In 2022, I walked away from the greatest love of my life so far. This is why I did it | Moya Lothian-McLean
I was far from alone in going through a major breakup. Perhaps others, too, found romantic love was not enough to fulfil them
Rumours swirled last week that alternative pin-up couple Phoebe Bridgers and Paul Mescal had parted ways. The pairing of singer and actor over two-and-a-bit years was the stuff of internet legend: he was the sensitive hunk with a star-making turn in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. She was the sorrowful indie-crooner who, it turned out, was one of Mescal’s favourite musicians. They met over Zoom, in a public interview as the pandemic raged. Soon they were dating and seemed destined to live happily ever after, until suddenly gossipy reports suggested it was all over.
In my circle of friends, this story felt like a fitting culmination to a year marked by the end of long-term relationships. “Wow, the season finale of breakup season,” one tweeted in response to the maybe-news. It doesn’t really matter whether these two celebrities, entirely separate from my social milieu, are no longer together – we saw what we wanted to see: 2022, the year of big breakups, may have claimed yet more scalps.
