Love Lives - The joys of being single and our obsession with romantic relationships, with Francesca Specter

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveThis week, Olivia is joined by author, journalist and fellow podcaster Francesca Specter.Francesca is best known for coining the phrase atonement, which is also the name of her podcast and of her first book.Atonement is about celebrating the time you spend alone and, as we discuss in the show, Francesca came up with the concept after coming out of a long-term relationship and realising she wasn’t great at being alone.We talk about why it’s so important to separate this idea of being alone with being single, why society often prioritises romantic relationships above others, and the concept of being alone but togetherFollow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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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 thrilled to be joined by author, journalist and fellow podcaster Francesca Spector. Francesca is best known for coining the phrase alonement, which is also the name of her podcast and of her first book. Alonement is about celebrating the time you spend alone and as we discuss in the show, Francesca came up with the concept after coming out of a long-term relationship and realising she wasn't so great at spending time on her own. We talk about why it's so important to separate the idea of being alone with being single, why society often prioritises romantic relationships above all others, and

the concept of being alone but together. Enjoy the show! Hi Francesca, how are you hi i'm great how are you doing i'm good thank you i'm very very hot it is crazy weather in london it's like 23 degrees and i'm sweating in my small flat yes it is absolutely freak weather and the worst part is I've just realized that the guy who lives in I don't know the flat above me or below me or somewhere very nearby has turned into a professional musician during lockdown so I've been serenaded so I've sort of closed all the windows and the balcony door just in case his uh his dulcet tones come through oh my god that must be so annoying well I think he wants to be the unofficial sort of backing track for this podcast because he uh yeah he really he's really put on a show for us today that must be really fun to live with so uh so talk to me about

Aloneman congratulations on the book. Could you start us off by talking a bit about what the phrase Alonement actually means and how you came to write a book around the subject? Well firstly thank you so much. It's so exciting we're still in publication month. It's you know March when we're recording now and it came out earlier this month and yeah it's kind of crazy to finally share it with the world. So alone month is a word that I created in early 2019 and it means positive solitude, you know the joys of spending time alone when it's either just you know hedonistic and fun or personally very fulfilling and the reason that I felt the need to create a word rather than just reach for a word is that there wasn't any word that existed to describe when alone time had this I mean you know people throw

out solitude as a sort of counter example but actually solitude can be used in any context you know you can use it in a negative or a positive context whereas alone month it's almost a sort of self self-explanatory phrase that you can use when you say to people look I'm having some alone month tonight or within a couple you know I you know I really love you I just need some alone month and the reason that I needed to create it for myself at the time because I'd just come out of a relationship when I created it is that I was one of those people that couldn't spend any time alone and I almost needed to sell it to myself as a concept because I was such an extrovert that I would do anything possible to avoid spending time alone

and especially at this point in January 2019 I had just got out of a long-term relationship all my friends were in relationships at the time that you know the classic we never managed to coordinate these things and I was really doing quite crazy things to try and avoid time with myself like you know going and staying with friends every weekend just to avoid being alone or, you know, attending friends of friends birthdays, you know, just to avoid having a night in. And so 2019, January, New Year's resolution season, it was the time I decided that that was going to change because I realized that I was acting out of a space of fear so I said look I'm going to make this new year's resolution to learn to be alone and tolerate it you know not

even not even love it just tolerate it and so I wrote this blog in 2019 and I announced my intention to I don't know probably all of 10 people who read my blog at that point and um and yeah and I and in that I coined the word alone month just out of necessity I mean I've since trademarked it started the podcast on it written a book on it but back then it was just it was just to fill a gap in my own language, my own sort of frame of reference. And it became really, really useful for a lot of people, it turned out. I think the idea of naming something and recognise it, recognising it in the form of language is so helpful. I think particularly for issues that affect women.

