The three girls I am closest to in Oxford – whose bridesmaid dresses I have already planned, and who will one day be godmothers to my children – are all in sickeningly happy relationships. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, of course: I’ve met and approved of all of their partners. (Also, one of them is the senior editor of Columns and I don’t want to get fired). 

However, seeing them happy and joyful does have the devastating effect of making me realise that no one I’ve ever dated has actually liked me. 

This is a problem for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, as a narcissist, I do not like knowing I am not liked. I make a joke out of reposting memes that say something to the effect of “Love Bombing doesn’t work on me, people should fall in love with me that quickly,” but really I do need someone so obsessed with me it borders on insanity. In my head, every man I’ve ever slept with has realised he’s desperately in love with me and is currently on a Mr Darcy-esque journey to improve himself and start saving up to rent Chatsworth House, which is where we’d marry (naturally). 

That’s definitely the only reason why I’m still on delivered. Nothing else to it. 

Of course, reading Jane Austen does give one unrealistic expectations. Traversing and wading through Hinge, I shouldn’t expect to find a love so large and proud it redefines romance. But I am half agony, half hope. 

I’ve always loved romances. Love made the world go round. When, while reading The Ruby in the Smoke with my mother and sister, the main character’s love interest died, we renounced the series altogether. Mystery just didn’t have the same appeal. Every fortnight I would go and stay at my grandparents’ house and we would watch Pride and Prejudice (1995). I was raised on ardent admiration; one word from you will silence me forever. Sense and Sensibility was a close second; Persuasion, a third. Mansfield Park captured me; Northanger Abbey excited me. I read Mr Knightley’s love confession through tears – if I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more. When I quoted these lines to my then-girlfriend, I thought: this is what love is. 

Sat in the back of my mum’s car, Billy Joel crooning on the radio, a heavily dog-eared book on my lap: this is what love is. 

I often dwell on lovely, large futures: a first in finals (please, God, please); a village house with chickens; all my friends’ faces stretched with smiles; a flat in Vienna; a saved environment; a job I love.

What I don’t often dwell on is the in-between – the something else. Who will be sat opposite me as I’m taking my tea in the morning, shirt slipping off my shoulders. Whose shoes will sit next to mine in the hall. These are abstract figures, cold and distant, lacking the warm colours which occur when I envision my bridesmaids’ faces. 

Indeed, the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice remains my favourite—the relationship between the Bennet sisters feels so much more vivid. In one of the opening scenes, when Lydia and Kitty are attempting to persuade Jane to let them borrow her clothes, I recall my own sister with intense clarity. How, when she’s home, I am rudely awoken by her knocking—do you have any knee length socks? Where are your curlers, I left mine at the house? There’s something tangible about a sister that no other relationship can quite capture. I think in another life she was the star I navigated by. Confessions of love masked by insults in the rain and eyes lingering on lips is all well and good for the movies, but Lizzie kicking Lydia under the table and walks arm in arm felt as familiar as breath. This is what love is. 

Her Wendy Cope inspired orange tattoo that she dragged out the getting of—I had to wait for her before getting any of my own. Breakfast in bed as we watch my TV, Modern Family or Morse or Avatar. Singing in the car on the way to collect my best friend from work. 

There have been girls and boys, snogs in the shadows and tits out underwater, but I’m perpetually sixteen, basking in the last long summer before she moved out. I’d give up a happy marriage for that bliss. 

The dangers of nostalgia—I am always wishing to return to that which is familiar rather than facing the brave new world which awaits me. I long to return to the Austen of my youth, the springtime of my childhood, the glory days cut short too soon.