Love Lives - #20 Dolly Alderton joins us to discuss dating in your 20s, female friendships and her new book

Episode Date: February 2, 2018

This week on Millennial Love we are thrilled to be joined by former dating columnist, podcaster and author Dolly Alderton. As well as picking Dolly's brains about how she wrote her new book 'Everything I Know About Love', we discuss how to cope when your friends get into new relationships and you're suddenly less of a priority. It's a familiar struggle for many of us.We also delve into our psyches and explore the idea of craving attention from the opposite sex whilst simultaneously fearing intimacy. How does it come about? And what can we do about the predicament?Finally, Dolly explains how, after years of entertaining escapades with men, she's ultimately learned that she is enough.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twas the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, the Independent Lifestyle Desk's weekly podcast on love, dating and relationships. Hosted by me, Olivia Petter, lifestyle writer. And me, Rachel Hosey, assistant lifestyle editor. Each week we're discussing the core dating issues affecting millennials today. There are endless podcasts out there on relationships, but as two single ladies in our 20s, we didn't feel any really reflected our own experiences.

And that's where Millennial Love comes in. This week, we are so excited to welcome journalist, former dating columnist, co-host of my favourite podcast, The Hilo, and now author, Dolly Alderton. Welcome, Dolly. Hello, thank you for having me. Thank you so much for coming. Sorry, I just totally forgot what you were saying. I was going to say the same thing. Do you want to say it again? No, let's just carry on. Okay. Today we are so excited to be talking about Everything I Know About Love, which although it sounds like it could probably be the name of this very podcast, it's actually the title of

Dolly's debut book, which takes us through the ups and downs of dating in your 20s via Dolly's poignant and often hilarious observations. It also includes a mixture of some of your favorite recipes. My favorite is probably the got kicked out of a club sandwich. Yeah. And lots of endless disaster date anecdotes, bad parties and many touching stories about the importance of female friendship. But first, before we get started, how was your week, ladies? Well, I had quite a quiet weekend and so I spent some time on the old dating apps. Oh, which ones? I was on Bumble. They don't reply on that.

Yeah, I know what you mean. You could be Giselle, which you clearly are. And they don't reply. I just want to reassure you. Every woman who says I'm using Bumble, the first thing I say is, by the way, no one gets any replies. Yeah, it's like probably one in ten.

However, I switched to Tinder at one point over the weekend, but I just was never swiping right. Yeah. And I feel it's very difficult. Anyway, I managed to embarrass myself because I started talking to this guy and I asked him, you know, It's very difficult. Anyway, I managed to embarrass myself because I started talking to this guy. And I asked him, you know, what are these generic questions of what you're up to this weekend?

And then a few hours went by and I went back on Bumble. I was talking to someone else or something. And then I opened that conversation seeing what are you up to this weekend? And I replied going, I will actually I'm working this weekend. But then I'm going to the cinema and getting my hair cut. And then he was like, what? Did you just preempt my question? And I was like, oh, God. I answered my question to you.

Oh, it was a bit mortifying. And I was like, I'm really not drunk, I promise. I just got confused. I was going to say that is quite a drunken move. My friend famously once sent, was trying to booty call a guy and she sent him a series of incessant messages and then she replied to them all within the same evening. Being like, where are you? Do you want to meet up?

Because she was so drunk. I think it's charming, it's kooky. Yeah, I mean, he was like, were you replying to a different guy? I was like, no, literally to myself. because she was so drunk. I think it's charming. It's kooky. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was like, were you replying to a different guy? I was like, no, literally to myself. That is so funny. It's really funny. I mean, it's an easy mistake to make.

Anyway. If you get married, it will be a great speech starter. Oh, God, yeah. You know, that's what I think with the start of every relationship slash this isn't even a relationship. I'm always like,

this will be such a funny story at the wedding. that used to kill me that fantasy it's definitely not healthy no i use the thing that i used to do which is so unhealthy is when i was texting a guy that i just started seeing i was very good at doing the cool girl carapace they never men never knew how much of a psychopath i was but something i used to do is when i'd run out of material to stalk online and because i was so incessant i would run out of material fairly quickly for sure and it's kind of like my friend indian i always say when you're that obsessive about a guy it's like having a perfume putting perfume on a department store and then you're like sniffing it all day and then you're like oh no i'm losing the scent like i need more fuel to like be obsessed with yeah do you know what i mean i need how do i go find more like an update of the spray and then you go onto facebook

and then you put in his surname to search all his family and then you're like oh i can go through their albums and find all this other material of him. 100% been there. Yeah, 100%. What have you been up to, Libby? I have been getting ready for my trip to the States and going to America for three weeks. Nice.

Where in America are you going? Going to San Francisco, which would be really cool. I'm so jealous. And then to New York for a fashion week. Fashion, darling. Yeah, I'm not sure what that's going to be like. I've never been there

for Fashion Week before so that'll be interesting. Have you been to The Butcher's Daughter yet? Yes. It's so good. Oh, it's so good. This is a hipster

vegan cafe in New York that I hate to say I friggin' love. It's actually bloody tasty. It's really good. They do avocado toast but like next level delicious.

How is it next level because I love avo toast? It's like really good bread. How do you have that? I think last time I went there, I had like the vegan pastrami, which sounds like hell, but it was just so good. It was so good. Also, do you eat fish?