I mean, I'm thinking specifically of Nelfazel, who I know you've interviewed, haven't you? And she coins this term flux, panic years about that period of your life between your late 20s and early 30s and your kind of juggling career decisions over motherhood relationships and it's like you know she said a similar thing giving that a name really validated that experience and I think in your case it's really interesting because you kind of gave that a name to encourage you to to validate that form of behavior that you were trying to kind of adapt to which I think is so normal like particularly if you've been in a long-term relationship how long how long were you with your ex for? Yeah so I was with my ex-boyfriend for two and a half years which it's not crazy long but it was a very how do I put it it was a very codependent relationship uh you know if anyone familiar

with the idea of sort of codependence versus interdependence I never used to realize this but codependence is the bad one because you sort of rely on each other in a maybe more unhealthy way uh whereas interdependence I've since learned is what you should be striving for that sort of state of sort of coexisting alongside each other but living your independent lives and we were we were definitely codependent we I write in the book how we used to shower together and that sounds all sexy and erotic but it really wasn't it was really so we could just keep chatting which again is nice. But oh, my God, like I look back at both of us and I think get a life, you know, like detach.

We were very much the couple who would sit, you know, always, always sit next to each other if we were at dinner parties or with friends. And I think when you're in that stage where you're almost sort of you know chronically attached to someone it makes it very very hard to come out and reassess who you are as an individual whereas you know I'm sure people could be in a relationship for maybe 10 years and have got a lot further with that and actually be able to you know do independence interdependence a lot easier so yeah I did I did really struggle um even even with things like when you wake up in the morning and you're used to you know sort of texting someone hello or waking up next to someone, it just, you revisit all of your routines, and all, even I would, you know, even the way that my social life functioned, and I think that there's, and this is very much

true of lockdown, actually, there's, you know, there can be very much a thing where, as a couple, you'll sort of have a default sort of weekend plan, even if that's just being with one another whereas it did you know it forced me to sort of really think about the way I would structure my social life and all of that and my immediate reaction was okay well I need to make it so that I'm never physically alone. And it wasn't, you know, that meant that as a single person, you end up making a hell of a lot more plans individually rather than just sort of that default position of always being with your partner. And I was still in, in a way, I was still in a similar position

to how I'd been in my relationship in that I had no alone time. It was just done more frantically. And with a lot more sort of probably a lot more high maintenance, it took a lot more scheduling. And it was it was really, really strange. And I think that yeah, almost having we you know, we spoke about, we spoke about Nell Frizzell uh coining the panic years which I mean I'm 29 I'm sort of bang in the middle of my panic years as she would as she would term them those you know those years where you the question of whether or not to have kids and who with if you do occupies a lot of your mind. Alonement was something that I had to coin for myself in order to almost explore this idea that I didn't need to be with someone 24-7. I could also learn in that in that process of

replanning my life of restructuring my life without a significant other I began to almost you know I needed that word in order to put alone time as a value and to in order to be able to plan periods of alone time and for that not to be something that was terrifying or this you know that just seemed like empty time I hadn't managed to fill it's really interesting I think talking about this idea of aloneness in the context of romantic relationships because like as you say in the book you know we often think about the space being single as synonymous with being alone and it's actually you know you write about how that leads us to fall into the trap of something called and I'm going to try and say this word right amateur normativity so talk to me a bit about that and what that means yes so amateur normativity and god it's a hell of a lot of

syllables isn't it um I think so it's you, it's basically the idea that romantic relationships are superior and should be prized above all other relationships that we have in our lives, including that with ourselves. And it's, you know, it's easy to see why this happens. We all we love we we love, we love a rom-com. We love to discuss relationships, romantic relationships. We, you know, the world is quite often centered around the idea of the couple, whether that's, you know, the big star around Valentine's day or, you know, celebrity relationships, all of that. And, you know, all these dating shows that are out at the moment and the problem with that is we often think that any relationship any romantic relationship is better than no relationship and that can become really toxic when you're in a bad one. As I was, you know, I was in,

for, you know, for the first couple of years, it was very lovely. For the, you know, for those six months or probably, you know, probably like more than, a bit more than six months leading up to the end of it. It was terrible. We were nasty to each other. You know, no one should stay in that.

