heartbreak, hinge dates and leaving everything behind

the unexpected journey to a gap year at 30

My name is Lauren. Last week, I quit my job in big tech to travel the world, after ending an 8 year relationship, finding love again, shattering my leg in a road accident and surrendering to the concept of living a wild and precious life. This is my story.

Part 1

In hindsight, it’s bloody hilarious that the moment I realised I would have to end my eight year relationship, was while my mum was trying on tinsel headbands at The Spirit of Christmas Fair in Islington.

Adorned in a birds nest of tinsel, my mum turned around from the mirror and asked, ‘what’s the matter?’ She’d been suspicious all day - fuelled by the fact I clearly couldn’t give a f*ck about the spirit of Christmas.

We sat outside on some steps, basking in cigarette butts and the lonely remnants of Christmas fair artefacts; left behind strands of tinsel, ribbon and Celebrations wrappers. The scene - if you can picture it - had a Wes Anderson feel to it.

‘Something just isn’t right’, I concluded.
‘Well don’t do anything rash’, my mum muttered.

And the slow, messy process of untangling two lives begun.

---

Fast forward to 2023.

I’m 28, single and I’ve temporarily moved back in with my parents. I have an album on my phone called ‘Healing Era’ that consists of videos that alternate - at an alarmingly unhinged rate - between ugly crying, and feral dancing. My appearance is ghoulish and I’m stick thin, sustained only by half-eaten Richmond sausages, McDonald’s McMuffins and pickled onion Monster Munch.

But I slowly start to get better.

---

‘You’re in your own swim lane now’, my dad offers, with tired consolation. This poor man has been put through the wringer over the past decade. Despite his wisdom, I’ve bought, and now sold, a house during a housing market crash. I left a safe and homely relationship with a man my dad knew would never hurt me. I intermittently threaten to leave my 6-figure job to become a penniless musician and I don’t pay into my pension. I’m also incredibly clumsy and forever struck down by mysterious ailments (who else would receive a poisonous spider bite at Disney World Florida for f*cks sake?). In fact, I’ve earned the nickname ‘Lorni Doom’ at home, for the general anxiety-ordeal that comes with being a parent of a high-achieving, highly-strung eldest daughter.

My own swim lane. That starts to sink in.

While my friends are settling down in suburbia, mortgaged-to-eyeballs, saving for kitchen islands and floor-to-ceiling windows, catching the early train home and getting ready for the Sunday Park Run,

I realise,

I am

completely,

and utterly,

untethered.

None of this was in my carefully curated plan for my third decade on earth. For the first time ever, I found myself against the grain. “Behind”, perhaps. No relationship. No kids. No mortgage. No rental property. No debt.

I was starting life again. The only tether to my old world was my job. A pillar of stability, prestige, friendship and financial independence. The masochist inside me wondered what it would feel like to lose this too. To truly rip apart the fabric of my identity, my ego.

Of course, I clung to my job with white knuckle fists. Buried myself in it. Quietly suppressing a curious urge to strip it all away, just to see who I was without it too.

---

Some months later, I’m sipping on tap water at a bar in London, waiting for my Hinge date. I’m early. It’s 8:30pm and I’ve come straight from work. I don’t feel particularly glamorous, or optimistic for that matter. After a handful of failed dates, I’ve learnt quickly that people on dating apps can be pretty strange.

Rather mysteriously, my date has let me know that he’ll be coming straight from the airport, having spent the day in Amsterdam for work. How curious.

My heart rate starts to climb as my body prepares to navigate the introductions. Just as I pretend to check my phone, trying to channel a casual nonchalance, I notice a well-dressed man come through the door.

He catches my eye, and I freeze. He’s tall, dark and (sorry to be cliche, but) very, very handsome.

In mild panic, my arm flails to my right and I knock over my chair.

---

This marks the start of a spark that evolves between us over the next four hours, cemented by a sausage roll choking incident and a shared feeling of deja vu.

We laughed that we had likely been on this date before in another universe. Or that those sitting around us were robots, unwittingly reliving this day again and again. We put this feeling down to Mr Foggs’ creepy post-modern jazz playlist, but in hindsight, there was something about this encounter that felt inevitable. Familiar.

Tim walks me to the train station and we share a kiss goodbye.

I sit on the train and watch London rattle past, thousands of windows warm with amber glow against the dark night sky. I marvel at how much can change in one year, when my phone buzzes in my bag.

“Made it home. Let me know once you did too :)”.

---

And thus, we stumbled into the agonising ecstasy of 21st century dating - a clusterf*ck of vulnerability and elation, attachment styles and agony aunts, too fast and too slow, as well as the ever-present threat of ghosting and emotional unavailability.

We make it through the first month unscathed, building the foundation of our relationship, block by joyful block.

And then I got hit by a taxi.

---

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading my first post, and sorry for leaving things on a cliffhanger. I’ll share part two next Monday. The good news? Moving forward, I’ll be posting on a weekly basis.