Yes, but not at the moment because I'm doing Veganuary. But you'll be there in Feb. Yes. Okay. So I think the best restaurant in New York is this place called Brooklyn Crab. Brooklyn Crab. Brooklyn Crab. Which is in Red Hook, which is this amazing part of Brooklyn where it's like hardly any cars. And you have this amazing view over the Statue of Liberty.

It's great to go there at sunset. Awesome. You pay quite a lot, but you get this gigantic crab. It's the best crab I've ever eaten. And a margarita, like a frozen margarita that's the size of your torso. Sweet. It's the best evening. Save up and that should be i will that's the best thing about america is the portions are just yeah gigantic i live for that it's great i really just can eat forever it's a bit dangerous yeah both sister yeah no i'm excited doll What's going on with you, Dolly? Well, definitely not dating or on dating apps. What have I been doing?

I've just been working. Book promo? Yeah, all I'm doing is book promo at the moment. I'm trapped in this hideous echo chamber of Dolly Alderton, and it's turning me into a monster. And every time that I reveal it to a fellow writer at the moment, I'm like, I just feel like I'm so self-obsessed. And all I do is think about my book and events coming up and you know reviews of the book and how I'm going to

organize the book party and all the exciting things I could do with brands and it's just this like hamster weird and I don't think it's healthy I gotta say and every writer and every every author I've spoken to said don't worry it's completely normal at this stage I'm like no no but I don't think that's okay so I'm trying really hard at the moment not even to unplug but to just immerse myself in something or someone that isn't fucking me because I can feel myself just you know gonna turn into someone who that's all they think about and I really don't think that's good for the soul. And I guess considering the book is about your life,

it's not even like you've written a novel. Exactly. Yeah. It's something I'm super aware of. I don't know. I think I had no idea it would be as all-consuming as it is. I'm really enjoying it. You know, it's my childhood dream to write a book.

But selling books in the world we live in now is quite hard. So I didn't realize the pressure that I would feel. It's weird. It's like, am I going to be as daring as to say it's like having a baby? Probably not. No, won't go quite that far. But it's like having this thing that you've created where nothing's ever enough like I just want it to sell and that's kind of incumbent on me so

it's it's like whenever you have your own project when you're part of a more collaborative thing you can have moments where you just kind of take your feet off the accelerator or you think oh Linda on the next desk we'll sort that but this is the first thing in my life properly where i'm like oh no this is all on me i really basically can't do enough because sadly i am um a mercenary and i really want it to sell not just to make money but i'm you know it's such hard work writing a book it would be so brilliant if it reached lots of people the art isn't quite enough for me sadly I wish it was no well we both adored it didn't we yeah I have no doubt that it will reach a lot of people touch a lot of parts

particularly I think our kind of age demographic like it's so prevalent to so relatable yeah to everything we talk about on the podcast everything we talk about with our friends like and it's so prevalent to so relatable yeah to everything we talk about on the podcast everything we talk about with our friends like and it's just done in such a kind of heartwarming touching way it's not kind of your generic like it's not just like a dating like bad series of bad dating stories it's kind of done in a way that it just makes a lot of sense like as a whole oh thank you so much when did you start start working on it? I knew I wanted to write about my 20s from about the age of 24. Really? Yeah, yeah.

And I remember the first time I had an idea for it was, I was in New York, actually. I was visiting a very close friend of mine, moved out there. And I had a day wandering around Manhattanhattan i had no money as your early was this the bit in the book no no a different trip to new york no spoilers i know this is only mildly less insane than the trip that i write about in that chapter um actually a side note on that do you know the writer joel golby yes he's brilliant he's like yeah he's so funny but but very different to my style i would say he's very cynical and yeah quite male i would say in his prose and he was one of the only boys who i sent

the book to just because i love his writing so much and i really wanted him to have a copy and uh his reaction to that New York chapter where I slightly lose my mind and kind of fall in love with a stranger I love that bit I still I wanted you to you know rekindle things with him I was rooting for him Pandora said no sadly he's got a girlfriend now um but yeah it's this kind of mad time that I had in New York where I was very irresponsible and I actually found it a very embarrassing chapter to write because I just made decisions that now as a 29 year old I'm just like why did you do that and most women I know it's all about me being very lost really and most women I know who've read that chapter have said to me like that made me so sad

I've been that person I've tried to escape my sadness by going to a foreign place and trying to be a different person it didn't work. Joel Goldby's response to that chapter was that whole bit in New York mate are you fucking mad it made me laugh so much it's such a male reaction yeah love that story but anyway so I had my first trip to New York when I was about 24 I had no money but I remember having like five dollars that I was gonna like buy a treat for myself with and I was about 24 I had no money but I remember having like five dollars that I was gonna like buy a treat for myself and I was in Greenwich Village and I found this beautiful stationary shop and there's a lovely little exercise book with two swallows on the front and I bought it and I thought I'm gonna sit in a cafe all afternoon I'm gonna plot this memoir that I'm gonna write at

some point in my 20s and I still worked off those initial thoughts when I came to write it so I was kind of planting I was brewing ideas for it for a really long time and then I wrote I took a month off my full-time job in TV when I was 25 um and wrote half a book then for a proposal really yeah but it was much more of a kind of sassy manual of like how to be in your 20s and I used that as a calling card for agents got a brilliant agent out of it but thank God it never saw the light of day and then everything was kind of percolating for years and I was writing bits and bobs and then I sold the book on half of it being written which is about again about 40 000 words wow and then the second half i wrote in they gave me three months

