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Closer’s dating expert, Rebecca Twomey, calls off her search for The One, but not because she’s found the perfect person

Disney is to blame for D my first and second heartbreaks. If you watched Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty as a child, you’ll understand. But these fairy tales have also set me up for romantic disappointments, as I secretly still believe that one day my prince will come, and when he does, we’ll live happily ever after.

When I turned to Professor Viren Swami – author of Attraction Explained: The Science of How We Form Relationships – for reasoning on why my prince, aka The One, hasn’t appeared, he told me it was time I stopped believing in the myth.

“Hollywood makes romance and love seem easy,” he said. “That it will just happen and, when it does, life will be perfect.” He went on to explain that there’s never going to be just one person who is right for me. “Disney promotes the idea of there being one special

person for you and you should wait for that perfect love. Men and women are both victims to this false ideology – believing that waiting for the perfect person is the right thing to do, and everything in your life will be fixed by being with them.”

Dating apps are playing on this fantasy, encouraging us to keep swiping until you find the person who’ll transform your world. This is why we’re now jumping from one casual relationship to another – because we can’t find the person who makes everything OK, but we keep trying to find exactly that. No man is coming to rescue me. I’m trying to accept that my life won’t suddenly be amazing or my loneliness quenched just because I’ve got a boyfriend. It’s not for him to chase away all the demons in my life. But what I can do is look for someone who can help me laugh and smile despite them. ● Professor Swami is speaking about dating at the British Science Festival on 11-14 September. Visit www. britishsciencefestival.org