Love Lives - Having an eco-friendly love life, with Aja Barber

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveThis week, Olivia speaks to writer Aja Barber.The two discuss the fascinating links between sustainability and romance, looking at all the surprising ways with which consumption affects the way we behave and think in relationships.Touching on everything from wedding dress shopping and first date outfits to gender binaries and consumer identities, the episode is as wide-ranging as it is interrogating.They also talk about Aja’s relationship with her current partner, and how it began as a long-distance online romance.You can find out more about the upcoming Millennial Love event here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/millennial-love-dating-post-pandemic-tickets-169245226027Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty 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, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God phone a friend with Jesse Crookshank 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 helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more.

This week, I'm joined by the brilliant writer Arja Barber to discuss sustainability and how it affects our love lives. These aren't two subjects that are often thought about together, so I was very intrigued to hear from Arja about how they do relate to one another. Because, as she writes in her new book, Consumed, it transpires that every element of our lives is related to the environment and our carbon footprints, and that does include dating and relationships. Before we get started, I'd love to remind you to sign up to our Millennial Love virtual panel, taking place on the 29th of September, where I'll be talking to previous podcast guests and experts about how the pandemic has changed the way we date. Now, on to the show.

Hello, how are you doing? I am having a great day. I mean, it's Friday. Friday, I'm in love. Like, you can't complain about Friday. So I'm having a good day. Oh, good. I'm pleased. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so excited to talk to you about your brilliant book, Consumed. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so excited to talk to you about your brilliant book, Consumed. So I guess, could you start us off by just explaining what it's about and what made you want to write it? Yeah, so Consumed is, it's nonfiction and it's semi-autobiographical.

It doesn't get into like the deep history of my life, but I talk about the systems of, you know, consumption and fast fashion and how that's impacted me. And I tie in elements of racism and colonialism. And so I'm weaving all of these topics that we talk about in one column into a story about someone who bought a lot of fast fashion and realized that the system was completely messed up. And maybe I don't want to be a part of this. And, you know, I, my goal is to not make anyone ever feel like, you know, I'm, I'm sitting here from a superior perch going, Oh, you need to stop buying fast fashion. But instead to be like, look, I can totally see why you feel like this system you have to participate in, but maybe you don't have to participate.

Maybe you can find a different way to still enjoy fashion, but to not feel compelled to read 20 different emails, urging you to buy new things every single day. Maybe there's a reason why you feel compelled to do that, you know, and maybe it's nefarious. And maybe once you know that you will actually be like, Oh, I don't want to really participate with this anymore. So it's a book where I try and just talk to people and say, look, these are the topics that you probably don't quite grasp how they're all tied together. And this is how they're tied together. And what are we going to do about it next?

and what are we going to do about it next? Yeah. And I want to ask you about, because the link between sustainability and relationships isn't necessarily an obvious one, but I think the way that you write in the book about the intersection between the environment and our daily existence, you know, it makes it applicable to everything. And of course that includes relationships, both platonic and romantic. And so there are some specific things I want to talk to you about that you write about in the book. But I guess in the first instance, could you explain what you think some of the biggest links between our relationships and the impact that they have on the planet might be? Yeah, so Steve and I aren't, you know, the best example because we were long long distance for a while which meant he lived in London I lived in Virginia so we saw each other a few times a year usually and that did involve a flight so not the best there but I think there's something to be said for like long distance

relationships um I think you know you get really really good at communicating in a lot of ways. And during the pandemic, I think we had to really find our way back to that. But the impact of this, this wild ride that I've been on, of basically coming here and being like, oh, I used to love London, like I lived here in 2003. And part of what I loved about London was the access to so much fast fashion and completely rethinking my relationship with that. And I think when you're in a relationship with someone and, you know, they don't even think about these topics, they have to sort of come on that ride with you, you know. When I moved back to London, I think part of what also helped me

was moving here and getting married and basically having to cram my life into my partner's flat. I had to really look at all of my possessions I was bringing over here. And what I found was, oh my God, I have a lot of stuff. Like moving is goddess's punishment for gross materialism.

