another way for the two of you to speak and to express love.
Five. Usually there must be something else interesting and meaningful in your life that is not your partner.
Putting all the eggs of meaning into your beloved's basket is a recipe for disappointment. Finding interest, and curiosity, and something that gets you out of bed, is not a betrayal of the relationship. It is what makes you worth coming home to.