Seasonal loves aren’t necessarily failed relationships. Some people are knowingly finding the loves of their season, not their lives, and enjoying the relationships in the moment. Hazel Southwell, 38, from London, UK is currently in a relationship that she can see won’t last forever, and she’s spotted this with exes too. “I realized a past relationship was seasonal when we’d both been through significant life changes and there wasn’t anything more of us together,” she says. “It was heartbreakingly sad and a really difficult thing to come to terms with. We had different lives to get on with, that weren’t necessarily aligned. It didn’t make what we had less meaningful or committed that it ended. We’re still very close friends.” Southwell has described herself as a “transition-phase girlfriend” in subsequent relationships. “A lot of people fall in love with a version of me they’ve made up,” she explains, then get the “ick” when she feels they see her for who she really is. She acknowledges that she maintains some emotional distance in these relationships for the sake of self-protection, anticipating things will go wrong. “I do hold myself responsible for the pattern of seasonal relationships,” she adds, perhaps too harshly. “Lots of things change over the course of your life and although some people will see life through in the same town, the same career and the same relationship, there are plenty of us who won’t and it’s just as normal to have a breakup as it is to switch jobs.”