Because now when I'm in a store, I literally think, right, but would I want to move it overseas? You know? And so when I moved here, I felt very like, I took like a year to really like thoughtfully decrease my items, meaning finding new home for things. I didn't bag everything up and just dump it on a charity shop doorstep. I really didn't want to do that because I already knew about the issues that existed within the supply chain and that whole thing. So I took a solid year and I'm still working on it. When I go home to my parents' house, there is always a drawer I need to clean out. There is always clothing I need to go through. And that got me thinking about my consumption because so much of that stuff, I didn't really want to take to this journey of my life with me. And so when I moved here, I thought, right,

I'm never going back to that. And I think I gradually really, really changed my approach to things. But my partner's come along for that ride as well. I mean, he, when I met him, he was, you know, decked out in like men's fast fashion. And now he's like, yeah, you know what, I'm gonna look for a really nice secondhand jacket. I really like Comme des Garcons. And obviously, we can't afford that stuff full price, but we can get it secondhand. How did you go about having that conversation with him? Was that something that, you know, did you, did you actively say to him, I think you need to stop buying fast fashion or was it kind of just organic from him kind of

observing you? It was very organic. And the truth is like, if I have to say like, who's the more sustainable out of the two of us, it definitely steve i mean when i met him he's got a very minimalist wardrobe and everything fits into his wardrobe for me i'm all over the place but let's also remember that the way society treats people who aren't men when it comes to clothing we are pressured more and there's more pressure on us, whether it's having a new dress for a wedding when a man wears a suit the entire time. Think about that newscaster in Australia where he wore the same suit for a solid year because he wanted to make a point where his colleague, who happens to be a woman, wears dresses and people will complain about her wardrobe,

but nobody is looking at him. And so part of it is there's this societal thing where the expectation for men surrounding dressing, nobody's even looking at them sometimes. So it's very easy to be very minimalist and sustainable when you're a cisgender man. It is, you know, especially in your wardrobe. And so, you know, he was never a person that had too much, but he was a person where if he wanted an item, he would immediately just go to what was the easiest and the most accessible. So like, you know, ASOS, our top shop, it's like, oh, starting a new job, better go get some shirts. And now he doesn't do that anymore. He shops a lot of secondhand like I do from some sustainable brands as well. And he, I remember he bought some socks recently from a sustainable brand.

He was like, yeah, the price point is different, but you know what? I can afford it. Yeah, the price point is different. But you know what, I can afford it. You know what, it's so interesting what you said about the difference between men and women in terms of their carbon footprint, because it's making me think of like the beauty tax, right? So women obviously, feel compelled by society to do all these things to their bodies. And, you know, obviously, that involves a lot of products yeah and very often you will probably increase the amount of products you use if you're about to say go on a date yeah because we are conditioned to think we have to put on a show we have to put on our best selves put on a performance and so I think that in and of itself is probably resulting in a much higher carbon footprint oh my god using all

these things I mean even like so you know I you Steve's like, we've got the cabinet in the bathroom and I've got obviously way more space than he does. Way more shelf space, everything. Because for a while, you know, he's packing and it's just like, right, shampoo, body wash, razor, good to go. You know, that's never going to be me. And Steve's like, Oh, you know, he's basically got three products he uses. And I kind of started to say to him, look, you're very young looking, but if you don't start taking better care of your skin, that won't last. And so actually, during the pandemic, I did sort of start to push him in a different direction. Also, I'm like, I have so many

products. And I tend to buy things that are very unisex. Anyways, I'm not into like, a lot of floral scents. I just like clean scents. So I'm like, why don't you stop buying like, the stuff from that brand that you know, isn't sustainable and just start using my stuff and playing with that. And so I got him using face cream during the pandemic and he was like, look how young my skin looks. That's amazing. The downside of that though, is that he doesn't quite understand portion control