I think because neither of us have the capacity to think to even imagine that being apart could be better than being in this sort of horrible dysfunctional state I think you know it perpetuated something and you know to the detriment of both of us and I think that that's something that actually is pretty common you know from and and and the loneliness around that is quite often in relationships people feel this or this sense of loyalty to their partner and also I think just to this you know this amateur normativity this sense that they're in a relationship so they should feel lucky and grateful and not complain there's almost a lack of honesty around that that actually a lot of relationships that are in you know that are currently in process are not happy ones and it's it's very damaging

yeah I think we've spoken about this on the show before but I think as a society we're just really bad with knowing when to break up with someone and I think there are so many reasons why we stay with people for far longer than we should and you know a lot of them are very easy to understand it's the fear of being alone again like we talked about but it's also the fear of hurting someone you love I think it's the fear of the unknown it's it's it's that there's so much in it and I think as a result we do end up staying in these relationships and you know often if you are in a relationship that should have ended months previously it will end way worse than it needed to and you will both become really nasty to each other and do awful things and you know that's when people cheat and

that's when people say really cool things that have like lifelong impacts and I just think we need to kind of give ourselves a shake and try and have the confidence to break up with someone when we know that that's what we want even if you know even if one person wants to break up with their partner and it's not necessarily a mutual thing I think sometimes the kindest thing that you can do to the person that you love if you no longer love them anymore is tell them rather than stay and try to make it work like that is the kindest and most considerate thing you can do like set them free let them fall in love with someone else yeah absolutely you know let them fall in love with someone else and also let them have their life outside of a relationship you know if we in this fear that we have around breaking up with someone that oh will

ruin their lives well actually we might liberate their lives in other ways and I think that's the thing about amatonomativity that it assumes that all we want is to be in a romantic relationship whereas actually you know if you have and this is you know relationship. Whereas actually, you know, if you have, and this is, you know, this is where alonement is useful. If you have all these things that you think I can do outside of being attached to my relationship, then you actually have a choice. You know, you kind of have this sense

that I don't have to be in something. I just did it myself. Yeah, I was gonna say, I just did it myself, didn was gonna say I just did it myself didn't I because I was like let them fall in love with someone else or let them let them be alone again you know but that's what I mean it's so entrenched that my first thought just then was like oh let them be with someone else maybe they don't want to be with anyone else it's so entrenched that I can't even like you're so unconscious of it and it's hard yeah it's really hard you know I write in my book that being single it won't last forever and I'm saying that as a warning not a consolation

because I think that well being single and alone month are completely different concepts alone month is something you can do whether you're in a relationship or not being single can be a really great time for practicing alone month and and getting to know what things you like doing alone because there's no one questioning you there's no friction there and yeah and it's it's it's a really it's a thing to cherish and I think it's hard you know it's harder I think it's harder at the moment for instance I think that being single the best in lockdown the best parts of being single many of them are off the cards you know you can't you can't go out and do all these fun activities you might do uh you know you can't go out and meet people whether that's platonically or romantically or whatever um and often you know it's I think that even the government guidelines the way that they've been

done they do sort of reward being in a relationship a lot more you know even you know that you for instance the thing about only being able to socialize with your household all of that and I think that it's really easy to think of these things as yeah as as lacking in value but you know a lot of people tell me and and it's it's you know you have to be in the right state of mind to hear this you have to be in a confident state of mind anyway but a lot of people in relationships they'll tell me oh I you know I miss being single you know really value it and I hear I hear it for what it is and I think that's only because I've been in enough relationships to know that the grass isn't always greener and don't get me wrong I still I still forget it's quite a lot because I think that in a world where we are constantly given this message that romantic relationships are better and particularly a lockdown world where being single is, you know, it's a sort of it's a less it's on average a less enjoyable time than it would be outside of a pandemic.

I think that it's easy to forget, but it's true. I think it's really interesting. I want to go back to what you said about being single and having a loan within a couple. I think that's a really important point and distinction to make. But I want to go back to what you said about the government guidelines during the pandemic, because you're so right. It did completely favour people in relationships.

