My hero, Becky Sharp.

What is it I wondered that we are all searching for? We spent much of our free time and most of our daydreams thinking about meeting the right person, falling in love and spending the rest of our lives with them. In reality all we are so desperately rushing towards is the boring toil of domesticity and the trapped feeling of co-dependency.

I am now properly single, properly as in yes I still hate him but am much less bothered in general and have even started going back to the gym which is a definite sign that I am actively over him and am much more interested in looking good than being sad and cross. Anyway now that I am properly single I am jolly, indeed horribly, keen to get a new boyfriend. But why am I so keen to get embroiled with a new chap so soon?

Is it because I don't like being single? No, certainly not. I am having lots of fun with friends, love being able to do what I want whenever I want, enjoy flirting and looking at lots of men and there are are so many hidden benefits like being able to eat onions in salads and put spring onions on lots of dishes (oh the delights of onions and yet the bad breathe!).

Is it because I think I can only be completed and defined by a man? Nope, not that either. I am very happy and am very independent. I find great joy in my good grades at uni, have very good and fulfilling friendships and relationships with my family and have a good friend as a flatmate. I don't have dreams of being a housewife but want a fulfilling and exciting career and although it might be nice to have children one day I am in no rush and would only ever have them if happily married rather than want them enough to use a sperm bank or something like that (not that I think there is anything wrong with other people doing that).

Is it because I am lonely? Another no. I am very busy with coursework, friends and if I feel a sudden urge to talk to someone then I can always call my parents or sister or knock on my flatmate's door. Plus I have always been good at spending time by myself, my motto being that one is never alone with a good book.

So why do I so actively desire to have another boyfriend?

I think I, like others, have been sold down the river of believing in all the books I read and movies I see where there is romance. I have been sold the dream that being in love is the best and most desirable thing in the world. That being in love is the most perfect state and that meeting the man who truly loves me will be the most defining point in my life. That no matter what I achieve it will pall into nothingness when I meet my true love. I want to meet my Mr Darcy, my Rhett Butler, my Aragorn... Maybe even through all this outside influencing deep down I still know how to protect myself against it for it is surely not for nothing that I am drawn to 'Vanity Fair' as my favourite book for Becky Sharp needs no man and never relies on a man.