because he's been, you know, buying stuff off the grocery supermarket shelf. So he splashes around like a duck. So I have to sort of hide the things that are a bit more pricey for myself I I do that with my boyfriend as well um because he'll just be like can I borrow some face cream and I'm like yeah okay and he'll go for the most expensive one and he'll stick his hand in like a scoop and just take it out and splatter it on and it's honestly it's a nightmare um this kind of taps into what you write about in the book about the gender binary and how it's

kind of messing everything up when it comes to sustainability. Could you talk to me a bit about what you mean by that and how we form this like consumer identity, like how that derives from the gender binary? I would say early in, I started to realize that for certain designers, there's very little difference between the men's and the women's clothing. The women's clothing just often costs more. And, you know, in these strict binaries, we leave no room for anyone whose gender isn't man, woman, that sort of thing. So that's the first thing is it's not the most inclusive way of going about things. But the second thing is we know about the pink tax for women's stuff. We know that women's clothing is going to cost more sometimes than men would for no reason other than women will pay that, you know. And then I happen to really like men's clothing.

I love my favorite, favorite coat is a Dries von Noten men's coat. It's tie dye. Every time I wear it, I get compliments. And do you know who those compliments come from? Women. I always get compliments. People will stop me in the street to compliment that coat. And I just think it's really sad because there are so few women that would even try on a coat like this because it's in the men's section. So like, we're really, we're missing out, you know? And I do think, you know, if we had less of these rigid rules about where, what section of the shop you can shop from, we really free ourselves in a lot of ways. I think that it makes my wardrobe better. And I think that if more people did that, they would free themselves in a lot of ways

of like these gender roles, which actually come from colonialism. So in the book, I do talk about how a lot of indigenous cultures did not really have a strong gender binary until colonialism started to happen. And I get deeper into that in the book. So I'm really paraphrasing roughly here. And so yeah, when you sort of peel back the layers of why we live the way we live, why we do what we do,

and you look at all these systems, you realize that it's oppressing so many of us and it's really not allowing us to live our best and fullest life you write a really brilliant story about um shopping for your wedding dress and that experience being quite illuminating oh yeah it was the worst it was the absolute worst like so I would first say once you become over a certain size, your choices radically drop off of a cliff. And so that's the first thing. I'm a UK size 18, sometimes a 20, depending on the brand. And I would argue once you're bigger than a 16, you're looking at not a lot of options. And I didn't have a lot of money at the time.

We had been, you know, that visa process will really open up your pockets and dump them out. And so we're trying to get married, we had to pay for this expensive visa, I actually ended up going with like, two high street brands for a wedding dress, because I didn't have the money. And the access just wasn't really there for me. Now today, if I had to do it, I would definitely get something custom made from, you know, Etsy. Probably I'd find a designer, but that stuff is pricey. And so the accessibility and the wedding industry really, really isn't there. And meanwhile, my partner just goes into his closet and pulls out a suit he had made while he was traveling was like,

Oh, we're this. And I'm like, Oh, isn't it nice to be you? It's strange, isn't it? I mean,

obviously there's so many archaic things surrounding weddings and the traditions of weddings, but I think the idea that the bride, if it is, if it is a, if it is a straight wedding, the bride has so much pressure placed on her and it's all about her and it's everyone stands up to watch the bride walk down the aisle and therefore the dress needs to be the best dress she needs to look her best self yeah and it's it's

just sickening like it's it's horrible and I think when you think about it from a consumption point of view as well, obviously, you know, the dress is a huge environmental impact, but then there's all these other things as well. There's a book called, I think, One Perfect Day, which is about the wedding industrial complex. And I haven't read it, but it's been on my list for a while. And it's just, when I, I went wedding dress shopping while I was in the States before I moved over here with my siblings and my mom and my best friend. And it was horrendous. But the place that we went to, it was like a theme park of wedding stuff. It was literally they were like over here.

