New Tomorrows

"I could tell you how much work goes in to being constantly open to new friendships, with ever-younger people, because everyone your own age is paired off. I can talk about the feeling of being no one’s priority and how lonely -and occasionally frightening - that can be when you live alone in a massive city like London. How I have to self sooth constantly. How I go through phases of defining myself solely by my career until I realise my career doesn’t love me back. How sometimes I still experience the temptation to have sex with a man who doesn’t really care if I live or die afterwards just because it would mean I was touched. I could talk about the fear of ageing this all produces, as a straight woman at least. About how much effort it takes to keep going on dates, to be pleasant and warm on them, to shrug it off when another man sexualises the conversation too early or vanishes without warning.