The second time around

As the old adage goes, if you can't write your own title, borrow a lyric from Regina Spektor.

Falling in love for the second time took me completely by surprise. It was like the carpet had been pulled from under me while I watched a magician pull a rabbit from a hat. I didn't know it was coming, I didn't know it could happen, and even if someone had told me, I'd never have believed them.

I'd fallen so deeply for my first love that I'd become a believer of the old mantra: "I will never feel that way again". A total cynic, I destined myself to a life of wonderful friends, a job that paid the bills, and, if I ever found another person I wanted to spend my life with, what I would forever consider a marriage that was second best.

It's not a recommended way to think about things.

So when I felt it happening for the second time, I suffered symptoms not unfamiliar to shock.

When you experience something once, sometimes you begin to believe the only way to feel that way is to do the exact same thing. So to be in love, to feel that ecstasy, I'd have to be with that one person – right?

But then, OK, hold the phone, someone else is making me laugh like that? I miss someone else when they're not around? Someone else is hanging out with me – in tracksuit bottoms?!

The first time is always the worst, no matter what you're dealing with. Losing your virginity, getting a bikini wax, falling in and out of love. It's awkward, it's embarrassing and you're left with a soreness you just have to deal with. Luckily for us, we don't have to lose our virginity twice, we can decide to shave, and, when it comes to love, it might actually get easier.

The second time is strange because you're awash with the knowledge that there is more than one person who can satisfy, relate to, and change you on a level you never expected. And, if there's more than one, maybe there are hundreds. Perhaps it's not a puddle, but a sea after all.

So coming to terms with falling in love again is easy. It's a delightful relief. While coming to terms with the knowledge that someone else could break your heart all over again – that's the challenge.

Mobile daters

Banksy shows that going on a Tinder date isn't ever as fun as just swiping.

Digital dating: more trips and traps to fall into than ever before. And meaning that there's more to analyse. Which is difficult for a literature graduate. I analysed a glove for 10,000 words.

So when Carrie gets a message from Big on her answering machine, Miranda comes over and they analyse it together. Oh what a simple time it was. Nowadays you can forget the confusing voicemails, and trade them for contextless emojis, passive-aggressive or cryptic tweets, "last seen at" bizarre hours, and Snapchat politics - to name a few.

When it comes to dating and technology, there are all these new things we can do and worry about. It also means it can speed up the process to finding out whether they're worth precious data, or are just a wi-fi hookup.

The pre-date stalk

It does give us the option to find out a bit more about each other before the date though. Nothing comforts me more than taking the shock factor out of a blind date. However, this can backfire. My last date told me that he knew which university halls I lived I because he'd seen my old cover photos. Online stalking is accepted. Talking about online stalking is not.

Ignored: on several different platforms

Then there's the problem of actually talking online. Great for an initial ego-boost. Bad when you know they've been online and ignored you. Whether it's iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook or something more 'specalised', the go-to way to break something off is a kind of brutality you shouldn't waste any time analysing.

Tinder terror

The ultimate taster buffet of local men. Swipe at your peril. And don't forget the danger of running into your ex on there. Big moral dilemma: swipe right and stroll back into the lions den, swipe left and pretend it never happened or (secret option number three) cry a river to throw your phone into. Thumbs up emoji.

Then come the actual horror stories. Get this, when you're ready to get engaged, and receive a phone call to tell you that your boyfriend has been "spotted" on Tinder. Active one girlfriend ago.

What's next? LinkedIn for dating? Connect with a guy your friend has friendzoned, endorse previous dates for the ability to text back within an hour, or even write a recommendation for your ex "great in bed, but far too liberal with that skill".

Maybe it would be easier to just replay a voicemail until the machine's lost its voice. But the truth is, I like being the ignorer, I'm all about swiping, and emojis are my favourite mode of communication. And it's not that social media makes your date more of a douchbag, it just means you can find out a lot sooner.

Image credit: http://bit.ly/1CFALF2

Love's not a competition(?)

So you're doing better in your love life than your ex. Want a medal?

Why is it that when relationships break down, everything between you both is suddenly a race? It's all who can get over who first, who can get a date first, who can get laid first, ultimately, who can reach their happily ever after first.

It's like a game of anything you can do I can do better. Or anyone. Or any where.

The annoying thing is that none of the, now competitive, points were ever anything to worry about when you were together. Going on a holiday without the other? Not a problem. More friends than the other? Who cares. Better job? So what.

When you're a couple none of this stuff matters because you're competing together. You're in the 'couples only' three-legged race - singles on the bench. These hurdles include: moving in together, marriage, babies. It's a long race. And not many finish it.

At least in the singles race the only way you can go is forward. The challenges are still brutal though: who looks better post-breakup? who had the best holiday? Instagrams with the most likes win.

And the worst thing that can happen in the singles olympics is watching an ex-partner defect to the three-legged competition.

All this is happily fostered in the breeding ground of hate that is social media bragging. If it wasn't for Facebook/Snapchat/Instagram, would we even know anything about the other's life? Would we care half as much? Can you honestly say you've not scrolled through a home-feed with just a little bit of terror that you might come across a humble-brag announcing something you were not emotionally prepared to see?