We've got the bridesmaids section. They have T-shirts for your hen party. Here we've got the bridesmaids section. They have t-shirts for your hen party. They've got drink cozies, hats, all sorts of things that you would never actually need. And it's just like, oh, are you having a hen do? Are you having a bachelorette bridal shower? Here's a bunch of other stuff you need.

So it's really just an opportunity to upsell women the most amount of crap ever yeah and actually hendus are probably the one of the least sustainable things you can do because I'm just thinking of a hen do I went to recently we all uh we got given pajamas specific pajamas for the thing we got given like like plastic sunglasses uh like little plastic shot cups, loads of penis memorabilia everywhere. Everything penis shaped, all of this stuff. And we had to a lot of us had to buy special outfits for the day. And you're not going to use those things again. I was gonna say, are the pajamas usable? Or are they like really not great quality? They are they are, but they're, they're not they're

not great quality. And they've got like, you know hen do embroidered on the back. So, you know, how often, as, as often these things do, how often are you going to wear something like that? I mean, even at Christmas, that's become a thing as well. So my sister got us all matching pajamas one year for like a Christmas photo. And it was, it was such a nice like move, but those pajamas are flammable yeah well exactly that's the thing it's just it's it's it's terrible and also thinking about all the memorabilia I remember we were cleaning up the next day and and it was just so bleak it's like what do we do with this save it for the next hen do and use all the same like that's what you should do yeah of course I'm pretty sure all that stuff just went in the bin because yeah I mean we live in London where are

you going to store it? Exactly, exactly. And where are you going to keep penis memorabilia in your house as well? You could decorate with it. Yeah, exactly. I'll just take all of this home and just put it up. I know you spoke about Steve and your long distance relationship. So to fill the listeners in when Aja told me she was reading my book we wound up having like a long exchange of voice notes talking

about long distance relationships and how you met your partner and I really enjoyed the story so would you mind sharing it with the listeners? Sure so I used to write for a website that doesn't exist anymore. And I had pitched a piece about dating sites, because honestly, I had the dating site that I met Steve on was responsible for like, bringing me some of the worst men I've ever met, like easily. And so I was like, I want to write about these experiences. And this was odd, six, seven years ago, I need to write about these experiences. And this was odd six, seven years ago. I need to write about these experiences, particularly as a Black woman, because you get, you know, tons of messages from like white dudes like, oh, I'm not really into Black women, but, you know, you're really hot. Or like, you know, how every year they publish the findings of who receives the most amount of messages and who receives the least. And Black women and Asian men are always in the bottom half of, you know, the people that receive

the least amount of messages. It's really messed up. And so I wanted to write about all of this for an essay. So I rejoined this site where I met a bunch of trash men and thought, oh, this will be fun. And then I got really immediately depressed because the men that I was looking at in the area where I was from were really not appealing to me and I kind of thought is this an age thing is it like this is where we're at this is this is what you're this is what you're looking at I don't know I need to look at another location so I started to sort of like just I'm just looking at London just to see, just to see what was out there. And then I was like, oh, he's really cute. I'll send him a message. Cause I can just use a little flirtation.

I just want to look, you know what I mean? Like I was not, this is a fluke. I was not expecting this to work out at all. I just thought he was cute and I wanted to tell him he was cute. this to work out at all. I just thought he was cute. And I wanted to tell him he was cute. And he was standing on the train platform in Peckham Rye, which is right around the corner from where we live. And he said, he looked at the message and said, Oh, what's the point? This girl's in America. And he thought, I'll just write back. Oh, she's pretty, you know, I'll just write her back. And then it just took off. And I was just thinking, I was waiting for that moment where he would meet someone. Cause I think that happens to me a lot where, you know, I've been dumped a lot. So I was thinking there's no way that this can work out. Like he's going to meet someone and I'm just going to get a message and he's going to be like,