and if i'm being totally honest i think i wrote it in about a month wow yeah which was not i found it really stressful that was a stupid decision on my part but i'm a journalist at heart so yeah it's always deadlines for me that that make me productive yeah yeah same very immature thing is though I think when you do put that time pressure on yourself you do actually probably perform better than if I think so but apparently that's nonsense it was like at uni some people when they had their essays due some people were like needed the fear of it being the night before the deadline yeah and some people I was one of those who had a fear of the fear so I was afraid of that last minute panic so I would always do things quite early yeah Farley my friend Farley

is like that I've read so much about Farley I feel like I know Farley I know me too I was like oh I'm so Farley in this bit oh no I'm definitely Doly in this bit. Oh, no, I'm definitely dolly in this bit. Oh, my God, that warms my heart. Honestly, we were saying, like, you know, obviously you listened to The High Low and we read your book and obviously you were a dating columnist for so long. Yeah. Do you get people coming up to you saying, like, oh, I feel like I know you so well?

And you're like, who are you? Yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm actually not precious about that at all. I think it's a very arrogant person who would share a lot of who they are. Obviously, you curate a lot of that as well, but present who you are and the essence of who you are

as truthfully as possible and then really enjoy it when it's kind of in your favor. And then if people say to you, I know who you are, suddenly clutch your pearls and go, no, you don't. How dare you be so presumptuous? Of course, they know the spirit and the I know who you are, suddenly clutch your pearls and go, no, you don't. How dare you be so presumptuous?

Of course, they know the spirit and the essence of who you are, if that's what you've chosen to shape your work. The only time I don't like it, I must say, is when I get unsolicited therapy or advice. Oh, God, I don't enjoy that because I feel like it's so many fragments make up a human and their experience. And even the most confessional and tell all of journalists, which I don't think I am. But even those people like, you know, the Liz Jones of this world, even then we don't really know the story or the context. We really don't. So to send out, you know, the kind of imperious advice on on how they could be a better person or where they're going wrong in their life i do that does rub me out the wrong way i don't blame it's a very particular type of person that goes out of their way to like offer their advice yeah

yeah it's so annoying yeah okay another one really quickly just while we're talking about this because obviously Olivia and I now you know host a dating relationships podcast are you both single yeah

yeah you're hesitant what's going on no I am I am I'm seeing someone but who I mean

what does that even mean I don't know yeah I'm in a similar situation realistically but single yeah I'd still say I'm single the seeing window

for me is three months it's very long isn't it yeah I'd still say I'm single the seeing window for me is three months okay yeah it's very long isn't it yeah I think less than that um two months but yeah yeah so what I really wanted to ask you was I love that I'm just sorry I agree with you though high priestess of dating sorry that's so arrogant it's whatever you want it to be Olivia I always I always think three months as well though I'm like whenever I ask guys I'm seeing like oh have you had any long term relationships they're like what does that mean like you know three months and upwards I just think it's a good mark Apparently that isn't long term though by the way

FYI I found that out But it's the stages because you're seeing someone and then you have to decide whether you're exclusively seeing them before you then become like an official thing. Yeah but here's the thing that I always used to find insane I've got to lay my cards on the table i've been out of the dating game for a year consciously it's like i've gone

into retirement it's been amazing but here's something that used to really annoy me about that exclusivity thing i hated when no matter how casual the arrangement was whether it was a month in or two months in or three months in, I always would, if you're sleeping with someone, I would always want it to be exclusive, not for jealousy, but for like hygiene.

I was about to say hygiene. But it's hard because there's no way, I remember saying that to men of being like, if you're sleeping with me, you're not sleeping with other people. And this is not me being territorial of you. Yeah. And you're more than welcome to go on dates with other women or we can stop sleeping together.

But I'm not sharing your body with loads of other women. I agree. It really grosses me out. But what was the response when you said that to men? Were they like, what, why? Or were they like,

oh, I think that they were, they thought that I was concealing, um, an emotional ownership or jealousy, which like truly I wasn't at that stage when it's so early on and as I you know I'm totally fine with having multiple sexual partners or or non-monogamy that works really great but for a lot of people but everyone has to be complicit in that arrangement everyone has to be given consent and everyone needs to know

what birth control everyone is using otherwise I'm sorry i'm not okay with it and i i do think it probably made me come across a bit of a psycho but hey i'm nearly 30 thank god i don't care anymore why so but how did guys respond when they found out you were a dating columnist uh they always wanted to be written about. I find that as well. Yeah, I have a lot of guys that are like, can you talk about me on the podcast? I'm like, no. Yeah, they don't.

You're not interesting enough. Yeah, men on the whole, and this is not me man bashing, since I got an email from the highlight being like, it seems like Dolly hates all men. I feel like I now have to say that incredibly obvious caveat every single time. But on the whole, young men, I found when we were doing Cosmo and I did that dating column, he was a man in his early 60s.

I was a woman in my mid 20s. He found it much more difficult to write about women because I think women have so much more self-awareness. And I think women often think the worst of themselves. Whereas every man I went on a date with, bar one in two years, wanted to be written about. One of them emailed me asking for a PDF of his write-up, like he was at a restaurant that I was reviewing. Oh my God.

I was going to frame it. They all seemed, if I ever wrote anything, I was never negative or rude, but if I ever wrote anything that wasn't, they stole my heart and made my knees quiver. They always seemed like quite shocked and outraged. Like the,

the con is on these guys. They really thought that they could take me out for the best day of my life, whether they had interest in seeing me or not. Otherwise was irrelevant. They thought they would get the golden write up and they were very surprised if they didn't. God, what does that say about the male ego? Christ, that's hilarious. That happens to me though.

