“Maybe it’s just greed but I can’t help wanting that one person who loves and stays with me forever.”
BY THE CHEEKY CHARMER, IMAGE BY KAROLINA GRABOWSKA VIA PEXELS
Sometimes it feels ironic writing a column called Love After Lockdown. I mean sure, this is after lockdown. But where’s my love?
When I started this column, a year ago, I envisioned myself happily settled with a girlfriend by this point. Well, I hoped for that in my “always the romantic” kind of way. Finding my soul mate was all I dreamt about during the pandemic. I even took to spooning a pillow at night because imagining it’s my love helps me sleep. I now can’t stop spooning said pillow. I think we’re technically engaged.
Actually, that’s a lie. Finding my soul mate wasn’t just a lockdown fantasy. It’s what I’ve always dreamt about, my whole life.
And you know what, I can’t complain. I’ve had a couple of really beautiful loves. So, maybe it’s true what they say about everyone having more than one twin flame?
Maybe it’s just greed but I can’t help wanting that one person who loves and stays with me forever. The one I grow old and take up knitting with.
It’s not that I want a girlfriend (or a knitting partner) for the sake of it. I want the right one. The person who loves and gets me, who I’m safe with and who I build a little world with. My person. My cheer leader. My team-mate. My love.
You see, underneath all the cheekiness and the charm, I’m actually just a great big beating heart looking for love. Think Andrex puppy commercial in human form. That’s me.
And I thought I’d found her in Rose. Beautiful Rose who made me feel like the handsome Prince in a fairy-tale the night we met. Beautiful Rose who said I swept her off her feet. But the truth is, she equally swept me off mine. It was like the stars aligned and maybe, just maybe I’d found my wife.
At least that’s how it felt in my head.
There was a whirlwind of love, fun, sex and adventures, deep talks and connecting in ways I’d never imagined. She got me like no-one else ever had. She saw and celebrated my beautiful gender-queerness right from day one. She called me “handsome” instead of beautiful, instinctively knew how to gender me in bed and it just felt so beautifully right.
Until it didn’t. Until we broke up and my heart burst into a million pieces. Yes, that’s an exaggeration but I think we all know what a hopeless romantic I am by now.
The thing is, it’s still not fully put itself back together, this ‘ol heart of mine. There are little bits of burst cheeky charmer heart all over the place. Which sounds delightful. Sorry for that unfortunate metaphor.
It’s been four months and I’m still not over her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fully functioning human being and definitely over the worst. It’s a gradual process. I’ve even been on a couple of dates. But I don’t give someone my heart very often and she’s still in there. I’d say “like a thorn on a Rose” but that sounds lame, even for me.
And this particular thorn does need to come out. You see Rose has moved on and I know I need to as well. But somehow that little thorny, prickle of pain is comforting. It’s preferable to the nothingness because it means she’s still there.
So, I guess I’ll go back to spooning my pillow. But, the thing with that is, it’s just not the same. All it really does is remind you there’s no-one there.
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