I thought he loved me – but I was blind to the red flags

The hardest part was the realisation that we didn’t know each other as well as we thought (Picture: Jamie Valentino)

Dancing beneath a giant disco ball on a multicoloured dancefloor, I should have been having the time of my life.

After all, I was in LA, surrounded by hundreds of people dressed in 70s attire, at a party designed to transport us back in time to the heyday of Studio 54 – it couldn’t have been a more perfect event for me. 

But, there was one big problem. John*, the party’s host and, coincidently, the man I was dating, wasn’t by my side.

The only reason I’d flown across the country to attend this event was so I could see and spend time with him. 

And yet, it seemed he was perfectly happy wit...