you're really nice and really great. And you deserve all the happiness, you know, the whole thing. So I really was like, there's no way this is going to work out. But I really enjoy talking to this person. So we talked for months and months. And finally, one day, he was like, look, I've got to take this holiday. At the time, he was at the Guardian. And he was like, I've got to take this holiday. at the Guardian. And he was like, I've got to take this holiday. And I had already booked a trip to Argentina. But what if I just bought a train a plane ticket to New York instead? Like, would you would you come to New York and hang out with me? And I was a bit like, um, really, really like, oh, I should do this. But then I have to go and explain to my family, and I live with my parents at the time, that I met a man on the internet and he's going to come here and murder me.

You know what I mean? Yeah, it sounds like a horror story. The first thing my mom said is he could be a pedophile if my best friend wisely told her that I had aged out of that career. She was like, act murderer is probably a higher percentage if we're gonna be real so like yeah then you have to like explain to like your best friend and your family that like yeah I've been talking to this guy for like months and I think I'm gonna meet him so yeah everyone was definitely like I'll just get in catfished like that was the whole thing. And then he was

not only normal, but great. And then my family was like, well, I'll be damned. So, so that's how we, and then, you know, two years later, I got on a plane and came here for good. It's such a lovely story. And I think also, because if you think about the way dating apps work now, because most people use apps not websites you wouldn't have met because they do it in terms of your geographical area you know you're usually matched with people that are within five miles of you or something alone across the water across the water across across the Atlantic. I was surprised to do the same thing but I figured out a way to trick the algorithm. So they do actually like, the thing is, they wanted you to pay more money to look at international selections that will actually just pay.

I was on the free service and it was like, if you pay, you can look at people from all these countries. And I was like, no, there's got to be a way to cheat this system. So I did. Nice. And so after that initial New York trip how did you make it work and before in those two years before you moved to London were you kind of just taking turns to visit one another yes we did that every three to four months and we talked every day every day we would Skype basically just for like five minutes just to say hello you know we

sent some letters and cards and stuff but we talked every day lots and lots of talking i would argue we talked way more then than we do now and we live in the flat together it's been a long pandemic you know a long pandemic, you know? policies apply. Details at phys.ca. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News.

How do you think being in that long distance relationship changed the way, the dynamic between the two of you? Like, did it speed things up did it keep things at quite a slow and steady pace um I think obviously the the parts about like you know living together and seeing how you know you do it that that that was you know a challenge but I think in some ways I like to think of it as like the

turn of the century when like, a man would like, get sent a woman from like his home country. It was kind of, I always joke with Steve that I was the family shrew. And when he showed up, my family was going to put a banner outside that was like, please, sir, take our shrew. But yeah, I think in some ways it slowed it down. In some ways it quickened the pace. I think when you're not doing this whole long distance thing, there's a lot of room to never discuss certain things with your partner. There's a lot of room to really, really rush intimacy and not actually really get to know this person.

And I would say after this time period in the pandemic I think we're feeling our way back to sort of um communicating differently because we just I think when you just spend so much time with the person it's naturally going to change the nature of your relationship nobody signed up for this yeah I was about to say it's so interesting because the the situation you had is very much a situation that loads of people experienced in the pandemic not by choice because they were meeting people online and then starting flirtations that way and then going months without meeting each other yeah so like you know for for us it was like yeah definitely

we went from having an ocean between us to being you know all of our possessions and personality crammed into a small London flat and it's been pretty intense we only work in extremes we don't half-ass anything I think there's something so romantic about it though about kind of really just like stripping back the dating experience so that it is in its purest form just about communicating and no physical contact whatsoever yeah and I think you know a lot of the conversations that people were having around the time around lockdown and in terms of relationships was about how dating had kind of gone back in time to resemble more of like a courting situation where, you know, there are those limitations imposed on you. And, and obviously, there are hard things about that.

