I've found the perfect relationship ....
I get told at least three times a week I look beautiful. I get praise for my achievements and support for the difficult bits. I get cards and flowers. Oh and did I mention the fashion advice and the long phone calls that last late into the night?
I am talking about my perfect relationship with my best friend Hannah. You didn't think my boyfriend would send flowers did you?! As for fashion advice - well that might be a bit weird actually. He wears Crocs.
It has taken me 19 years to properly work out that men can't give women everything they need emotionally, and that's ok. (The 19 years by the way is based on a loose calculation that I started caring about boys approx aged 12)
I am a fairly emotionally needy person in a relationship and I have no problem admitting that. It's what makes me, me. I like to send and receive regular 'I love you' texts, whatsaapps, emails, tweets, facebooks, letters, phone calls .... hell, I don't care what form it comes in. I need to be told I look good even if it's not the truth, and I crave reassurance that I am the best yet, in every sense. My first kiss was age 12 with, let's call him 'Chris' at a school disco. I don't remember much about it apart from my desperate desire afterwards to know if he liked me. Did he want to be my boyfriend? Was it going somewhere? Would he get on with my famiIy? I was 12.
And I haven't changed. I'm rubbish at one night stands and casual arrangements because I always need the element of emotional attachment. I think I've probably done the heads in of all my previous boyfriends with my craving for late night deep and meaningfulls. My yearning to sit up into the small hours, romantically mulling over life's idiosyncrasies together with a bottle of wine and candles - when all they wanna do is sit in their boxers in front of Match of the Day and fall asleep.
I won't lie there have been episodes of slightly irrational behaviour if I've felt a text exchange lacked meaning, and woe betide those that haven't signed off with at least three kisses.
But it's ok now, because it's finally clicked - that is what Hannah is for. Every girl needs a Hannah. Don't get me wrong, I've always been lucky enough to have great girlfriends, and always enjoyed their company but it's only in the last six months have I really become enlightened, seen the light literally - that it's these relationships that hold the key to the emotional reassurance us girls need and want.
Hannah, my friend of 12 years always replies to my messages. No, more than that - she starts the messages! She has a sixth sense when I'm feeling low and calls me. Hannah and I spend hours on the phone recalling amazing memories from our past and planning our futures together. Holidays, houses, babies, careers. We tell each other we love each other, and she never falls asleep without sending a good night message.
Our boyfriends/husbands/significant others just aren't meant to do this stuff. They're not built that way. It just took me 19 years to work it out. And as a result I am in a very very happy relationship. He watches Match of the Day in his boxers, and I sit next to him. On whatsaapp to my Hannah.