Style 

With every column, I invent a fresh excuse, unearth an old metaphor, so I don’t have to date. Which you might consider an important pursuit for a dating columnist. But my heart has been pulverised and I haven’t been able to.

It has been almost a year since I saw the man who took a rotating blade to my innards. He did it carelessly, suffered nothing himself. I’m sick of rehearsing the details even to myself: we met, I pretend he’s called Zinedine Zidane because when I met him on Halloween two years ago that’s who he was dressed as, he made me laugh like no man ever has and I was mad about him from that instant. But he made it clear that he was up for an affair and no more. And since he was getting married to someone else, I had to decline that so generous offer, absolutely.

I know I should be over it. But still I can’t quite eat, and can’t quite sleep, and can’t quite think. I wake up alone, every day. I count it a week well spent if I’ve painted my own toenails. Or untangled the mess of my hair. I run around the park to a song by the Internet, in which the singer repeats, “I don’t love you no more” over and over again, hoping to brainwash myself to the point where that’s true…