But I do, I do think there's something quite lovely about it as well. Yeah, totally. I mean, even when I like, when I came here in December 2017, darkest day of the year I arrived, my mother had snuck some letters into my bag, one for me and one for Steve, where she wrote about like what she wants for us. And like, you know, just just some words of advice and stuff. And there's something so old fashioned about that, you know, and she she did, I did, I didn't read Steve's letter, but I know that she was probably like, treat my daughter well. And if, if ever anything, I remember her asking him, like when, when we got engaged, she was just like, so what happens if it doesn't work out? Like, you know, what happens? Like, basically, like, don't hurt my daughter's feelings. And Steve was like, if your daughter's not happy, I promise I'll buy her a ticket to go home and so I think yeah it's it definitely felt like an old-fashioned

courtship in a lot of ways you know I love it um I want to go back to talking about sustainability a little bit um I want to ask you about friendships because I think very often when we are in a big friendship group or when someone is trying to really change the way that they interact with the planet, it can affect your social life a lot. It can affect the conversations you have with the people around you and the things that you want to do with those people. So how would you navigate that situation what difficulties do you think can arise in that yeah so I I always tell people the strongest friendships grow together

like we're not going to stay at the same place that is not human if you if you stay at the same place you are in high school it's because you're not growing as a human. And that's pretty sad. And so I think what people need to realize, and it isn't just sustainability, it's all these topics. The minute you start to really, really look deeply at the systems that exist on our planet, there are going to be people in your life that aren't there with you. And they can either make a choice to meet you halfway to dip their foot in the water too, or there begins to be a river between you. And then maybe that river grows into an ocean, but also not every friendship is there for your full journey. That's just the reality. Some people come in our lives, some people go out and sometimes we learn things from these scenarios. But with my best friend,

we definitely both sort of came off of fast fashion together. Like, it used to be that, you know, she, she and I would be like, Oh, let's go to Target for this designer collaboration. Like, that was like the way we'd hang out. Let's go to the mall. Let's go to this store out let's go to the mall let's go to this store let's go to that store and it was like both of us just at the same time were like yeah we don't want to do this anymore like it was weird it was and I didn't it didn't even have to really be said I think me volunteering in a charity shop definitely changed the way we were looking at these systems. I think we were kind of over it together. And then she started buying from like this one sustainable brand who was just like, yeah, you know what, this stuff is like, this is what I want to wear. And I was like, yeah. And I think we just both gradually sort of took this journey together in this weird way. But

it was completely unspoken. There was no point where we were like, we're not going to shop at those bad stores anymore. And I'm really grateful for that, that we were just so in sync. But I think consumerism as a system is really sneakily put into our society from a young age. I mean, and you see it everywhere. It's in movies where there's a makeover scene that always involves lots of shopping, et cetera. So it's very normalized. And particularly women friendships, it's very normalized to be like, go to the mall, go shopping, you're a woman, this is what we do, women be shopping, you know. So I think, when you start to pick that apart, you have to sort of look at the way you interact with people socially. And some people aren't going to get it and aren't going to, they are going to be like, why don't you want to go to the mall with me anymore?

Or, or you think you're better than us? Cause you don't want to buy this clothing anymore. You know, you, you will get some of that, but I think the friendships that are strong, your friends will either say, okay, that's you. And, and you're, you know, you have a separate opinion on it, or they'll come along with you and be like, actually, this is pretty cool. I'm happy we did this. But it's hard. Like I think about, you know, multi-level marketing and like, there's like a brand that does like clothing, like leggings. They start out with leggings. And if you look this brand up there, the saga behind this brand and the drama is legendary. So there's this multi-level marketing group that does leggings and there's all this internal chaos. It's just like stuff