All of my male friends as well, not people that I date, but they all say to me when they find out I do this podcast, they're like, oh my God, you have to have me on as a guest. I'm like, what have you got to say? Yeah, totally.

It was that quote, it's Lord grant me the confidence of a completely average white dude. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, that's great. But back yourself. That's brilliant.

I just, the disparity and the gap between, can you imagine if I went on a date with a man? I'd be so nervous. And knowing he was writing at home. Me too, I know. I'd be so nervous. I'd be like, don't write about me. I don't want the world hearing about this date.

Yeah. But, yeah. It's so funny. Hopefully we be like, don't write about me. I don't want the world hearing about this date. Yeah. But yeah. It's so funny. Hopefully we'll catch up with them one day. Anyway, let us move on to bio of the week. So we've been scrolling, we've been swiping, we've been assessing the bios of our potential suitors. And the favourite one we've come across this week

is very short, but I think very sweet. I should probably caveat this with one of the pictures in the bio is a guy baking. He appears to be making some sort of cookie and his bio simply reads, not my rolling pin. Do you get it?

Okay, so when you first told me this, I don't get that. I was like, because when you first, I'm glad you said that. I'm so sorry. When you first told me this. I't get that I was like because when you first said that I'm glad you said that I'm so sorry when you first told me this I thought it might

need explaining yeah you need to explain it it's always good to explain the joke it really made me laugh every good joke needs a good explanation

you know when they have guys always are like not my baby or like not my daughter not my son not my and this guy goes

not my rolling pin that is actually very funny. It's quite clever. I think maybe when you see it in context, it's funnier than when you read it out on a podcast. And also, if you'd said that to me a year ago, 18 months ago, where I had, you know, repetitive strain disorder from just like constant,

where I was always on a dating app when I was watching a film or on the bus, whatever, I think then I would have found I would have recognized that reference but now that I'm clean I'd forgotten but you're right that is something that they always used to write and also they used to say my mates made me do this oh it's awful that's the worst it's like get off what are you doing my favorite one I ever saw was a bloke who just wrote i hate london wow cheery i just liked it because it was such a foil to all the other profiles that were like loving life in the big city you would love a lady by my side to stroll down the south bank and go on you know urban adventures and just this bloke being like i hate london i quite i quite

respect that to be honest it's quite blunt just like yeah i don't like you know strong coffee or you know edgy markets and traveling yeah i found another one that they do is i suppose we'll just have to tell everyone that we met in a cafe yeah i hate that as well because it makes it sound like you're ashamed to be on a dating app like don't don't, like, ugh, it annoys me. The other one that I hate that's so manipulative is looking for a spoon buddy. Oh, that makes me cringe. I can't bear that. Because it's like, you know that you're preying on hungover and insecure women on a Sunday evening. And another one that they do that I don't like is something about looking for a wife.

Again, because it's manipulative. Not looking for anything serious, just a wife. Because that's one they do quite a lot. Again, because it's manipulative. Not looking for anything serious, just a wife. Because that's one they do quite a lot. Yeah, it's really manipulative, I think, that one. The other thing which I said to Livvy earlier is, so weeks and weeks and weeks ago, when we were doing Bio of the Week. I love that segment, by the way.

Thank you. We did this one, which we loved at the time. It was the first time we'd seen it. It was hoping to leave the single market before the UK does which i thought was really funny that is very funny yeah but now it's like every other guy has it i'm like have you all listened to the podcast i think they've all listened i think they all listen i mean like that is the way to go they love that bio so they've all done it yeah it must be a trendsetters now they're all going to do not my rolling pin yeah i do like not my rolling pin yeah it was good right let's

move on to talk about your book a bit more because there were so many things we wanted to talk about as we said we loved it we laughed we cried i was on the tube at that point which was awkward um so many parts of it really just sort of spoke to my soul it was very relatable wow that's like the nicest thing you could say. Thank you. No, honestly. Like, I'm not just saying that. Yeah. Like the big guns.

No, it was fantastic. But one of the things which I thought was so interesting was, well, I like that it was as much about female friendships as it was about your relationships with men and romantic relationships. But I think one of the recurring themes in the book that I took away from it was how to cope when your friends got into relationships and that's something I'm very familiar with and it's difficult when you can be so used to having your female friends sort of there all the time and then suddenly they get this person in their life that is suddenly

number one and you did that really interesting ranking of how people's priorities change it doesn't happen with men it's how women's priorities change okay tell the listeners what the list is well it's something that i've been thinking about a lot particularly in the last year because i've had this distance from romantic love and i hadn't realized on one level or another how much that had sort of imprisoned me and taken up so much of my mind in my time since I was a teenager women are generally speaking and I don't know why it is I think it must be something to do with biology and I think it must be something to do with biology. And I think it must be something to do with the narratives of romance that were fed from a very young age.

I think we're slightly indoctrinated with this idea that life isn't complete until a man chooses you. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Kirkshank. And on my podcast, Phone a Friend, podcast. Here's a show that we recommend. for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on.

Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Krukschank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

Acast.com Oh yeah. I think women lose their minds in love. I do. I think they lose their minds. I think a lot of the time they humiliate themselves and I think that they lose who they are. And I've done it. I've done it over and over again.

