So over the last year me and HR continued to talk regularly, continued to see each other, continued to sleep with each other. He came to see me for a weekend in my new house in my new city in August. We talked about him moving to Liverpool next year. We talked about him coming to my Hallowe'en party. I wasn't really sure what was going on with "us" but I was quite happy for the status quo to continue.
And then, quite suddenly, he changed his mind. He wasn't going to apply to Liverpool for his job any more. He was going to apply to Scotland.
Scotland.
Fucking SCOTLAND. COULD YOU GET ANY FURTHER AWAY.
The only reason he would come to Liverpool would be for me, and he'd feel foolish if when he got here I was with someone else. And actually, he'd visited Edinburgh recently and quite liked it.
And so, in the period of nine months, he broke my fucking heart into pieces for the second time.
We haven't spoken since. He got disinvited to the Halloween party.
And for the last month I have been up and down like a roller coaster. I've tried to tell myself that I need to get out there and meet someone new. I've downloaded all the dating apps, and have really tried to put some effort into them. But it's not really getting anywhere, I start talking to guys but inevitably it peters out, and not by me! Literally all the last messages sent are from me, not the other way around, so not really sure what's going wrong or why these men are getting bored of me. I go through a flurry of activity, it dries up, I think what is the bloody point, none of these men are
HR anyway, - I think NO - persevere, repeat, rinse, ad nauseum.
Being super busy at work helps, I go through the entire day without thinking about him, and can be generally pretty happy and on top of things but it's the mornings or the evenings or the long weekends alone where I cry myself to sleep/burst into tears in the middle of exercise workouts because I've lost the love of my life. Like, if our circumstances were different and we'd been at the same stage of life we'd still be together. Without one shred of doubt. And I rage against the unfairness, against the sheer bad luck of it all. Because that's the only thing that's kept us apart. We didn't have a single argument. No one did anything shitty. We fancied the pants off each other. We had so many common interests. We went on two amazing holidays (I can now never go back to either Bruges or Iceland). He made me laugh. He was generous. He let me rant about feminism. He fucking dressed up as a Game of thrones character with me. He made 2014 the best year of my life. He knew me. He got me. He loved me.
And now I'm crying again.
Because now, and for the rest of my life, I'll have A One That Got Away.
Because I have someone that I'll probably never truly 100% get over.
Because we'll always have unfinished business.
Because there will always be a part of me that will ask, "What if?"
And whether I want it to happen or not, every man I meet will be measured up against him and he's set the bar fucking high. And I'm not optimistic currently that anyone will even come near to the impossibly high standard that he's set, let alone surpass it.
