Then the days would pass, slowly, submerged in a funk. The comedown of it all. Like a hangover with age, it’s worse every time. I open my notes app in a spur, write down all the things I want to say, tell myself I’ll do it this time! Draft a paragraph: I must cut this off, no. I cannot continue to see you, no. I cannot continue to see you on just a casual basis?? no. I want to be only yours, and you only mine, definitely no. I decide against it, and I’m glad I have when I realise his silence on some other mundane matter we were discussing. I give myself a gold star, another day of saving face.

I spend hours mindlessly daydreaming. I put myself back in the hotel room. They’re always the same, devoid of that lived-in quality, no keys on the side, books on shelves, no art on the walls to distract you from the presence of the other person in the room. Not that my attention could be deterred from him, not even if the walls were alive, not if the room was crawling with creatures from mythical realms. Not even if the King of Rock and Roll himself burst through the carpet and started singing Heartbreak Hotel with a full brass band. I laugh to myself as I imagine this, and snap out of the daydream.

I contemplate confession. It’s one small step for me, one giant leap for my cowardice of heart. I convince myself that, at this point, the sting of potential rejection might be the lethal injection that takes me out of this hands-and-knees pining. What a waste! Oh, the hours I’ve spent just thinking about the dimple on his chin, I could’ve written a book- a quartet even. I will throw in the towel, I must get out ‘fore I drown. I tell myself to drop this silly infatuation at once, I don’t have the heart for it anyway, and God knows I’m not a strong swimmer.

A week passes. I feel lighter again. I feign a newfound outlook. The flutter of the crush washes over me and I laugh at myself. oh, life’s jest! how lucky he is to have someone fuss about him, how lucky I am to feel at all! I’d sooner skip, sing, cry than sit idly by. I let the burden of fear fall off my shoulders and pool around my feet, it’s only slightly scary when you’re dipping toes.

I shall relish in the wanting, who knows how long it’ll last? At least for now, I am assured, this heart can still do a little beat, beat, beat. This humpty dumpty heart that once feared all.

I accidentally carved a ‘brand’ as a ‘writer’ on the subject of ‘love’ - rather ironically, as I have not loved (in the zeitgeist sense of the word) in nearly four years. Over the last few years I have both slipped through the fingers of hands that did not hold tight enough, and emerged like a wet bar of soap from those who have gripped too tightly. I have been precisely seven different versions of myself, each one with the same fraught heart.

I have endured limerence, foreign flings, indifferent lovers I have poured over, perhaps because their unavailability holds a mirror to mine / perhaps it is an misdirected labour of self-love / perhaps a crush is a lack of information, and my wildly optimistic imagination fills in the blanks with dreamy details that do not remotely resemble reality. My affections have persisted, as redundantly as headlights on a June evening.

It took a near-death experience to return to the substack. I’m being slightly dramatic. I was hit by a car, a bit. I spent my morning picking gravel out my left ass-cheek and thought, to hell with this writers block.

To hell with attempts to pathologise, to hell with the refusal to put something out into this ether if it’s not some astute criticism of the good and bad in people or how love makes the heart sing and sink. To hell with trying to be a good writer. I will just write what is true, or what I believe to be true in that very moment. From now on, my oeuvre will be very public and very bad at times, there may be the odd quotable gem, the occasional witty simile that will induce the eye-roll of that one person definitely reading this who I know in real life and have since lost touch with.

As Vonnegut said, we’re all on this earth to fart around. And I haven’t been doing nearly enough farting. I’ve been tweaking sentences, preening, holding in the gas ‘til my stomach swells like I’m on a first date, four pints in, belly full of bubbles.

so,

ppppfffffffftttttttttt

Holly

The interview was clipped and spread like wildfire on social media overnight. A day later, my best friend received a text from the man she’d been barely disguising her love for for the last year saying that for him, it’s just casual. We came back from the bar, tucked into bed, lay in the dark and discussed the situation. I tried to echo some of the words of Ethan Hawke, how great it is that she is someone capable of such benevolence, that he was drawn to her because she has what he lacks within himself. Her love is like an energy source, and he, a vampiric parasite. The worm in her stomach, the tick buried in her neck, sucking on her supply on his terms - making her love feel like something to loathe.