As a perpetual loser in this competition I have to ask, does it really feel that good to be 'winning'? Even if you are ahead in the race, or - worse - if you've upgraded to the three-legger, does it mean you're at peace with everything? Bear in mind - you are still running.

Personally, I'm all for dropping out of the race entirely. I'm not a very good runner anyway, and if I need to keep fit, I've got emotional baggage to lift.

Anyway, here are some of Hayley Williams' dulcet tones. Kaiser Chiefs, you know the struggle.

No man's land, or, 2015.

Six months into 2015 and, so far, four breakups. Rest in peace relationships.

In school there was a new breakup every other day, but now our dating lives have reached the chronological point that they're loaded with life changing promises. Moving across the country? Marriage and babies? Putting petrol in the car? So when people break up, it's not just a boyfriend that's gone - it's your whole future.

This isn't just a quick cry in the girls loos, this a trip to the medical tent in an all out war-zone. 2015 is a minefield and we're walking through it terrified about who's going to get blown to pieces next. First a friend, then yourself, then a family member. Boom, boom, boom.

Now I know why it's called no man's land.

The worst thing is. I'm actually trying to guess which one it'll be next. I don't want to put money on it but I do have a few ideas...

Then again, is it this year? Or is it me?

Do I put out a worldwide alert? "Red warning: don't come into contact with me if you like your relationship". I feel like I need to warn all of my happily coupled friends, like this is contagious - look out kids, it could be you next!

Or is it the curse of the 'twentysomething'? Is the early twenties the time that we all cut our losses and run? Big decision time: are you in or out? It's like Dragon's Den, the money's dried up, we're turning down your investment - everyone's out.

The silver linings to this shitstorm year of a cloud: more single girls to cry with, to drink wine with, to pick you up from strangers homes at stranger hours of night, and to comfort eat McDonalds with.

So maybe 2015 isn't the year of the breakup, but the year war veterans unite, chuck down a few beers and appreciate that we survived.

"I just believe in parties.” ― Samantha Jones

Watching a couple dance my friend looked on with total belief in true love, and jealousy in his eyes, I comfortingly expressed my heretic belief: "They'll probably break up."

It's safe to say my belief in things has hit a new low. I believed I could get a first in my English Literature degree, I believed I would be the last sibling to get married and have kids, and I believed that my TV would hold out just a few more years.

Apparently, belief doesn't mean it'll happen.

But I haven't stopped believing in some stuff. In this case, HBO. I'm currently rewatching the entire Sex and the City TV series.

Why? Because I need to press a reset button on my dating life. I pulled out of dating after I realised that I didn't believe in it any more. After a bad break up and some trial dates, I decided I was out.

I didn't like it the first time round, but now I've got "relationship experience" under my belt it's supposed to be easier? Sure, it should be. But you know, once bitten, twice as reluctant to throw yourself to the lions.

So I thought, I could take Carrie's latter option, or find a way to restore my beliefs. Perhaps I would be born again if I worked my way through every possible scenario. I thought, if Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda can all go through it first - and survive - then I should be fine. Right?

Now, after significant research, we can deduce dating status into SATC phases. And, according to Charlotte, I'm in the beginning of Season 2 phase.

"It takes half the total time you went out with someone to get over them" - Season 2, Episode 1.

This is nice to know, but if can blitz a series in a week, can these next three months also hurry up? After the post-Big phase, is the slutty Carrie phase (we can skip that) because then comes the Season 3 phase: the Aidan phase. Hail Mary.

So I might not believe that I'll pay off my student loan some day, or that love lasts forever, or that TVs are for life, but I do believe in Carrie Bradshaw. And that there'll be a hot furniture designer waiting for me next season...

Hero and Leander: Christopher Marlowe's epic love narrative? Or just high-art pornography?

The theme of love is what makes me enjoy this poem so much. The portrayal of a first love between youths who believe that anything is possible, who are driven by their instincts and accept that perhaps it doesn't run as smoothly as it should makes this poem a classic transcendent of it's time.

Leander's almost abusive treatment of Hero is a massive fissure in the text for me though. He pulls her and chases her, gets her into bed and fights to keep her there. Hero's avoidance of him sets her up as the hunted and provides an uncomfortable point of uncertainty in the character. Leander's dominance is what defines him and makes him the attractive protagonist, however it is also presented as a deterrent by the narrator.

The narrator is never explicitly set up as male; the ambiguity of the narrator's sex means that the "homoerotic" attention paid to Leander is unfounded. The narrator's gender is indistinguishable therefore whether the erotic ideas applied to either character is "heterosexual" or "homosexual" is unfounded. The poem's attention to the character's bodies and the language it subsequently uses is doubtlessly eroticising both the characters and the events.

The turning point in the text is post-climax (pun intended): "That mermaid like unto the floor she slid" (l. 799). Without this comic moment the poem would be less than a two dimensional suck-up to the Classics. There's a human-humility of this moment - a tense post-coital exchange is what the reader's expecting, or perhaps another romantic moment, - the tension and passions are broken with a very natural accident. It's comical in juxtaposition with the heightened passions of the previous moments and very explicitly beautiful.

When I was revising this text it was one line that made me spiral back into love with this classic text. A line so good Shakespeare quoted it in As You Like It: "Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?" (l. 176).

Because first love is just that blind and just that dependent on seeing someone.