And that, I think, is really reflective of the way we are conditioned to view single people as a as a society you know there was even that moment in September and I remember this so clearly when the government said you know you can't be inside with someone basically meaning you can't have sex with someone if you're single unless you are in a quote-unquote established relationship and it's just like what do you mean established relationship like do you know how complicated the dating scene is now today like people will be like oh we're hanging out oh we're seeing each other oh we're just shagging oh whatever like do are any of those

established relationship like what does that even mean it's so ridiculous it's almost like reverting you back to childhood when you had to like ask someone oh will you be my girlfriend will you be my boyfriend whatever it's just it's so strange and archaic and really really exclusive yeah it completely does and I it's funny I've spoken to other single people who've said to me yes I had to have that sort of will you be my I don't know pandemic partner whatever however you say it these days um that that conversation because especially when people are you know very very wary you know very seeing parents whatever you of course you know you have to it's it's it's it's a practical measure and

it's a shame because it takes it only enables one sort of relationship which is one that is created almost as a response to the fear of being alone and you know okay maybe you could say that we that the whole human condition the whole you know the whole history of romance is a response to the fear of being alone but I think that something driven by fear something driven by someone saying okay I am hating being single in this time so much that I'm going to enter into something quite intense at a really strange strange timeline you know you know at a much more accelerated pace than I would otherwise it's not it's not necessarily healthy and nor is it necessarily superior but I think that it's very and it's you know especially once there's two people involved it's very hard to admit that

you might have made a mistake in that you write in the book about the dangers of our obsession with romantic relationships which I think kind of touches on the things we've been talking about I think we know how that manifests you know but but where do you think that comes from does it come from popular culture yeah I I mean I can only you know I I always think back to growing up I grew up on a cultural diet of what Notting Hill and Britney Spears lyrics and all of that and you know there wasn't I don't know if it's just a, well, millennial thing, or, you know, if it's, if, you know, if it's something that is as universal, because I think I want, I wonder, you know, Gen Z is sort of being shown things like the single positivity

movement as an alternative. You know, I wonder whether it's a cultural narrative that we've been fed that, but we can change. You know, I think, you know, there is, there is something deeply at the heart of us that, you know, I think that there is, you know, there is this sort of primal fear of, I say being alone, but we, I believe that we are all alone in our minds. We are. So, you know, I think there's a primal fear of acknowledging that we are alone and that's why we seek connection which is very important but the fact that we focus primarily on romantic connection is really strange because I think that you know speak to anyone in an established relationship as the government would term it and they will tell you that that's not enough to prevent feeling lonely pandemic or otherwise

so the fact that we fixate so much on romantic relationships is strange and I wonder whether there is something that is this big conspiracy we've been fed or there's something more to it I mean the only the only other explanation is of course biology um you know and I wonder why that's I wonder if that's why you know for instance I know that you know I've heard anecdotally that women you know past the age of having children will date in a much different way and not feel the need to um to I know that you know I know that actually statistically women are less likely to remarry in middle age than men after they're divorced which is very interesting and I do I wonder whether that's because once the biology is taken out of it actually these intense romantic

relationships seem less necessary or appealing yeah that's so interesting you mentioned the single positivity movement so what what exactly is that where does that come from I think my first response is that it's better than nothing I think that you know there's never really I don't know I mean I'm trying to think what there was before maybe the song single by Natasha Bedingfield I mean I'm struggling I'm really grappling for you know for references from the sort of 90s, noughties when being single was anything less than a terrible disease. But yeah, I think that it's better than nothing. Nothing, you know, no movement is perfect when it starts off

and there's always going to be that push pull at it. But, you know, I think that, so as far as I can tell, it's emerged from the likes of Liz Liz Lizzo is someone that's always referenced um you know for her song lyrics which just you know which raise being single up and she has that pride in it um I also I think that um Ariana Grande when she was single said some really amazing things about learning to uh to love herself and and learning to you know being being her own friend and that that was really lovely um and also on the subject of friends you know she's always you know being a good friend to others because I think that that's

also probably part of the single positivity movement it's not being single at the expense of all other relationships it's also having you know it's also prioritizing and valuing other ones but I think it's you know I think it's lovely to see I always think that you can't be what you can't see and so I love seeing you know very successful very gorgeous women like Lizzo and Ariana Grande singing about these things. And, you know, and Emma Watson as well. Emma Watson came out with her self-partner's comment in 2019, which isn't necessarily about being single, but, you know,

