Religiously watching He’s Just Not That Into You, 27 Dresses, and Made of Honor, I was dreaming of marriage and my own happily ever after. 

I was seeking out my own love story and the late 2000s was the perfect time for a young, hopeless romantic.

I’d only had one very short relationship – I’m talking eight weeks or so – in my senior year of college. While that guy is still one of my best friends today, I hadn’t had much luck on the dating front.  

So, when I met a man at a mutual friend’s birthday party who was a smart, funny law student, we really hit it off and I was smitten. 

I had gone with one of my best friends, who happened to be male, and this guy was clearly trying to figure out whether my friend was my boyfriend.

Once he realised it was platonic, we swapped numbers. We spent the rest of the night chatting at the bar and I think we both felt some chemistry there.

Our romance involved lots of dinner dates that spring and early summer. He took me to fancy restaurants in Washington D.C., where I had studied, as my journalism degree didn’t pay for much.

I enjoyed being pampered! I met his sister, her husband and their young son. They were all super nice. He never wanted to attend anything with my friends though, oddly enough. Looking back, maybe that was a red flag!

Later that summer, he had to go to away for an internship and he invited me to visit him for a weekend. We kept in touch by text and instant messenger. Since I was working full-time for a local paper and was still quite junior, I had little to no leave. Still, I was able to swing one Friday in July and booked my flight. 

We had a wonderful weekend. It was so idyllic and fit perfectly into my rom-com dreams. We rode the ferris wheel, and hand-in-hand, explored the aquarium.

I will never forget how romantic and loved I felt that night (Picture: Kate Oczypok)

At the time, I was enthralled and thought I was so in love with this guy. I left him feeling excited about the future. I saw us as a long-term couple, perhaps eventually getting married.

I will never forget how romantic and loved I felt the night we watched fireworks from his floor-to-ceiling windows in his luxurious apartment. It was straight out of the romantic movies I watched and loved.

Looking back on that weekend, it’s funny to me now, as a 37-year-old woman, that he was in absolutely none of the photos we took those few days. They look like I went on a solo trip. 

At the time, I thought he was either being shy, or being sweet taking photos of me. Looking back, I now realise he may have just not been that into me and knew it, so didn’t want to be in any of my pics.  

A few weeks after that trip, I got an email while covering a work event. It was the guy, asking if we could have dinner. Despite the weirdness of an email instead of a text, I agreed, and he said he’d bring over some pizza to my apartment. 

I fixed my gaze on the stack of pizza (Picture: Kate Oczypok)

Things were going well in our relationship – or so I thought. We’d been dating for a couple of months and he had been the complete gentleman so far. He was back from his internship, and everything seemed perfect. 

I raced home, put on makeup and changed, excited for him to come over. I greeted him at the door. He had three pizzas in his hand.

‘Three pizzas for just the two of us?’ I thought. They were large pizzas, way too much food. 

He put the pizzas down, sat on the couch, and began the break up speech. I don’t remember much because I tuned him out so I wouldn’t start sobbing, but I heard a few of the clichés – ‘It’s not you, it’s me’, and ‘you’ll make a guy so happy someday’. 

I fixed my gaze on the stack of pizza.

I wondered if he’d got pepperoni or sausage, or perhaps some type of vegetable. My mind was trying to get the sadness of the moment out of my head. At one point, I even wondered if he’d take a pizza with him when he left.

After about an hour of him repeating himself, I wanted him out. 

‘I guess this is it, then,’ I said. He got the hint, and left – leaving the food behind.

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It was the worst dumping I’d had in my life so far and I was devastated – but at least I had something to eat for dinner. I ate a couple of slices that night once I felt up for it. 

After lots of crying, writing in my journal and of course, romantic comedy watching, I got my first story published about the break up in a local magazine.

I learned a lot from that relationship – life isn’t always like a romantic comedy; I was still waiting for my ‘one’; and I really, really loved writing. I knew I always wanted to write for a living, but this solidified it.  

As for the guy, I looked him up on Facebook years later to see he was married with kids. I had no bad feelings – I felt happy for him. 

Oh, and if you’re wondering about all that pizza? I froze it and had dinner for weeks.

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The whole time he was ending it, I wondered if he’d got pepperoni or sausage, or perhaps some type of vegetable.