And in fact, I don't think I've ever been in a relationship where I haven't done it I've done it over and over again and in fact I don't think I've ever been in a relationship where I haven't done it and I think what is becomes hard as the friend of someone when you see them do that and again not all I think most women at some point or another will do that where you get this feeling when the guy comes that sort of the whole world could crumble around you and you don't really give a monkey's as long as he's standing there. And that is an unhealthy way to think about life and to play emotional supremacy of this love,

this feeling, this relationship is now the golden trump card on anything else. I can cancel on people. I cannot reply to them. I cannot take them seriously and i can basically be very negligent of our bond because now i've got this thing in my life that everyone knows is more important than anything else i don't believe men have that mentality i really don't like the number of times where i've just started seeing someone, I feel like I'm falling in love.

And I just, all I think about is them. And I just stop working. I just don't work. My work falls behind. I'm staring out of a window. I don't really care about the quality of the work I hand in. You know, I was talking, I was interviewed the other day and I was talking about every woman I know has a story of humiliation where they first start meeting a guy.

They're not sure if he's interested. They sit at home in their best dress pretending they're on a night out. He calls them and says, where are you? And then you down a bottle of wine and get in a cab and rough your hair up and act like you've just come from seeing your friends. Again, most girls I know have a story like that. Boys aren't doing that. that so I think I found it increasingly hard as I was growing up that it I wasn't the one that was falling in love and forming partnerships it was my friends one by one did this and they were relatively young when they did it and they moved out of the flat that we shared and I felt like

I felt the only way I could describe it is I felt like I had been their warm up act. I had been their practice run for their big emotional moment of their life. And I had just been the rehearsal. Yeah, I think it's totally shit to feel like that. I've had friends who they get into relationships and they become totally smitten with this guy. And they might as well just fall off the face of the earth. Because, you know, I keep trying to call them or message them. And they just sort of reply to one message and then not reply to anything else.

And then there's only so many times you keep trying with them before you realize, okay, fine. But then it's when they break up with the guy. And then they come running back and want to be your friend again. Yeah. And then it's a bit like, well, what am I supposed to do? Because often that kind of blind infatuation that you get with someone when you first start seeing seeing them it doesn't really last for longer than like a few months really and then i think when you get into maybe six months onwards that's when the person in the

relationship will probably realize oh god where are my friends now like i don't have those same kind of strong bonds and i've noticed it with friends of mine who have gone you know kind of balls to the wall in these really intense relationships and then our friendship has kind of dwindled as a result but then they kind of come back a few months later once things are kind of settled yeah and also I sound like I've got these unbelievably high expectations I understand when you fall in love it's the same as when you fall in love with a new business venture or you know you know that it's fine that you have to share your time and maybe you see your friend less but as you said I'm talking about the people where you just feel like you've gone from number one to just yeah down to the kind of bottom of the bottom because revisiting your initial question sorry I'm such a waffler

the ranking system that I realized that kept happening is that when you when a woman I loved met a guy, I'd gone from being number one to well, their friends had gone from being number one to the boyfriend is number one. And then the boyfriend's family and then the boyfriend's friends. And then weirdly, there was this other layer of the boyfriend's friend's girlfriend. What? Suddenly, it was like really important that you had to be at Lea's 30th I can see I can see why that is a thing though because it's kind of like you want to build this like community that's what it is and that's and and you love the idea of of being part of a collective identity and Nora

Ephron writes about this in heartburn so well where she says when you're in a couple and you find a group of other couples oh my gosh yes it's this incredible camaraderie and you operate as a glamorous too and you have this joint identity as well you know it's very seductive but it also means that that the friends who you have an individual friendship with just get forgotten they just get forgotten i've got friends who have started moving in with their boyfriends and now they're like i'm like oh you freeze such and such a night and they're like oh no we're having like a couple's dinner party and i'm like yeah oh god hang out with your couple friends and i i just don't get invited how old are you if you don't mind 25 and 25. And how old are you? 23. Yeah, it was the worst for me

between the ages of 23 and about 26. And it is just the first round of grown-up relationships. And then they do all come back. Or as I say on that last page, all the good ones come back. Yeah. All the good ones come back. And also, I'm very aware I'm sounding like

I behave perfectly in relationships. I've been guilty of this too. I've been guilty of this too. I've been guilty of this too. Yeah, yeah, God, me too. I think we all have. Of getting swallowed up, yeah. Well, that's the thing. I don't want to judge my friends too harshly who do this

because I don't really have experience of being in long-term relationships. I don't know what I'd be like. Considering I've been on the receiving end of this behaviour, I like to think I wouldn't be like that. But I don't really understand, to be honest. Yeah, and it makes you mad. Love does make you mad. Oh, completely.

You lose your... I'm not going to swear, but you lose your... We've already sworn, so... Have we? That's me. No, but I did as well. Oh, you lose your shit. You lose your fucking shit.

Yeah, there's this phrase that I use all the time. And you can cut this out if you decide that it's too gross. And I feel sorry for anyone who's listened to other interviews with me because I use it all the time. But I think it's so relevant to describing this phenomena in your 20s with your friends one by one kind of leaving you momentarily and then returning. In Martin Amis' book, The Rachel Papers,

that he wrote when he was hideously young. He wrote it when he was about 19. And he talks about his sister who falls in love with this big burly oaf who she's obsessed with. And he's spending time with his sister and she's completely just not there. She's just so obsessed with this guy.