you wouldn't believe. And, you know, they have all these lawsuits against them. Anyway, it's leggings at one point in time sold really well. And then they branched out to other things, dresses, that sort of stuff. And now when I go into charity shops, it's full of that brand because it's multi-level marketing. So your friend decides that they're going to become a seller of this stuff. They invite you over for a party and they say, oh, there's no pressure, but there you are being pressured to buy something that you don't even want. And then now when I go to my local charity shop I always find items from this particular brand wow so let's think about the ways in which friendship plays into how we consume

yeah definitely it's it's completely fascinating and I was just even thinking about like you know how often you go out for dinner and you know all of the water that will be used in the restaurant that is cleaning up those plates or whatever it's like all of these like really things that you just don't think about in terms of the environmental impact of them because you're like oh I'm just going out for dinner with a friend but as opposed to going to a restaurant the more environmentally friendly way of hanging out with someone is probably to invite them to your house yeah and not order a takeaway i just cook cooks you know what food you cook as well that's a part of it it's much cheaper it's way cozier you know and and it also you know i i think we've all been that friend before where maybe you don't have the money but you're kind of faking it because you

still want to sort of be a part of it and so you go out and you go to a restaurant that you can't really afford you know so I definitely think just thinking about these things and applying it to our friendship group is sometimes better for all of us you know like you don't have to eat out with a friend to enjoy their company you can invite them over for a meal and that can be really equally as good you know and and the same applies for dating as well I think in those early stages of dating someone there's a lot of you know you're not going to invite someone around your house on the first date really but I mean I was just thinking I just thought oh god I've done that actually I you know what I have to but you know you can't go to the park and say I'm gonna I'm gonna bring a tea from home I actually did go on a date once with the with the person who brought like hot toddies and like cups and we just walked around DC and

that was an okay date but that's another pandemic thing isn't it because that's what people were doing they were going on social distancing walking dates and having picnics in the park yeah and so that that was also incredibly like so much more sustainable than what people do now whereas you know the traditional kind of routine is like oh we'll meet at a pub and then we'll go out for dinner or we'll go to a bar and you do that for a variety of weeks and then it's like my goodness you've used up so much energy and you've really upped your consumption in that period of time yeah and you really didn't need to absolutely and so I think we just have to rethink all of the peer pressure and consumption that's like put on us and think about what are we doing who are we trying to impress what are

we doing this for would it be better to do things a different way and that's why I wanted to write consume because I when I participated in Fast Fashion, I kept telling myself, this is great. I love this. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. And deep down inside, I was like, why did I buy so much clothing? Oh, this is disgusting. I live with my mom and she's going to make me feel bad. So I have to leave it in my car. And then when she goes to bed, I'll sneak out and get it and bring it in. But at the time when you're at the register, you're like yeah yeah i'm gonna buy this you know totally totally god i'm actually i'm so bad with clothes i have so many clothes it kind of sickens me we all do

it's time for our lessons in love segment so this is the part of the show where i ask every guest to share something that they've learned from their previous relationship experiences so what would your lesson in love for us be today don't sell yourself short honestly I feel like I spent my 20s dating people where I was amazing and I always felt like I wasn't enough but in actuality I think geographically speaking I was never going to be anyone's cup of tea where I lived that was just it it wasn't and so I was basically like dating underneath myself and then like being like heartbroken when this person that I had to like grow to love didn't like grow to love me in the same way and so honestly if I had to go back in my 20s I would

date fewer people I really would yeah I was funny I was talking to someone about this quite recently and they were saying how they knew someone who was reluctant to break up with their partner because they just felt so grateful that someone wanted to be with them yes yes it's exactly that and I think we're so afraid of being alone. And it's hard too, because, you know, where I was living, everybody around me had relationships, you know, my best friend was definitely serial monogamous, like she was always in a relationship, my sisters were always in relationships. So I'm not going to make it seem like it's easy, because it's tough when you feel like, you know, everybody's sitting on the seesaw with someone and you're sitting there alone.

