A Lenten Gift

Once again, I am here at the bottom of a cul de sac. I have reached a dating dead end and the only option is to turn around and find a new route, out of online dating. My journey is done. There have been countless messages, a handful of dates but a heap ton of heartache. Not truly heartbroken. Not ‘will never move on with my life’ heartbroken. But a deep ache and a complete lack of faith in relationships.

I have already written about the horrors of modern dating. I wrote about the need for resilience and this will be ever true. Where you seek love, you find pain. To offer your heart is to offer something delicate and soft. A complex structure, made of valves and ventricles, connective tissues that are easily torn and bruised. And it bleeds. Your blood rushes through it and it is life or death. Figuratively and literally. But the heart is a muscle and for those who haven’t had the chance to strengthen that muscle, those less resilient, it is easy to end up here. At the arse end of nowhere, nose grazed, eyes blackened and lip split from hitting yet another brick wall, face first.

My lenten promise is to give up dating. I know I am 5 days late, but Jesus would appreciate the sentiment and I heard that lent doesn’t include weekends, so I have just taken the weekends all at once. Like lenten flexitime.

That doesn’t mean I will start again at Easter. I am not expecting the next Mr Jemma to pop out from a tomb on Easter Sunday and to start speaking in tongues or the international language of love. (The tongues thing just made me gag a little. Sorry, too graphic) Incidentally, one guy I dated did actually vanish into the wilderness, only to pop up again 40 days and 40 nights later with a “how you doin’?” They all seem to think they are God’s Gift.

Maybe the Easter theme, with all its promise of new beginnings is highly appropriate, now we are approaching the end of ‘cuffing season.’ I have had dalliances for almost all of the cosiest of cuffing occasions- a Bonfire Night date, a New Year’s Eve messaging frenzy, a birthday kiss, a Valentine’s Day vino or two. But it isn’t even the 29th February, when I could be proposing to a boy (illegally – I’m still married for now) without fear of patriarchal scorn, and yet again, I am starting afresh. I am completely and utterly done with relationships. I am starting a new life.

Only I am not really. Love is where you find it and I infuriate myself for obsessing over romantic love when I already have love in abundance. Why do we obsess about romantic love and the nuclear family, when in 2024 relationships and families are a complex tapestry with different meanings for so many people? I blame fucking Disney. I mean, those original fairy tales are creepy AF but Disney spun it so good, I believed Mr Right would sweep me off my feet with the kiss of true love, even if I was KO’d for a hundred years. And it definitely doesn’t work like that.

Disney relationships aren’t real (I bet even Prince Eric leaves the toilet seat up) but I do have real, joyful relationships that mean absolutely fucking everything. I have a great family and beautiful sons. But there are also others in my life who have my heart and, invariably, they protect it fiercely.

It turns out the loves of my life are women (No, you perv. Get your mind out of the gutter). More specifically, three lesbians (stop it), a friend of 30 years who lives the other end of the country and a group of girls I have adopted from their husbands, along with a small collection of colleagues . Women are the great, passionate loves of my life. Whilst any joy in romantic love has been crucified numerous times by various dating sites, my closest friends continually give me new life. They make me laugh harder than anyone else, listen to me whinge far more than they should have to and fully accept I am a loud, annoying, chronic over-sharer with a mucky mind and they embrace it. And aren’t afraid to take the piss to keep me grounded.

I find it massively frustrating that I am once again writing romantic love off as a bad job. At least for now. First, I need to fix my relationship with myself; unpick all the messy bits and pieces that make us human. I am entering what the kids on socials call my “healing era.” (Insert closed eyed selfie with pout and peace sign) And whilst I am in that phase, I am basking in the love and compassion of the women who have endured and outlasted the train of fucked up relationships, flings and fuck boys of the last 20 years. Platonic love is love. And love is a gift. I love you, bitches.