And Martin Amis' character says, she was full-on spunk drunk. I like that. It's a thing. Totally a thing. You've got to let them go be drunk for a while and then they'll sober up and hopefully come back to their senses

and come back to you. Fingers crossed. They will. You're in the thickest part of the woods now. We can get through it. Yeah. Now, I think it's fair to say that in the book,

there are a fair share of dating disasters, which is going to bring us nicely onto Dating Disaster of the Week. Okay, so this is probably my favourite segment. And this week, I'm quite excited because this is one that has come from a friend, an anonymous friend, that I was talking to on Sunday at lunch.

And we were all kind of just sharing dating stories as you do and she came up with this and I was like I need to tell that on my podcast so thank you to said friend and here we go it was my first date with this guy let's call him Jim Jim and I had been getting on swimmingly all evening we went for drinks that led to dinner which led to him coming back to mine we're all all grown-ups here. I don't need to tell you what happened next. After we'd had sex, I readied myself for a night of sleep, i.e. closed my eyes and rolled over. After a few minutes, yes, minutes, after we'd finished having sex, he reached over me to put his phone on my bedside table.

That's when I suddenly heard the sonorous sounds of Stephen Fry talking about whomping willows and Weasley wizards. Is that Harry Potter? I asked. Yeah, I'm on chapter five, he replied. It helps me sleep. Fine. So he likes to fall asleep to Harry Potter. I mean, he's 26 years old, but hey, we all have our quirks. Just as I was starting to drift off into the magical wizarding world, he started whispering. At first, I thought he was just repeating phrases from the story. Maybe he was sleep talking. Then Harry he was just repeating phrases from the story. Maybe he was sleep talking.

Then Harry said to Hermione, touch the wand. I'm no diehard Potter fan, but I'm fairly certain that line wasn't taken from chapter five. Jim carried on mumbling like this for a few minutes. I pretended I was asleep, although I couldn't help but chuckle to myself when he said something about slithering in. Then, obviously thinking I was asleep, I heard some spritzing sounds and the soothing smell of my lavender sleep spray wafting over me.

Clearly not intent on falling asleep to Harry Potter, Jim felt the need to help himself to my very expensive sleep spray. Needless to say, we did not see each other again and I have never looked at Harry Potter or his wand in quite the same way again. That's really creepy.

That's so weird. You know, my first thought of that was when like, so they're at her house, right? Yeah. And so he like starts

playing it on his phone. Like it's not his home. He doesn't have the right to start putting something on. But also, as you said, it's like, okay,

he listens to children's books yeah life's stressful i find it hard to sleep whatever that's okay like that's quite a lot to expect someone's like a new sexual partner to be okay with that yeah then to like yeah let's turn it into some sexual fantasy but also he like he's already shagged her. I know, it's weird. It's weird. You don't need to do all the shit about the wand.

I know. It's very strange. You've done it. You've already slithered in. You don't need to do it again. Exactly. What a creep. It was a weird arrogance there,

I think. There is a weird arrogance that I don't like about it. Yeah. Yeah. And I like, so I like sleep with an eye mask. But if I'm like spending the night with a guy for the first time,

I don't even go like, oh, let me just put my eye mask on. I'm like, nope, I'll just cope without it. I'll cope without it. I don't want everyone to think I'm weird. Yeah. Well, basically, the first six months of any sort of courtship when I was in my early mid-20s was spent with me, with conjunctivitis because I would never take my makeup off.

And so tired because this is so embarrassing. You don't sleep. I'm an adult thumbsucker as well which I'm so embarrassed about. Are you? Yeah.

And I don't think I've ever admitted that before. Exclusive, guys. You love exclusive. I'm just like, do I really want everyone to know that? Yeah, I do do it

and I'm super tired. I do wake up and find myself doing it. And I would be so nervous. I'm like, do I really want everyone to know that? Yeah, I do do it when I'm super tired. I do wake up and find myself doing it. And I would be so nervous. I'm like, I don't want them to think I'm this creepy adult baby. So you never sleep in those first six months. I never sleep. Let alone eye masks and audio books.

And sleep spray. Yeah. You pulled out all the stops. It's weird. Okay, and there's so many things weird to that. We could talk about it all day. Really thank your friend for sharing that. Okay, and there's so many things weird to that. We could talk about it all day. Really thank your friend for sharing. Yeah, that was really good.

I really enjoyed that. Thanks, guys. So another part of the book which really made me stop and think was when you said that you crave male attention but also fear intimacy. Because I think I suffer from that on some level too um but for anyone who hasn't read the book can you sort of explain a bit what you mean by that yeah so I think um there's a chapter of the book about maybe three quarters of the way through where I talk about

my experiences with therapy I went into therapy when I was 27 and did it for 18 months and there's I didn't know what my issue was with men but I knew there was a big issue and when I first started explaining it to this woman she she said to me you you don't know how to relate to men you don't know how to relate to men. You don't know how to relate to them. And when she said that, she said that within 10 minutes of meeting me. And I was like, oh, yeah, I don't. I don't. I know exactly how to relate to women.

I know how to be myself with women. I know how to feel confident with women. I know how to make women laugh. I know how to feel authentic with women. I know how to trust women. I know how to be close with them and learn intimacy. I know how to feel authentic with women i know how to trust women i know how to be close with them and then intimacy i know how to be body confident with women and how to be naked with women you know all this stuff it's like this sort of relationship expert to women as i think all of

us are in our 20s when you have these amazing close friendships that have lasted 10 or 20 years. But I can do any of the above with men, not in a platonic sense. You know, I've got two close male friends, and I remember saying that to her in the first session, and she was like, well, that's a problem. That is a problem. I said, she said, why?

