Meanwhile, my personal life was a blightscape. While I had been abroad, the already limited social network I’d maintained outside of work had largely evaporated. I was in my early thirties, and my friends had all coupled up and hunkered down. People my age were maturing, nesting, and reproducing. I, by contrast, had just endured an epic breakup after a short, fiery relationship with a Spanish journalist I’d met in Iraq. But I was so focused on work that romantic stability wasn’t even on my list of priorities.
