The Dating Diaries: Bennifer 2.0 made me believe in soulmates

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in 2003. Photo / Getty Images

Bennifer is back, baby, and this refreshed 2.0 couple are fulfilling all my soulmate dreams.

A few weeks ago you may recall my Sex/Life column. It was meant to be a review but ended up being me pining over my ex-boyfriend *sigh*.

Choices were made, an hour-long phone convo with my BFF was had and just when I thought I was over my quarter-life crisis, The Chainsmokers Closer came on shuffle, Bennifer pictures filled my IG feed and I was left wondering how society went from dating your ex being a bad thing, to now be a goal.

I have a soft spot for The Chainsmokers' Closer because the lyrics "four years no calls, now you're looking pretty in a hotel bar" have stuck with me since the day I heard them. The whole song is about reuniting with your ex for a night of nostalgic passion - sung with such fairytale magic that I'm convinced one day I too will run into an ex-boyfriend while I'm sitting pretty in a hotel bar.

If you're a realist, you may think the chances of that are basically zero but as a hopeless romantic, feel free to join in with my daydream. But whether you like it or not there is always that one person you wish the stars would align for – and I bet you're thinking of them right now.

Maybe you want to have a do-over, maybe the timing was never quite right or maybe you still love them. Whatever it is, it's why we as a society are so obsessed with nostalgia for our ex and why we are rooting for Bennifer to make it this time.

J-Lo and Ben Affleck have been sneaking around for a while according to the infamous "close source" but this week she lived all our sitting pretty in a hotel bar dreams by making it IG official with her ex-boyfriend (now current boyfriend) Benny boy.

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Side note: her way of making it IG official - on a boat, in a bikini, looking smoking hot and turning 52, was perhaps more iconic than the "I'm back with my ex-boyfriend" announcement but I'm happy to debate it.

There's no doubt Bennifer is one for the books. Obviously, their couple name is cute and enviable, but it goes deeper than that. They were engaged in 2002 with a $1.2 million ring and the tabloids were full of beautiful interviews where the two gushed over each other. It was a classic aughts relationship. But they broke up and went on to marry and have mini me's with other people.

Years later, whether by fate or convenient timing, they're single at the same time and have reunited. The once innocent and cute lovey-dovey couple has flourished into super-hot, "right person, wrong time" icons.

Curious whether rekindling love was possible, I asked my BFF whose parents pulled a Bennifer and he explained their love story in the best way possible:

"They were childhood sweethearts who took space to work out the grass wasn't greener."

Now if that doesn't scream Bennifer, I don't know what does. It also explains why most of us romanticise the heck out of rekindling old feelings because nothing will compare to your first love and sometimes it takes a moment to figure that out.

I'm going to end this column on a positive note because I'm feeling mushy; Bennifer has proven to me, in a world of billions of people, your other half is somewhere out there, and they might be someone you've dated before.

My mum talks about divine timing a lot and thanks to Bennifer I'm now convinced the universe will always put you in the right place at the right time.

Finally, to all the conspiracy theorists who think Bennifer is for publicity, Ben (almost) looks like he's enjoying himself, which is a massive step forward because the sad boy cigarette memes basically defined him. So Bennifer is real, okay? And so are soulmates.