She said, can't you see that's your issue? Why don't you want to be friends with men? And I said, I just don't have interest in them unless I'm sleeping with them and she was like well they're half the population so that's really cutting yourself off from a great many experiences I think that's so common though I know very few women in their early to mid-20s that have more than one or two very close male friends I'm not sure if that's two i think personally i've always been a girl's girl i have so many more girlfriends that i probably have i can literally think of one right and two guys that i would like meet up with by themselves on a friendship level and actually one of the ones i'm thinking of we have definitely crossed the line before um but i

do have girlfriends who are like oh i way prefer hanging out with boys most of my friends are boys yeah but are they doing that to get dick well that's what i've always found no that's that is that's a joke and that is a please make that clear that's okay they do say like don't trust a girl who doesn't have any girlfriends yeah yeah i mean most healthy adjusted adults that i know have friends of both sexes and i think that also that changes as you get older i think and you work with more people and now it's amazing that i've done all this work and all this therapy and all this introspection because like i'm never gonna be as relaxed around men as I am with women, but I'm more than okay now being myself with them.

And I'm more than okay now with sitting at a wedding and talking to a married man and being genuinely interested in talking to a married man rather than being like, you're married, I've got no interest in you, you can do nothing for me. It was all about, the way I related to men, it was all about, I think I had a lot of pent up anger and internalized rage at men. I think I was treated not very well by men in my early 20s.

A lot of that I invited myself. And I think it left me just not really taking them seriously. I just sort of hated them. And I didn't, I just wanted to use them. And I didn't trust them and I didn't, I just wanted to use them and I didn't trust them and I didn't want to be close to them. And I've done a lot of work now to get over that mindset and to allow myself to be vulnerable with men, not just men I have romantic intent with,

you know, sit with a friend's boyfriend or husband and wear no makeup or spill a bit of soup down the top and that just would never have been able to do that before just open up and soften up to all these different kinds of relationships with men rather than just they're there to give me gratification and attention. And that will then obviously benefit the romantic relationships that you have with men hugely, if you already feel more comfortable around them in a platonic sense. Yeah, I can't wait to fall in love again. I don't think it will be, as I said, I'm having this hiatus time out of it because I really needed it. And I'll know when I'm ready to maybe pursue that. Or maybe I won't ever pursue it again and be on the hunt again.

I'm fully prepared I may not ever do that again and just wait and see what happens and if I meet someone. But I can't wait to now go into something romantic with feeling like my whole self is intact and not feeling like I have to slip into this entirely different persona and being ready to relate to them in the amazing way I relate to my family or my friends and being fully myself and opening up and being softer. I can't wait to try that and see what that will be like.

Maybe shit. It may be better just being sort of mad and infomaniac, but apparently, apparently it's not. Apparently intimacy is actually pretty great. That's they say that's what they say working on it you'll get there i'm aware i'm sounding so patronizing i'm only no no no this is all very new stuff for me this is literally stuff i've learned in real time in the last year as i was writing the book it's actually incredibly encouraging because i sit here feeling like I know I've got so many issues and I've now identified some of them which

you know a year or two ago I sort of hadn't even really clocked um so it's actually really encouraging to see that you know like if you think about it if you work on it if you just take a few more years then you can sort of it sounds like you're in a really good headspace with regard to men and dating and relationships yeah yeah it's um yeah it's great i'm so smug about it but i feel i've earned the right to be smart because it was hell yeah working it all out and it's great it's really good something this christmas i've had a real moment where I was like god I'm so proud of you and all my friends are like I'm so proud of you I was like god that doesn't reflect well on how I used to be where a guy that I sort of liked

booty called me and it was at Christmas and I was drunk Christmas special the Christmas special I was and normally I always have this sort of flinging christmas is all single people do when you're sort of pissed for a month and uh but it was just all wrong even though in that moment i was so tempted because i was like i haven't am i gonna be this person i haven't had sex in a really long time and i had my life you know it's hard having a year like celibate it's hard because you do see moments of tenderness or romance everywhere and you're like is that just not a part of my life anymore that just feels like that's not a part of my life and um yeah it was really tempting and then my and then immediately this rational thing in my head went no don't do

that don't you don't need that sensible you're whole and full and enough you've had a wonderful evening with your friends you don't need you know there was a period of my life where a night was only complete once that a bloke was involved oh god me too sharing a taxi home together or exchanging numbers or whatever and i you know i didn't even reply to this guy because i knew i was drunk and i like, I don't even want to engage in a dialogue where he could try and persuade me. My friends were like, look at you.

I was like, guys, this is just most normal people. No, I'm very impressed. That sounds very mature. I find myself doing it like, and now I definitely did it more when I was younger, but I would stay at parties if there was a guy there that I was interested in.

