Cars rush past us, lights bright. White, red. White, red. The sound of The Granta pub, which I hadn’t noticed whilst we were part of it, the sound of raised voices and breathy laughs and glasses clinking, leaks out and seeps into the tarmac. We turn right and head back along the road. He says something but I don’t hear. I am busy trying to remember which pair of knickers I have on and whether I have shaved my armpits, because he has invited me back to his place.

Later, shoes off, we walk circles around each other, slowly, like sharks in a tank. Although it has not been said aloud, we both know what is about to happen. He’s been quiet all evening, shady and mysterious like Brad Pitt in Fight Club, and now we are in silence. I know this is the best bit. I know that once it starts then it eventually has to end, and the ending is the painful part, but right now it is all still ahead of me, unlived.

“They don’t want a relationship, but they want just enough intimacy to tide themselves over to when they decide they do”

Soon my white cardigan is a small knitted heap on the floor. His grey hoodie, which marked a sincere lack of effort, sits next to it. For twenty minutes, he focuses on himself, and then, when we are finished, he rolls off me again. The sudden absence of his bodyweight surprises me. I feel light, as if I normally go about my everyday life with eighty kilos of man squashing me.

I can’t stay, he says.

We put our clothes back on and I walk him out of college, since the gate is locked at that time of night. He doesn’t say much, but he makes sure he is clear of one thing:

Just so you know, I’m not really a relationship person.

The problem is that men don’t want to date me. And I don’t mean they don’t want to date me because I’m too tall, or too wide, or too intimidating. This is probably the case for some men, of course, since I accept I’m not going to appeal to everyone, but as a general rule, what seems to be happening is that rather than choosing to date me, these self-defined ‘bad boys’ just want to use me to fill all the gaps that they have created for themselves by abstaining from dating. They don’t want a relationship, first and foremost, but they want just enough intimacy to tide themselves over to when they decide they do.

However, it would be wrong of me to solely blame men. It would be wrong of me to try and absolve myself of any responsibility. We’re all at it. We’re all dating the wrong people, the ones who are mysterious and exciting but don’t want us, even when we have somebody who actually cares ready and waiting. We’re all up late, messaging people who won’t message us back, while we ignore messages from those that like us, but that we have not given a chance.

“Why is interest such a turnoff? What is it about the chase that is so appealing?”

Last year, with this guy, it was the same every time. He sent me a text and then arrived in a taxi. I collected him from the street. He took off my clothes and his clothes and rocked back and forth on top of me for twenty minutes. Then I wouldn’t hear from him for a couple of weeks. In the time between visits, I’d speak to other people. A mathematician who lives by the sea. A rugby captain with blue eyes. A footballer with a voice that sounds like coffee smells. They were all kind to me. They asked questions and listened to the answers. And yet I found myself thinking about the guy who said so little. The guy who I only saw when it was dark outside. The guy who didn’t care.

Why do we have this strange habit of picking people who don’t like us? Why are ‘he’s too nice’ or ‘she too keen’ real complaints? Why is interest such a turnoff? What is it about the chase that is so appealing?

It’s about time we were honest with ourselves. There is nothing romantic about loving people who do not love us back. There is nothing romantic about mascara running down your cheeks because you are tired of your energy dissipating into empty space. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote ‘there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving’. He was right. Real love is stable. Real love is thick porridge, warm belly, wholesome. Real love doesn’t leave you lonely, or crying on the curb because someone didn’t show up when they said they would.

I am still young, but I know that the best advice I can give myself, and anyone else for that matter, is not to confuse hope with love. You can hope until you are blue in the face, but the bad boy is not going to love you back. To choose somebody different, somebody who will, changes everything. It’s hard, but this is what we all must aim for. This is how we move forward.