Issue #112: Rethinking past relationships over a Sunday roast
Who needs therapy?
I had dinner at my friend B’s flat last weekend.
We (/he) cooked a Sunday roast*: tarragon-infused chicken, roast potatoes, sage & onion stuffing, a medley of underrated but perfectly-cooked vegetables (Swede and parsnips at long last getting the attention they deserve). And in the two plus hours it took to do all this, we had a long, no-holds-barred conversation about dating and B’s most recent relationship, which ended just over a year ago.
Over a gravy-laden feast, and throughout a carb-induced coma, we unpacked, in granular detail, every juncture of the doomed romance: its rosy beginnings, its hairy middle and its dramatic conclusion. And as we did so, I noticed myself unexpectedly relating not to B, but his female ex. In identifying the stark differences between our behaviours, it was like we were enacting the 1992 self-help book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, except it was the 2025 podcast edition.
*A side note for my international readers: think of a Sunday roast as the culinary compensation for being British, in the same way that Christmas is winter’s consolation prize.
For instance, we discussed the gendered conditioning that afflicts heterosexual relationships. I recognised, in B’s account of his ex, a mistake I’ve made in the past: of seeing my (inevitably taller, bigger) partners as invincible, stoic – rather than recognising them for the equally-vulnerable people that they are. We discussed the pressures, on men, too, to play into this dynamic. The social and cultural barriers that get in the way.
Beyond that, we discussed the mistakes we’d both made in the past. Abandoning and feeling abandoned. Failing to demonstrate appreciation. Getting caught up in life, and not giving someone attention. Conflicting love languages.
We’ve racked up a number of crimes between us, it seems. And yet, our conversation was free from blame. As two single people, navigating what might otherwise have been a lonely Sunday afternoon together, we were speaking as peers, side-by-side in the search for romantic love.
Advice, dispensed sparingly, was delivered on an equal footing on behalf of the opposite sex, rather than downwards from the pedestal of Relationship Land (I’m fully-aware there are all sorts of relationships, and few coupled-up people actually feel superior – but there is a broad societal hierarchy that can feel pervasive).
Talking to B, I felt safe, and oddly hopeful.
It’s relevant to add, at this point, that B is a catch. His chief crime is the same as mine: being human. More specifically, a human with feelings, trying to navigate the messy world of dating, digital ambiguity and finding your Person while simultaneously being a person.
The afternoon rolled into the evening. We watched the sunset turn pink over Mile End, stomachs fuller and souls lighter; the ghosts of the past exorcised for another day.
As I sat on the Tube home, I felt newly compassionate – both for B, and for myself. It even made me feel compassion for my most recent ex. Which is a shame, because I’d rather hoped to stay petty and vindictive.
B and I are not bad people. Nor are we – despite our romantic disappointments – deeply, inherently unloveable (there is, in fact, no direct correlation between the man ghosting you on WhatsApp and the traumatic time your mother denied you a mint-chocolate Magnum, but it takes an inconvenient amount of therapy to disentangle the two).
Sure, we have our foibles. At least, I certainly do. But we – and I suppose I’m talking about single people en masse at this point – are normal people. Getting some stuff wrong – yes – but more or less doing our best, and hoping someone, someday, will regard the wrong turnings in the same pink-hued light that descended over east London last Sunday.
The same questions still percolate. Should we have acted differently in the past? Would that have made all the difference, in making it last? Or were our relationships doomed from the start , and acting differently might have only perpetuated something not built to last?
I don’t know. No one knows. Least of all those lucky enough to have found, and held on to, lasting romantic relationships – who, equally, have their flaws, and yet it somehow, senselessly, works.
But in the meantime, we hope. We hold each other. And we hope, often against hope, that what’s meant for us will find us. That the right thing will last.
Finally, some things that brought me joy this week, including the aforementioned roast dinner:
Until next week!
Francesca
Loved this! 🩷✨