about sort of looking out for yourself. And I think that having these people to point to is really, really compelling. And I think that if we all know how impressionable we were as teenagers and even being able to look up and have these icons when you previously had only ever had you know sort of people singing about relationships and being defined in relation to whoever they were dating I think it's it's just you know at a very basic level it's a very powerful thing to see and you know I I you know I'm 29 I sort of I do I wish I had it growing up I don't know how you feel yeah I wish I wish I had it growing up absolutely I think you know for me

it's kind of just it's really hard to shake that idea of like oh you should always be striving for that one person who is going to complete you and it's only when you get to that point where you have found your person or your lobster as Phoebe Buffay would say and friends you know that you are a complete human and you then go and live with them and you start a life with them and you know it does sound really archaic to think that way now but like I said it's a really difficult expectation to to part with um I think when it's still perpetuated you know yes we do have these things like the civil positivity movement and yes we do have wonderful people like Lizzo but it's I think for our age group you know because we were raised on all of

this stuff it's it's much harder to actually move away from it once it's already so deep in your mind but like you said I do think Gen Z will be different because they are being reared on such different cultural diet and there's so much that has changed in the world and you know they're growing up with social media we kind of bought social media when we were like at uni and just finishing school so it's not really the same I love your idea of in the book you talk about creating a greeting card for celebrating when someone is single and out of a bad relationship I think that's such a good idea yeah there's also just like like you, like celebrating the courage that it takes to walk away from a relationship and finally say goodbye.

I think that is something that we should really celebrate. Absolutely. I think we really should. And I think, yeah, you know, if you think about how we culturally sort of reward things, you know, someone stays in a terrible relationship and they get engaged and then everyone rocks up and celebrates it.

And there's this sort of awkward undertone that everyone sort of knows that actually behind the scenes, things aren't so great. And we're almost, we're rewarding fear. Whereas I think that it's, it's important to reward boldness because it does, it's very, it's certainly ending my relationship was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. It is incredibly hard. And often, you know, your only reward is what, you know, a string of Saturday nights ahead of you that you don't know how to fill. And, you know, sense and and worry and I think that if we were to give support to people you know obviously this isn't about being intolerant or ending relationships that are good or any of

that but there are there are a lot of bad relationships out there and a lot of people staying in them for the wrong reasons and a lot of you know at the extreme of it, a lot of wasted lives. You list some of the benefits of being single in the book. Can you tell me what some of your favourite parts of being single were when you broke up with your ex in 2018, the things you kind of started really enjoying and cherishing again? So it was difficult immediately. Obviously, no one gets out of a relationship and thinks, you know, oh, this is the best.

Yeah. This is the best month ever. I imagine it took some time to get to that. Yeah. They say it takes 30 days to kick a habit. I don't know how that filters into breakups. 30 days. I mean, that's optimistic.

That would be accelerated, right? Yeah, that would be that would be accelerated right that would be yeah that would be like pro-level breakup um but no I mean a loan month for me to be honest as you know as a concept in itself was it was the reward for my breakup once I discovered it I think that having that time when you don't just having those those windows of time where you don't have to think oh could I be um you know could I be seeing my ex-boyfriend's family or like you know all the you know should I should I be going to that thing with him or should I be um you know should I be doing like thinking of someone else or should I be catching up with the friends that I've sort of neglected um because I was too busy doing relationship stuff you know you do you do

just have that those windows of time that you didn't have before and I think that as with any transition in life it's a really special thing or it can be you can impose some really something really special on that time um or you can just you know or as I say my immediate reaction was to see it as not valuable but you know once you're able to reframe it then I think that that is one of the biggest benefits of being single and I think if we're if we're able to see that it you know it does it does take again I think it takes being okay to know that the reason that you have that empty time is because you're single in the first place which is probably the harder thing but it but it really is a gift having that and I think that you know we forget how many sort of boring, admin-y parts there are of a relationship.

