When the person I’d been dating for a few months told me that he was getting back together with his ex-girlfriend, effectively ending our situationship, I went a bit light-headed. It did not help that it was at my favorite bar on a Saturday night, I hadn’t had much sleep and we’d had six double G&Ts between us. Passersby stubbed their cigarettes out in the ashtray on our table as he emphasized how gutted he was because I had been “so much fun“. He told me I was so cool, so pretty, so smart, so funny. “You’re sexy,” he added for good measure, “I really rate you.” To my brain, the subtext was obnoxiously clear: I like fucking you but I don’t like YOU. If the ground had split in two and swallowed me up in that exact moment, I would’ve been thankful.
