Today's programme is brought to you by the letter H

I had never been in love before.

When it happened I didn't even know what to do. It was a whirlwind romance, begun in the final year of university degrees.

H was everything I had ever hoped for in a girlfriend. Smart (smarter than me), funny, full of the joy of life, gregarious, sexy.....and she could drink for England! Our first date consisted of a trip to the local boozer where she matched every one of my 6 pints of Tetleys with a pint of Guiness. It wasn't love at first sight but I was mightily impressed. I never looked back.

Then last month my world was brought crashing down. I read her text messages on her phone. A stupid, distrusting thing to do and something I'll always regret. But I did it. I discovered that she had been contemplating an affair with a work associate and exchanging explicit messages with him.

I'd been living in ignorant bliss. There were mitigating factors (something I may return to later), but the trust was broken. H had betrayed me and I had been snooping on her. Nothing could be the same again. The trust would never return. It just couldn't work, could it?

We tried hard. Even went on holiday together (I can heartily recommend Prague and the rest of the Czech Republic). It was in vain. The sex and lust was still there. But it was empty. I moved out of our flat in East Dulwich and am now at my parents home in Surrey. I'm moving back when I can. I love the area. I've made good friends there. But not with H. Not together.

For the first time in nearly five years, I'm single again. In the prime of life, still in my mid-twenties. And yet, I have 'the fear'*.

*'the fear' - a condition of anxiety caused by being single of the possibility of single-dom. What will you do, where will you go, how will you survive without a partner? A condition H and I would joke about affecting our friends relationships we had our doubts about. Ironic, no?