People, you know, people moan about wedding planning for a reason. It's not just a humble brag. It is immensely stressful, especially, you know, watching all the people I know who are engaged this year and have had to rearrange their weddings sort of two, three times. And, you know, not having that, it's, you know, you don't have a second job and that's great.

In a way, you've got to be able to relish that. This Giving Tuesday, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health is on a mission to make better mental health care for all a reality. And we've made incredible strides forward, breaking down stigma,

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at Canada.ca slash right here. A message from the Government of Canada. Okay, so here's a question. So I was single up until the age of 24. I was very good at being single and I was very content in my own company very happy um but it got to the point and this might also be because I had never had a romantic relationship before so I'm aware of that but it got to the point where I was literally scared of men and scared of being with someone and it wasn't so much commitment issues

it was I think it was deeper than that it was kind of this like fear of being so vulnerable with someone and and having a bit of a warped idea of what a relationship actually was and I wonder if regardless of whether you've never been in a romantic relationship before or not whether you've been single for a really long period of time, do you think you can get too good at being single to the point where you will find it very difficult to actually let anyone in and kind of bring your walls down and be vulnerable with someone? Sure. Well, I mean, to start with, on a practical level, you know, I spoke earlier about how when I got out of my relationship, I had to sort of restructure my life because I was so used to having this person to spend weekends with. The same is true of, you know, learning't just sit and read a book without being disturbed and you have to sort of set the have these have these conversations and and set you know and set boundaries and things

and it's it's that is hard that's that you know any any transition is always difficult um but I think you know what you're saying as well is on that deeper level that idea of being vulnerable to someone it is hard and I think we perhaps when we think about dating it's you know we we can kind of control the elements of like oh do I look nice look nice? Have they, you know, have we picked a good spot? Did we connect well on the hinge? But the whole thing about actually letting another person into your life, especially when you've learned to be good at being alone in a single sense, it is hard. And it's, I think it's hard for a reason as well you know it's worth saying it's you know it's it's an absolute to be able to be by yourself is an absolute skill um and there is a sense to which you you know you it shouldn't it shouldn't be a oh you know finally this person's here to save me

therefore I'll let down all my barriers um you know it it's nice to almost think that they should be a gradual easing in but I do I do think it's definitely something you have to relearn especially when I think that you've almost become good at I don't know I've certainly experienced um you know outside of outside of lockdown I think I've not in an arrogant way become quite good at you know first second third dates it's the it's the going forward part that can be very difficult um I don't if you've ever if you got to that stage maybe in your single life where you found that yeah yeah absolutely I think because the the classic thing is like you have the excitement of

the first few dates and then suddenly it gets to a point where like well you actually have to start to get to know this person and they can no longer be the fantasy version that you have of them in your head and you have to kind of let your walls down and you have to actually like open up to them and you know listen to them open up to you and they might not meet your expectations and you then have to kind of take decide whether or not to take that leap I think there is that kind of mark after like a few days where you have to decide okay am I gonna see if there is actually something here or not and often the easier option is just to think nah nah not worth it because we're striving for perfection which is also a problem it's true

and when you've really worked on yourself as well, you know, as you do when you're sort of kind of successfully single, I suppose. You're, even if you know you're not perfect, you're definitely in control of yourself, right? Whereas you kind of, you know, you know, the chaos that is you. Whereas you don't, you can't really predict the chaos that is another person. And you've got to almost sort of give that sense of not independence necessarily, but that sense of control away. That can be, it can be a difficult thing. And I think that there's no perfect solution to that. I like to think that if you, I like to think if you know that someone is right for you, I like to think if you know that someone is right for you then you'll understand where to make that compromise almost or where to not compromise it's not but where you know where to let in

that vulnerability and where to let you know think where to let that sense of control slide but you know it can be difficult and I think another thing that I sort of struggled with dating post you know post discovering this wonderful thing that is alonement was the idea of you know I went from being very codependent I guess you'd call it sort of you know if you think about attachment theory I guess you'd call it like anxious attachment where you're sort of you know if you think about attachment theory I guess you call it like anxious attachment where you're sort of you know you need to be constantly reassured to almost the other extreme um again and that's something about coming very good at being alone um what the avoid avoidant avoidant yeah and so I you know I I you know infamously this this story sort of says it all I um I dated a really wonderful chap who was

