The streets HATE to see me coming

A Lover Girl’s field notes on heartbreak, rage, and the return to single life.

Sorry I’ve been MIA for a month.

I’ve been in mourning.
Of my relationship and, in a way, who I was in that relationship.

It was time to put future-wife-Blithe back in her box with her pretty dresses, her soft energy, her carefully folded hopes. And out came the other version of me: all-black wearing, sharp-eyelinered, back-talking, scissors in hand, ready to fiercely protect the former from any more damage in the world. The single world.

It really does feel like split personality situation.

Here’s how my breakup looked in real time:

First things first, you have to shed the version of you that existed with him.
Which means I took the incredibly clichéd yet effective approach of cutting my own fringe.

Next… warpaint. My go-to disassociation tactic is to paint my face differently. This often includes a hell of a lot of eyeliner. Again.. cliché but effective.

Then, of course, the tight-fitting, sluttastic outfits had to make an appearance.

And a breakup wouldn’t be complete without an impromptu breakup trip to somewhere slutty where singles flock… so I went to Mykonos.

Since the breakup, I’ve had a constant stream of compliments.
You’re glowing! You look amazing!
I call it the post-breakup glow but the reality?
You’ve lost weight because you can’t eat.
Your lips are puffy from crying.
And you’ve spent twice as long on your hair and makeup just to feel something — because you can, because suddenly there’s all this time on your hands, and no longer a loving man nearby to say, “You look beautiful as you are.” Sigh.

Here I am in the final form of breakup metamorphosis.

So what did I do the second I landed in Mykonos, shortly after this photo was taken?

Cried, obviously.

I hadn’t shed a single tear over the breakup until my feet touched foreign soil — and then it was incessant. I cried all day every day for a week.

I woke up crying, I went to sleeping crying. I ate breakfast and cried, I swam in the sea and cried, and I ate dinner and cried and of course… I went to Scorpio’s and cried some more.

I cried all the way until the plane began its descent back into London and the tears shut off like a tap.

When I’d landed in Mykonos, all I had to do was lie around by the pool, respond to a few emails and cry but the first week of the breakup was spent in London and all I felt was rage. Hot, feral, explosive rage. I was busy and I needed the rage to fuel my day to day operations.

Even though I’d initiated the breakup, I felt abandoned and discarded. The break-up was amicable and we said we’d call and be there if the other one needed anything. But I was met with steely, short replies and more distance. Prick. Asshole. FUCKKKKKKKKKKK YOUUUUUUU.

Me… I’m a yapper. I’m a thinker, a talker, a doer. Mr Man on the other hand likes to withdraw when emotions are high. It’s why we broke up. I wanted to run rampant inside his mind and he would shut me down. He’d shut me out and retreat. It would knock me fucking sick. Your classic anxious girl meets avoidant boy. I really thought I’d done a good job of healing my attachment wounds but I was cracked wide open.

so yes… the only way to deal with it was rage.

How could he be so cruel?! How can he just ice me out?!?! AASSSSHOOOOLLLLLLEEEE!!!!!!

And it worked a charm. until I ran into Mr Man in Notting Hill the night before I left for my Mykonos trip.

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📝 Journal Entry – Wednesday, 21 May 2025

4:43pm
So I’m going to Mykonos tomorrow. For 6 days. Oh Lord. When I think of going away, I want to be with him. It will pass, I know. I just miss him.

9:43pm
I spoke too soon. I just bumped into him outside the *pub. Fuck my fucking life. I feel disappointed. So so so disappointed.

Thursday, 22 May 2025

7:17am
On the flight to Mykonos. I’ve been non stop thinking about Mr Man— obviously.

Here’s what happened: I was walking past The *pub at 8pm, heading to L’s to pick up bikinis. As I was approaching, I saw N first and he smiled and waved at me and then I saw Mr Man next to him, with his head turned away from me. My heart sank to my asshole and I just carried on walking. When I got to L’s, she told me that she was actually headed to the *pub so I walked back with her on my way home.

“If we bump into each other then so be it” I said.

Well… he was sat outside, exactly where he was before, and I was so greatly unprepared. Everything I’ve been thinking about over the last few weeks— everything I wanted to say to him— it left my brain. I told him I was angry. I couldn’t pretend I was fine.

Friday, 23 May 2025

3:27pm
I ended up unblocking Mr Man and calling him last night after dinner. He said he was about to message me when I messaged him to ask if we could talk. Apparently our little run in had been weighing heavily on him too (L told me he was super upset after I left).

So we spoke and it was lovely. We were honest about our feelings. It was just sweet.. It was barely 15 minutes on the phone but it’s the most honest we had been in a while. I told him that the distance he creates leaves too much room for anger and resentment for me. It’s too easy to villainize someone who isn’t there and I knew this. That I felt this need to say ‘fuck him” and embrace a “bad bitch era” but it’s not me and it’s not how I feel. I know he’s a good guy. We didn’t do anything too colossal to each other. Maybe we just weren’t each others’ person and that’s ok. Even good people hurt people sometimes and it doesn’t have to be someones fault or make them bad people. I don’t want to hate him. I want to understand him. I want to understand where things went wrong and I want to learn and move on from it.

I had to ask him what I’d been dying to ask him since it all ended.

“There are no wrong answers as long as you tell me the truth. Did you even want to be with me by the end?” I asked.

“Yes, I did” he said.

I felt like a weight had been lifted after.

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And I did feel like a weight had been lifted… until the morning. And then all could ask myself was “If he claims he didn’t check out and did want me, why can’t we be together?!” and I spiralled and spiralled all week.

Cut to: now. I’m back on British soil and a couple of weeks have passed since then and I have the answer to my question: He is a great man and I love him but he couldn’t and still cannot show up for me in the ways that I need. I communicated my needs and they were dismissed and I’ve been through too much shit in my life to beg even the best men for love.

I still cry myself to sleep some nights. I miss him. I miss us. I miss who I was when I thought everything was perfect.

So I’m back on the streets, fighting for my life. Being single is fucking brutal.

The second my relationship ended, it’s like the dickhead alarm sounded and the army of fallen fuckboys flooded my inbox.
These cannot be the “plenty more fish in the sea” that everyone is talking about. The sea is more like a scum filled pond of fish I’ve already caught and thrown back.

London is small, I go to the same 3 places and I don’t even feel a tiny bit ready to re-download the dating app that begins with R. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that girl again. That cannot be my story.

Find me in an art gallery.
Find me in a dark bar, sipping on a mocktail, trying to feel something.
Find me in fucking Waitrose.
But do not find me on the app.

Or, better yet, do me a favour and don’t find me at all.
I’m traumatised enough. Don’t disturb the tiny remnants of peace I’ve managed to claw back into my life.

I’m self aware so I know that this pessimism is subject to change the moment I’m introduced to an even slightly charming man with a sideways smile and a drop of charisma who tells me he’s never felt this way before. And you just know I’ll believe it. I always do. Because, to my core, I am a Lover Girl.

See you next time in confessional,

Blithe x