Katy Perry’s tribute to Justin Trudeau is a red flag: BRYONY GORDON

A couple of years ago, a dear friend of mine went through a hideous divorce after discovering her husband had been cheating on her with an old flame he’d reconnected with over social media.

It was all so clichéd, so messy, so destructive.

So I should have been thrilled when she told me – a few months after the decree nisi had come through – that she’d met someone she truly believed was the love of her life.

After dozens of tearful walks through our local park, during which she’d despaired at the thought of ever loving anyone again, she’d finally matched with a handsome divorced dad on a dating app. And after an intense coffee that had culminated in them snogging behind a tree on the Victoria Embankment – ‘I just knew, the moment he ordered a decaf oat latte, that he was the one’ – they were now seeing each other most nights and planning on a weekend away to the Lake District.

She was speaking a mile a minute, her eyes lit up by the passion she was experiencing: the flowers, the romantic dinner dates, the incredible sex at five-star hotels. I wanted to be happy for her, really I did, but instead I felt my heart thud to the bottom of my stomach in dread.

Because if I’ve learnt anything from my many years of therapy, it’s that the moment you start thinking someone is the love of your life, you should begin running in the opposite direction. As fast as you possibly can.

I mention this because Katy Perry, 41, has just announced that Justin Trudeau, 54, is ‘the love of [her] life’. Sounding like she’d walked straight off the set of a Richard Curtis movie, she told an audience this week that she was ‘very in love’ with the former Canadian Prime Minister, whom she met shortly after her break-up with actor Orlando Bloom last summer.

And while you’d have to be miserly in the extreme to begrudge Perry and Trudeau their happiness, I can’t help but roll my eyes in the same way I did when my friend announced she’d fallen for someone because he liked oat milk in his decaf coffee.

Katy Perry, 41, has just announced that Justin Trudeau, 54, is ‘the love of [her] life’. She met the former Canadian Prime Minister shortly after her break-up with actor Orlando Bloom last summer

Call me cynical and profoundly unsentimental, but I’m instantly wary when a couple hard launches a relationship with the speed of a Jeff Bezos rocket.

I had a lot of terrible relationships in my twenties, and in my experience it’s the ones that rush headfirst into declarations of love which end up causing the most heartbreak. Perry herself must surely be aware of this, having got engaged to Russell Brand within four months of meeting him.

All in all, there were two years between the couple being introduced and granted a divorce, which must be a record, even by vacuous Hollywood standards.

But it’s one thing carrying on like this in your twenties – Perry was 25 when she met Brand – quite another when you are in your forties, and old enough to know better. Haven’t all the self-help books Perry’s read taught her that a healthy adult relationship doesn’t involve cosplaying a Disney Princess?

Besides, is publicly declaring someone the love of your life all that thoughtful – or grown up – when you are supposed to be maintaining a civil relationship with the ex you’ve had children with? (In Perry’s case, Orlando Bloom, and in Trudeau’s case, his ex-wife Sophie.)

A very wise psychotherapist told me that while the notion of there being ‘one’ person – a soulmate – might make for a good Hollywood movie plot, it’s fundamentally unrealistic. It puts unhealthy pressure on a relationship and leaves little room for either party to be human. She added that we should never expect one person to meet all of our needs; that this was a recipe for disaster when it came to marriage.

When I was young and addicted to watching rom-coms, I thought love was a feeling, a fizziness in my stomach that showed up whenever ‘the one’ walked into the room or replied to a text he’d hitherto ignored.

Later, I’d learn that this feeling of fizziness, of love-sickness, was not actually love at all, but my nervous system trying to warn me that said bloke tripped all my most dysfunctional switches.

I was quite unprepared for how calm I felt when I first met the man I would end up marrying. I love my husband Harry with all my heart – we’ve been together 15 years – precisely because he doesn’t make my body feel like it’s permanently part of one of those firework displays Katy Perry likes to sing about.

So often, things that felt like green flags during our twenties – passion, drama, yearning – end up being massive red flags in our forties. And so it was for my friend, who went to the Lake District with the ‘love of her life’ and then never heard from him again, bar a text telling her he was ‘having some issues’ and needed ‘space’. As I mopped up her tears, I felt like drowning him in Lake Windermere.

Obviously, I hope nothing like this happens to Katy Perry. But if it does, I’d tell the pop star the same thing I told my friend: there’s only ever going to be one love of your life, and that’s the person staring at you in the mirror. Get that relationship right, and the rest of it will fall into place.

Time to ban ALL wheelie cabin bags

The International Air Transport Association has warned that airlines may be forced to lock carry-on luggage in overhead lockers due to a ‘growing number of cases’ where passengers have prioritised grabbing their bags over evacuating a plane. But I’ve got a better idea: how about banning ‘hand’ luggage that you can’t actually fit under the seat in front of you altogether?

The endless delays caused by people trying to shove wheelie suitcases in overhead bins is tedious beyond belief. Here’s a hint: if something is big enough that it requires wheels to move it, then it’s not ‘carry on’!

Emma Watson dons a pair of £145 pyjamas from the brand Pink City Prints while in Venice. ‘Is wearing pricey nightwear out in public the ultimate sign that you have way too much money, and time, on your hands?’, asks Bryony Gordon

£145 pyjamas… really, Emma?

Emma Watson has been spotted out and about in Venice, wearing a pair of £145 pyjamas from the brand Pink City Prints. She accessorised with a glass of orange juice, a plate of pastries, and some rather elaborate jewellery – a pair of cherry earrings, and a necklace that looks like the type you used to buy from sweet shops when you were a child. I have a few thoughts here. Firstly, could the five-star hotel she’s staying in not have provided her with a takeaway cup and paper bag? And secondly, is wearing pricey nightwear out in public the ultimate sign that you have way too much money, and time, on your hands? 

For the first time in five years, the number of children reading for pleasure has risen, with more than one in three picking up a book for fun, according to the National Literacy Trust. Elsewhere, researchers at the University of Exeter have called for a ban on ‘No Ball Games’ signs, after a study showed that increased play outside significantly improves a child’s mental health. Now all we need is the PM to ban social media for under-16s, and I might actually start to feel hopeful for the nation’s children. 

Ben Stokes has been dropped from the England cricket team after a raucous evening which ended in a fight at a Chelsea nightclub called the Rex Rooms, which once used to be known as ‘151’

My wild nights in Ben Stokes’ boozer 

Ben Stokes has been dropped from the England cricket team after a raucous evening which ended in a fight at a Chelsea nightclub called the Rex Rooms. My searing investigative journalism reveals this is a re-branding of a club previously known as ‘151’, which was very popular in the 1990s with me and my school friends, mainly as it always let us in despite the fact we were underage.

I’d like to say I remember it well, but the flaming Drambuies the club specialised in means I have few clear memories of it. All I know is that 151 wasn’t cricket back in 1996, and it certainly doesn’t appear to be now.