Good Material

by Dolly Alderton

“In my experience, being single is a lot of awkwardness and insecurity. And bad nights out. And disappointments. And then you have, like, one incredible Saturday night once every three years that could only happen if you’re single.”

“I’ve got to run a few errands. Go to the hardware shop. Then drop this to Belmarsh Prison,” he says, tapping the letter. “Right,” I say, filling my water bottle up from the tap. “You know someone in there?” “Yes and no, shall we say,” he says. There is a long pause as he looks at me without blinking. “If you don’t want to tell me who, that’s fine,” I say. “It’s Julian Assange.”

And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. That instinct never goes—look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I’ve chosen to represent who I am. It was fun to find out about each other’s self-made cultures and make our own hybrid in the years of eating, watching, reading, listening, sleeping and living together.

“You so clearly know what you want and what you don’t want. And I think that’s great,” I say. “At twenty-three I had no rules for anything.”

Here’s what I’m getting at: I don’t know if I really want to move on, because the further away I get from the pain, the further away I get from her.

And every day spent with her was something to come down from and every day that would be spent with her was something worth losing sleep over.

Because the person who is in charge in a relationship is the one who loves the least.

It’s fine, you’ve done nothing wrong. You never promised her anything. You’ve only been dating a month. You’re probably imagining these feelings you think she has for you.

“Getting dumped is never really about getting dumped.” “What is it about, then?” I ask. “It’s about every rejection you’ve ever experienced in your entire life.

Really, the thing that’s going to hurt a lot is the fact that someone doesn’t want to be with you any more. Feeling the absence of someone’s company and the absence of their love are two different things. I wish I’d known that earlier. I wish I’d known that it isn’t anybody’s job to stay in a relationship they don’t want to be in just so someone else doesn’t feel bad about themselves.

I don’t know what made me decide I wanted to be in a relationship. I don’t know whether it was something I actually wanted, or whether it was something I got frustrated with myself for not wanting. Did I get bored of myself? Did I become too familiar with the rhythms of single life? Did I start to believe what everyone was telling me?

Did I want any of it? Did I want to be someone’s girlfriend? Was it something I could do? In my years of being single, I had said as much to friends, which was always taken as an expression of insecurity or fear. “You just haven’t met the right person,” they’d assure me. But, there I was, with the right person. He wasn’t perfect, but I was in love with him and he was in love with me. And yet I could never really understand whether I was in a good relationship or not. I couldn’t measure what the reality of long-term love was; what was settling for something when I should be asking for more.

“You have a home that is yours,” she said. “And your own money. Don’t you?” “I have a bit of money, yes.” “And you have your education. And you have your career.” I nodded. “Then you have everything,” she said.

And I thought: if I feel single, wouldn’t it be easier to be single? And then I wouldn’t have to worry about disappointing someone or someone disappointing me? When I’m single, I know where I am. I am alone when I’m ill, but I’m not abandoned. I get a promotion and I celebrate with friends, rather than worrying that my good news might make my partner feel insecure. I can navigate the difficulties of being on my own, but I don’t think I can navigate the difficulties of this. Wouldn’t it be easier to be single?

how I’d noticed that he’d stopped finding me sexy and started finding me sweet—that he used to grab my bum and kiss me, and now he kissed me on the head and pulled the zipper of my jacket up and down in a cutesy way. “Wait till he stops finding you sweet,” she said. “That’s a whole other phase.”

And I know he was telling the truth. He would have loved me unquestioningly and stubbornly forever. And I don’t know if I want to be loved like that.

I told my therapist that being in my first long-term relationship made me realize my life had been just as great before, just a different kind of great. And she told me that this was not something I should ignore.

“I’m worried about being alone and missing him,” and she told me that it wasn’t a good idea to stay with someone for reasons of fear.

“You’ve always been alone, my darling. That’s one of the things that makes you so unique. You were alone when I met you, you’re alone in a crowd of people, you were alone when you were with Andy.”

“Be alone, Jen. You know how to be alone without being lonely. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how much I wish I could do that? It’s a wonderful thing you’ve got going on there.”