And if there wasn't, I'd be like, right, screw this. I'm leaving. like I get tired early I'm not staying at the party if no one fancies me and it's the shittest sorry it's the worst feeling yeah as well when you feel like you've pinned your whole hopes on the fantasy of a man yeah because that's the other thing as well about not relating to men that that I realized pretty quickly is that nearly every bloke that i became obsessed with i did it was all a fantasy completely it would be me projecting who i thought they were on them or it would be have you read cat person yeah it would be like me imagining how amazing they thought I was that's not relating with someone that's narcissism you know and it was never actually about like a cool funny dude and like what he has to teach me or

what he I want to hear him talk about it was always about this like child's play fantasy and yeah when you do that with a bloke you don't know on a night where you become obsessed with what he's going to be the end of the night and then he turns out he's got a girlfriend or he goes home with someone else or he disappears, you'd be so embarrassed and you'd be like, well, that was a whole waste of an evening. It's totally romanticised in your head and then you kind of realise at the end of the day,

like, Christ, this is just me wanting someone to tell me that I'm beautiful and amazing. It's just about your own ego. Or just because snogging is fun. Yeah, that too. But I do think it's just a self-serving thing isn't it it's just you want someone to tell you that you're this incredible person you want to feel wanted yeah whether you want them or not it's kind of irrelevant you just yeah you want to

feel wanted and also I think everyone needs to go through that like I needed to have a period of my life where all my sense of validation and attractiveness and value was all about whether a man was looking at me or not. But most people grow out of that. I didn't. It got worse and worse and worse. So while most people were growing up and having more of a sense of who they are and integrity and wholeness, I was just becoming more and more addicted to it. So once you release yourself from that and you slowly realize that you don't need any man, you do not need a man in your life.

You just don't. You can have a hugely happy and fulfilled life and feel your best self and have your life crammed full of love and fulfillment without romantic and sexual uh love or attention and the minute that you get to that moment in your life most people get there naturally i need to make a conscious decision to get there you're just free it's amazing i think that's definitely the driving home message of the book which is why i think it's gonna do so well because just free it's amazing i think that's definitely the driving home message of the book which is why i think it's gonna do so well because it is it's just this entirely new perspective that i've never heard before that it is just because you read books about love and it's like

once you fall in love you will become a whole person or this is this is what you need to do you need to sacrifice this you need to change this about yourself but you're right like you i think that whole narrative of you need to find someone else to be a complete person it's just it's just rubbish yeah and the other thing is I read the other day a woman a journalist who I love called Eva Wiseman does this great agony art column for ID and there was a girl who was writing about how she felt like she needed to feel like be on her own. And Eva offered up this theory where she said, I feel like millennials, their generation is sort of too obsessed with being on their own.

And I thought about it and I was like, maybe I am, maybe I do. I don't want to fetishize this message for people. But then I thought, actually, no, I'm fine fetishizing that message. Because do you know what? People have been so obsessed with not being on their own for so long. That's been the only story ending that we've ever seen for women

has been you have to be with someone else. I think it's good that we're offering up, maybe it's an extremity, but offering up another selection of a whole different, many ways you can live a life. I love that. Final question for you.

I was about to say this. I know exactly what you're going to ask. Do you want to ask it? Do you want to ask it? Okay. If everything I know about love gets made into a film, who do you want to play you?

You know, it's been optioned for TV. Has it? Yeah. Oh my God. I'm very careful with banding that around because optioned for tv yeah oh my god i'm very careful with with banding that around because optioning for tv sounds super exciting and it is exciting i'm very excited but i also worked in tv for years and um it optioning is like the first baby step it doesn't mean we're gonna have like clapper boards and mean a sort of fold-out chair with Dolly written on them.

How exciting. Oh my God, I'd love that. Dressing gowns with Dolly. Who would I like to play myself? My friends always say I look like Jim Broadbent. You do not look like Jim Broadbent. Someone actually asked me this the other day. They said who would play and I think I said Gemma Collins. No. She makes me quite good at being, you know, who would play? And I think I said Gemma Collins. No.

She might be quite good at being, you know, entertaining anyway. Yeah, she's sassy. She is sassy. Who else do I love? Oh my God, if we could rewind time and get Emma Thompson in the year that she was in The Tall Guy, which is one of my favourite films. If we could get Emma Thompson in that moment.

That'd be ideal. That would be perfect. See what we can do. Time travel. Just a quick bit of be perfect. See what we can do. Time travel. Just a quick bit of time travel. Oh, I love it. I look forward to seeing it on a screen of either big

or small size soon. Thank you. Anyway, that is it for today, guys. Thank you everyone for listening. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on iTunes. This helps other people discover the podcast

and you'll get a nice little notification when a new episode becomes available. And if you have any dating disasters, please keep sending them or just, you know, if you're our friends, just tell us face to face and we'll ask to use it for material. But you can email them to us at

millennial.love at independent.co.uk or you can tweet us at rachel underscore hosie or olivia petter one. We've also got a new Facebook group dedicated to all things Millennial Love where we're asking your opinion on things. We're sharing articles we've written about relationships and dating. So if you would like to find it, you just have to go to facebook.com slash groups slash millennial dot love. Now, thank you so much for coming on, Dolly.

It's been a real pleasure honestly this has been so much come back please i'm so impressed with you two i don't know i just wish i'd been as wise and brilliant as you are now it would make my book writing of those years much less embarrassing we're very much like struggling our way through the murky waters and that's what this podcast is but you know good on you for being so open about that thanks yeah well i also just feel like you know it's good i just want to talk about it how it is that i'm not afraid to tell people about my issues i feel like maybe puts off some men but not the right type of men and um yeah so everyone dolly's book which we could not recommend more

everything i know about love is out now and what it will be when this podcast comes out anyway and if you don't already i thoroughly recommend you subscribe to the hilo which is dolly's podcast with pandora sykes and we will see you all next week bye Bye-bye.