you know a massive a massive introvert and and really really didn't need any you know these kind of naturally very solo people um and he was also quite crucially leaving the country eight months from when we started dating and talk about you know talk about and that that was a really you know I think that that was a really wonderful relationship in itself um that was a really lovely period of time um and it was there was talk about good breakups there wasn't even a breakup because we knew what it was but I think that there was almost that almost was something I did to sort of border that gap between being in a very codependent relationship and being in an interdependent relationship. It wasn't even independent.

It was sort of very, very separate. And I suppose what, you know, what I'm personally striving for now, and I think what we, I think what we all want to ultimately have at the end of the day is to be with someone that's, you know, kind and warm and to be, I don the day is to be with someone that's you know kind and warm and to be

I don't know to be to be to be partners to be part of a team but also not a team that takes away from your individual identity I don't know it really it sounds idealistic because it is it does sound idealistic but also you do hear about those couples who will just say you know they live together for example and I'll come home and I'll sit on the sofa and they'll both be doing their own thing it's like they're spending time physically in the same space but they're both doing their own thing and they're both channeling their own hobbies or interests and I think that is the kind of thing that we should be aiming towards where it's like you have full autonomy but you also feel

comfortable enough around your partner to kind of do the things you love and it's not like you're it's not like you're taking away from the relationship by spending time on your own and doing your own thing it's like it's a balancing act and it's not like one is subtracting from the other do you know what I mean yeah no absolutely and you kind of you know I like to imagine a space where you can sort of watch your partner doing something you know that they love doing for themselves and think oh that's great and not think oh that takes away from time with me which I suppose would be an anxious attachment situation um I mean my ultimate romantic fantasy isn't rose petals um or you know walking into the sunset it's literally reading a book at the opposite

ends of a sofa to someone and being able to be comfortable with that and you know I think that you know it actually goes back to um the the psychologist um donald winnicott you know he talks about the idea of learning to be healthily alone when you're a child that comes from learning that you can be in a room with a caregiver and just sort of know that their presence is there but not necessarily interact with someone that's how you learn to be healthily alone from those formative years not by being left alone all the time and I think that that's something that even if even if that person's not there and even if that person's not a romantic partner that's something that we that's a feeling that we need to have that we're not

sort of alone even when we're physically alone um in order to thrive in our aloneness I realized I said alone a lot there but you know it is it to be comfortably alone we need to have that sense of general connection and I think that you know that sort of relationship idea is like a sort of a quite a you know a scenic manifestation of that it's so interesting what you say about being alone with a caretaker because I my whole life I've always thought I've loved being on my own I've loved I've always been really good at spending time on my own and knowing what to do that calms me down but I I had only ever lived with other people and I I realized now now that I'd actually live alone I now that the thing I know I now know the thing that I was good

at was making time for myself surrounded by other people and like kind of retreating from a situation but knowing that there were people around me but being very comfortable just reading in my bed or having a bath or whatever now that I actually live alone I realize oh oh this is a new thing and it's actually it's actually quite difficult to adapt and I'm not as good as being totally alone as I thought I was because I haven't got those other people around me so it's quite an interesting shift that is interesting how how long have you lived alone since December well that's yeah so I think yeah but you know I I always say to people look living alone in a pandemic isn't the same at all because we just don't have that level of you know I you know my year of sort of discovering alone month in 2019 has been so different to

lockdown time because I never thought twice about having the connection that you need to almost like have a foundation for your aloneness and I think that what people who are living alone and you know to an extent people who are single just because of the way that the aforementioned government guidelines work the reason why it's harder is because we don't have that baseline that makes us feel okay with it and that's totally that's totally valid you know it's not it's not like a failure to be good at being alone it's just simply too much it's not moderate totally because you you wrote the book when you were living alone didn't you in lockdown yeah I did which was a strange place to be. So, you know, I met with my publisher infamously.

