Eventually, though, the couple ended up rehearsing old scripts. “He’d go silent on me for days just like he used to at uni – but at least he had the excuse of having a really crap phone then,” she says. “We ended up having these rows that just made me feel like we were 20 again. Not in a good way – just really immature.”

Hana*, 26, also ended up stuck in a repetitive pattern with her college sweetheart. She would call things off after her partner “betrayed [her] trust”, then after a few months, they would ‘accidentally’ meet. “We would leave the conversation happy, feeling almost high from the connection in those moments. Then I would unblock him and everything would start again.”

Hana wanted, she says, to believe all of the promises he made about doing better. Eventually, it took her moving out of their flat and back with her parents across the country to end things for good. There can be a perverse sense of comfort in these repetitions. “We love committing to what reliably disappoints and deprives us,” Fox Weber says. Indeed, Hana later came to believe that it was “the addiction to the dynamics and toxicity of the relationship” that made it seem exciting. “When I’m thinking about that relationship,” Hana says, “I remind myself that it’s the toxicity that’s so addicting, and I need none of that in my life.”

When we look back on our exes, Fox Weber states that it’s unrealistic to demand that any one relationship will “make life wonderful, permanently”. Alexandra agrees: “I think it’s hugely important [to] never need to be in a relationship. Choose to be with someone. Be with them because you want to be there,” she says – not because you think they might take you back to a better time in your life.

“If you take the fantasy of an ex and turn it into a real possibility, it might be wonderful but it might also fall short in so many ways,” Fox Weber says, “so just be clear with yourself that how you daydream… is not the same as living real life together.” And real life doesn’t always follow the neat plot structure of an HBO comedy-drama, either – something to bear in mind before channelling your inner Carrie and sending that “Hey stranger… remember me?” email to your own Aidan.

* Names have been changed

Can going back to an old love ever really work?