Oh chums. I didn’t forsee myself writing here again so soon. After my proclamations on Sunday evening, I was so sure my next piece would be about how I’d ridden the wave, had an amazing time at all the events I had booked in and was back on form. A-new and shiny once more.

HA. Sweet naive me of 72ish hours ago.

Remember how I said I was looking forward to two first dates this week? Well, one cancelled within two hours of my blogpost (unrelated to said blogpost, and it was via Breeze so we’d never messaged). Apparently he had ‘family issues’ and ‘can’t date right now’. Then, 48 hours later, a match I’d made on Saturday, and was actually a little excited about (a whiskey drinking carpenter, be still my beating heart/vagina) cancelled our date (that was 3 weeks in the future) because he’s ‘going out the country for a while’. (My mum’s response, ‘Is he a convict then?’ provided some joy).

I felt genuine, mortifying and profound rejection at these cancellations (made by men I’d never actually met or spoken to). The term ‘triggered’ can at times be overutilized and weaponised, but that’s the only way to describe how both those cancellations made me feel. My most profoundest fear, rooted at my very core like a throbbing thorn, is the fear that I am unlovable. That no-one wants me, I am doomed to die alone and will never experience reciprocated romantic love because there is evidently something repellent and undesirable about me. These two men clearly didn’t want me. No-one wants me. No-one will ever want me.

On Sunday I wrote about ‘riding the wave’, instead, merely days later, I was pulled down a whirlpool of dark and stormy waters. And, remember, I can’t actually swim.

The extremity with which I reacted to both of these cancellations made me realise that maybe I wasn’t yet as alright as I thought I was. That maybe, actually, I am very much not okay right now.

Have you seen that ‘there are actually 11 seasons’ meme doing the rounds? This one? Well, I acknowledge that maybe Sunday and the subsequent blogpost was the equivalent of Fool’s Spring. I thought that by making it to February, and having daylight past 5pm, that it was all over. Sound the alarms, war is over and depression has left the building. Whereas, actually, in reality, I am still stuck in the low of high-functioning anxiety and depression. That actually, in reality, I am struggling to feel much hope or joy right now. There are glimmers, but no sustained sparkle. I keep grasping but cannot keep hold of the shards.

So, back to the bed fort. I cancelled Speed Hating. We shall never speak again of the preliminary school visit I made today for a job I thought I wanted (let’s just say the parallels between dating and finding a new job continue, with both utilising carefully curated profiles…) I’m still planning on going to the Lock & Key event, treating it as a David Attenborough-esque social-anthropologist would – ‘It’s Saturday evening, and here, at this central London watering hole, we have 250 unpartnered people looking for love using phallic-shaped props. No, I don’t see it working either.’).

I’ve deleted the apps, for the ten thousandth time in my life. I’m on a self-imposed ban till the end of the month, or until I find the will to live again – whichever comes first. And, no applying for jobs for a couple of weeks. I need to accept I am very vulnerable right now, and that throwing myself into situations is really not the answer.

Right now, I have very little within my life that is actually within my control. And so my fixer mode was activated, like Norbot in the new Wallace & Gromit movie, I tried to put solutions in place – applying for new jobs and dates in a bid to find something to anchor me back down to Earth. Sadly, I’m pretty sure that is neither healthy or actually possible. By being so solution-focused, I think I inadvertently inflicted more harm on myself.

So, it’s time to get back into my tin can and wait it out before my Bigmouth Strikes Again.