“Getting dumped is never really about getting dumped. … It’s about every rejection you’ve ever experienced in your entire life. It’s about the kids at school who called you names. And the parent who never came back. And the girls who wouldn’t dance with you at the disco. And the school girlfriend who wanted to be single until she went to uni. And any criticism at work. When someone says they don’t want to be with you, you feel the pain of every single one of those times in life where you felt like you weren’t good enough. You live through all of it again. … You don’t let go once. That’s your first mistake. You say goodbye for a lifetime. … You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times.”

“Does it get easier?”

“Much,” she says.

And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favorite 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. Our culture was tea drunk from very large mugs. And looking forward to the Glastonbury ticket day and the new season of Game of Thrones and taking the piss out of ourselves for being just like everyone else. Our culture was over-tipping in restaurants because we both used to work in the service industry, salty popcorn at the cinema and afternoon naps. Side-by-side morning sex. Homemade Manhattans. Barmade Manhattans (much better). Otis Redding's “Cigarettes and Coffee" (our song). Discovering a new song we both loved and listening to it over and over again until we couldn't listen to it any more. Period dramas on a Sunday night. That one perfect vibrator that finished her off in seconds when we were in a rush. Gravy. David Hockney. Truffle crisps. Can you believe it? I still can't believe it. A smell indisputably reminiscent of bums. On a crisp. And yet we couldn’t get enough of them together - stuffing them in our gobs, her head on my chest, me trying not to get crumbs in her hair as we watched Sense and Sensibility (1995). But I’m not a member of that club anymore. No one is. It’s been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all this stuff? Where do I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I’m no longer in a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird?

‘But do I ever think about what my life would have been like had I been brave enough to not become a mother? Had I been brave enough to even imagine what that life could have been like?’

‘Life is a bit more difficult for women. More difficult than it is for us, I mean. And you don’t need to ask them to explain why or understand at all. You just need to be nice to them.’ He looks up at me nervously. ‘ Do you understand what I’m saying?’

I'm sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked myself, that must have been a lot to carry. I'm sorry I didn't take care of you the way you took care of me. And I'm sorry I didn't take care of myself, either. I need to work on it. I'm pleased that our break-up taught me that. I'm sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

You don't let go once. That's your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime. You might not have thought about her for ten years, then youll hear a Song or you'll walk past somewhere you once went together - something will come to the surface that you'd totally forgotten about. And you say another goodbye. You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times.

There are so many ahead of me that I haven't even thought of yet. I've been so busy mourning Jen, I'd forgotten I'd have to mourn us four too.

I’m an artist, this is what we do. We overanalyse. We masticate our misery until it's pulverized enough to swallow.

“Jesus fucking Christ, don't have a kid or get married because you're worried about being alone,” she said, rubbing my back. I sat upright in my chair and she held me by my shoulders. “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.“

“Everything you want to do in your life, you can do without a man, Jen.”

“You don't let go once. That's your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime. You might not have thought about her for ten years, then you'll hear a song or you'll walk past somewhere you once went together - something will come to the surface that you'd totally forgotten about. And you say another goodbye. You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times.”

“Getting dumped is never dumped. really about getting dumped.”

“What is it about, then?” I ask.

“lt's about every rejection you've ever experienced in your entire life. It's about the kids at school who called you names. And the parent who never came back. And the girls who wouldn't dance with you at the disco. And the school girlfriend who wanted to be single when she went to uni. And any criticism at work. When someone says they don't want to be with you, you feel the pain of every single one of those times in life where you felt like you weren't good enough. You live through all of it again.”

We shifted from over familiarity to inquisitiveness from sentence to sentence; alternating from feeling like old friends to strangers. We gave too much information about ourselves, then we pulled back. We got a kick out of the novelty of each other.