When he arrives, he apologises profusely for being late (he isn’t). I give him time to remove his jacket and order a glass of pompous-sounding vin rouge. Then I launch into a well-worn speech. I tell him we’ve had fun over the last few months, but that this is our last date and we won’t be seeing each other again. He looks utterly crestfallen.
Yes, he is easy on the eye — tall with a good body — but my goodness he is dull. A banker, he has a gorgeous flat in Maida Vale, north London, refuses to ever let me pay my way, but his preferred reading material is the City pages of the newspaper, while I pore over the celebrity gossip. We just aren’t on the same page. I gulp down my glass of Pinot Grigio, stand up, kiss him on the cheek and trot out the door. No regrets whatsoever.
This was 1999 and I was 28. If I sound cold, I had already called time on a good dozen relationships by that point. The endings always instigated by me. Fastforward 25 years and at 53 I am proud to say I have never been dumped by a man. I like to think this demonstrates that I know my own mind. And I’d far rather young women read about feminine trailblazers like me than those boo-hoo Bridget Jones clichés.
Yes, of course, heartbreak is a universal human experience. I’ve certainly known loss — losing beloved pets and mourning the fact I wouldn’t become a mother. Those episodes of saying goodbye were far more significant than a break-up.
The secret
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