You know, that's the reality of it. And but if future me could build a time travel machine, I'd go back to my 20s and be like, you're wasting your time and you're happy in your own company, you know, but could have, would have, should have. Yeah, it is hard though though I think we do and there is a lot of talk about this at the moment about learning to enjoy alone time and learning to enjoy self-care I really hate that term but you know what I mean and just really enjoying it and I think the pandemic has obviously brought all of that to the surface a bit more because so many of

us did spend more time on our own particularly if you lived alone yeah and in those first few months before the government introduced um support bubbles which when you look back on it is nuts isn't it that people weren't actually allowed to see anyone if you lived alone so that was the only thing that I really um you know I envy people that lived alone for so long because I never got to, I couldn't afford it and it just never worked out. And so the pandemic, I was like, that was the only time where I thought, oh, it would suck to live alone. Normally I'm really like, oh, good for you. You get all that space to yourself and nobody's telling you where to put your stuff. And it's just, oh, it's great. But yeah, no, I totally hear you. And I think also, if we can be really honest, you know, within our society, nobody says it, but the world definitely favors people in couples, there's an advantage to being in a relationship. You know, when I was single, for instance, I wanted to travel to all the places that I had been to now with my partner.

that I have been to now with my partner, but I'm a single woman and my parents would be like, no, you're gonna get like murdered. You know, I've always wanted to do a cross country road trip, but like as a single woman, the world isn't that safe. And so there's a certain element of having a partner that allows you to move in the world in some of the ways that you want to move, which we don't talk enough about that, but we should, it's very unfair.

But if we're also really getting into the numbers of it, property ladder, I know very few single non men that can get on the property ladder all on their own. You know what I mean? I'm not even saying like, cause there are people that obviously will have inheritance and then they'll go on the property ladder and be like, I'm a self-made person, you know. But it's like, no, you were born on third and think you hit a home run. But the reality is the world still doesn't pay women the same as men, you know.

The world is still very, very exclusionary in some ways. And so I totally understand why people beat themselves up for not being in a relationship. There's a lot that happens when you're in a relationship that isn't perfect. But society does give you some advantages that people don't often want to acknowledge. Definitely. And not just financially as well. I think socially even because, you know, as a couple, you probably, you know, you double your social circle and you go to more events and you have more friends and you you can you can just move about like you said a lot more easily and with and you can expose yourself to different circles as well and I think it's um yeah I think there is a lot to be said

about um the way that we do kind of prioritize couples yeah we do and then like at the same time everyone's like you're a single woman you go girl or when people in couples go oh i'm so jealous of you oh that must be so amazing i'm like fuck off it's so funny it's because it's because the couple particularly when it's a straight couple it fits society it fits perfectly fits the societal mold like that's how that's what the world is built for you know exactly it's built for straight couple it's built for straight white men really but yeah you know there is that thing where people in relationships will just say like really insufferable things to people who are single and And it's just like, can we all like cut the shit? Like, that single person does not have the same financial power as you two do together.

That's why they can't buy a house. And you can, but also family planning, that sort of stuff. I mean, I met Steve later in life. And now we're really, really under the wire. If we if we want to have a family like that kind of sucks it sucks to have like everything happen at once and then you feel really overwhelmed you're like wow okay so I've done this one thing but now I have to do this thing in this certain amount of time so like as someone who's been on both sides I could see the pros and the cons of all of it yeah and also you can't plan these things you you know, everything happens for a reason.

And you never know when you're going to, when you're going to meet someone. Sometimes it's very easy to feel like you never will, you know, because I felt that. So. But you will, you will.

I believe you will. Like I said, if the Barber family can find someone to take their shrew and move her over the ocean, there's hope for you too. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you're a new listener to this show, you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or anywhere else. You can comment and leave us a rating too so that more people can find us. Keep up to date with everything to do with the show on Instagram.

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