We always say it's Valentine's Day 2020. We met. So just before, you know, before anyone knew what was going to happen to the world. And yeah, and the book obviously evolved because, you know, I got the deal as in that March and as the world was changing it was very very strange um and so and and writing it you know I'll fully admit you know writing it alone in lockdown was it probably turned into a different book than it would have been um otherwise but I think it I like to think a better one for the for the fact that I then realized the need for that moderation.

I you know, because I never had my life in 2019 had been even though I was cultivating this love of alone time. It was very, very socially connected in ways where I didn't even have to really, you know, try. I would be going into an office every day it was very sociable even if I hadn't planned much for the weekend there'd be a Friday night happy hour that I'd attend and that would sort of give me my fix and it yeah I think it was more taxing and it made me think more deeply but I think that what is so relevant now as we're coming out of lockdown is that this is more now that we can have a balance around our alone time these ideas are more valid and also more practical easily to apply practically easy to apply practically than ever and you know that's that's the really positive thing

as it coming out when it has yeah um 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 they've learned from their previous relationship experiences so I feel like every time increasingly when we get to the segment in the podcast I'm like we've talked about so many things that the guest has learned so I hope you have something left for us Francesca so what is your lesson in love yes um okay so it is socializing as a couple see your own friends well it's it's very lovely to have couple friends that's a whole thing in itself I think that people, people tend to different parts of your identity, right? And it's so, I think that having those relationships outside of your romantic relationship are incredibly

important. And they do give you, they give you a sense of a fuller self. And I think that couples can quite easily get into that stage of being, you know know almost attached by this sort of invisible umbilical cords to one another and actually the healthiest thing you can do in a relationship is to see your friends independently and to remember to make time for that and to know that those relationships they aren't you know they aren't supporting roles in your life they are also main characters in your life and I think that in you know it the thing that I probably regret most about uh my last major relationship before alone was doing doing that and not you know not and seeing my boyfriend's friends with him and not giving him that time with his friends um rather than you know rather than nesting as sort of be those independent creatures

so many of my friends have said this exact same thing uh one of my closest friends she I think you just get into a pattern of it sometimes like you get so used to hanging out with your partner's friends as opposed to with your own friends but it's like the idea of introducing of saying no to going to hang out with your partner's friends and just going to see your friends feels like really selfish and really self-serving and it's really strange I think if you have that really early on in a relationship it's hard to actually see how unhealthy that can be and I think like you say from the get-go it's really important to have those boundaries and yes obviously it's lovely

to be able to hang out with your partner's friends and for them to hang out with your friends but that shouldn't be the norm for every situation because you need that distance you know and just aside from anything else this is quite morbid but the more you integrate a partner into your life like that and the more you integrate a partner into your life like that and the more you integrate yourself into theirs the harder it is to sever ties and you just have to be careful you just have to be really careful of that stuff you have to be aware of it that's a really really good point about the severing ties yeah I mean I had wonderful friends through my ex who I lost in the divorce and, uh, you know, hello to any of them listening. I miss you, but I think that, you know, I think it can go too far that way. Um,

and it's, you know, it's, it's a funny thing as well. Um, and I think Dolly Alderson talks about this in her book, everything I know about love. There's this bizarre thing where in heterosexual relationships the woman in the couples tends to hang out with her partner's friends more than the other way around I don't think and maybe that's really nice that's a really nice thing that we you know we cherish female friendships and we you know we sort of honor it to the extent that we're like no this is you know this is my night with my friend this isn't something you can sort of impose upon but it does get into that weird conflict where you kind of feel that I definitely saw my ex-boyfriend's friends at the expense of you know of my own sometimes and that was a real you know that was the thing I regret because I think it really

it didn't serve anyone well and I think you know also for when you get into those dynamics um I'm sure that my ex-boyfriend's friends would have also loved to spend time with him independently it's a really it's a really strange thing that we get into and no one can sort of say no or you know once you've once you've decided but you know I think having having clear boundaries around that as you say going going in early on before you establish the strange dynamic where it's like oh we all hang out at Sam's house together or whatever then I think that that can be you know that can be really really important and in creating that that all-important space and separateness that relationships do thrive on.

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