People experiencing unrequited love come to resent the lengths of their compassion, they feel as though their abundance should be suppressed, stowed away. But love so vast cannot be disguised, it appears like a halo, visible to those around you. People with the capacity to love so relentlessly restore some romantic hope in the rest of us, even when it’s at their detriment.

In Plato’s Symposium, there is the myth of Aristophanes. In it, humans were originally whole beings, and the god Zeus split them in half. From then on, they spend their lives searching for their other half.

As a realist, I don’t really subscribe to the idea of soulmates. As an optimist, I think there are hundreds of people we are capable of experiencing a love that feels like completion with. Ultimately, I think if you are capable of loving the wrong person for a long period of time, you will be rewarded by experiencing a higher sense of love with the right person.

Though I often find myself writing about love, I don’t think myself as much of a romantic. My perception of love is quite practical. I value connection and the ease of coexisting more than I value a grandeur romance. So, on that evening as I lay beside my best friend in her bed, I saw a glimpse into her future and almost envied it. Her heart is so undeniably big that vague images of white picket fences started appearing in my mind when I employed some clairvoyance and attempted to see into her future. I don’t know much about love, but I am certain she will one day experience a love far more fulfilling than those who have not paid their penance and endured a merciless unrequited love.

The one who’s in love always wins.

Dear Holly,

A man I dated for over a year broke up with me three months ago and I’m still in love with him (even though he was kinda mean to me). I can’t get any distance to properly heal because his best friend is also my best friend and we are part of the same community theatre group so I see him at least once a week.

He was my first proper love. I haven’t felt desire so intense before meeting him or after meeting him and I still feel it today. He isn’t in love with me anymore.

I’ve tried to go on dates since the breakup but I can’t feel the same feelings for other men that I felt for my ex.

How do I escape my feelings? Is there a way I can move forward and find love elsewhere? Will I feel that intense and all-consuming love and desire for another person eventually? Am I broken?

There are certain pains our brains do not let us remember: childbirth, hangovers, broken bones. This is so we stay free from the shackles of fear; it’s why many mothers have more than one child. There are other pains our brains won’t let us forget: burning your hand on a stove or experiencing heartbreak. This is so we learn. First loves are our most formative. Ask anyone about their first love, and they will sooner recall the agony of the breakup rather than the love that existed before it.

When you express heartache to friends and family, they will likely rebut by telling you that it’s temporary, it’ll pass. Heartbreak, for many people, feels like being stuck in a state of purgatory, waiting for the mercy of hindsight.

Until that mercy comes, indulge. By this I mean: convalesce as you wish. Write long letters you’ll never send, listen to all the Leonard Cohen B-sides, rewatch La La Land to your heart’s content. Your pain is finite- explore it, but do not mope. Balance this healthily with a diary full of plans with friends. Small moments of joy are crucial, especially when you are enduring the unfortunate kind of breakup where you still see a lot of each other.

Love will come again, but no two loves are the same. If you are dating and searching for him in other men, it indicates to me that you may not be ready to date just yet. Someday you will reflect on the intensity and desire you once felt, and you may not even want a love like that again, certainly not with someone who is “kinda mean,” as you say.

In her book All About Love, Bell Hooks says, “When one knows a true love, the transformative force of that love lasts even when we no longer have the company of the person with whom we experienced mutual care and growth.” This quote brought me great comfort when I was reeling from the heartache of my first love. That desire and passion that you shared with him still exists within you. And no, you are not broken.

Love,
Holly

Thank you for reading Dear Holly, if you have any petty grievances, dating mishaps, friendship frictions, you can submit your woes here

So much is true for Jane Austen, a beloved maestro of romance. The timelessness of her novel Pride and Prejudice has inspired a whole sub-genre of romance novels, television, and film for over two centuries. The book tells the story of enemies-to-lovers Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. What starts as a contemptuous relationship blossoms into an impassioned love story. Anyone reading Pride and Prejudice might be mistaken in thinking that Austen was a romantic expert of her time, for how else could she capture a fictional benevolence that resonates with a readership of every period of history? However, Austen died aged 41, unmarried and very likely a virgin.

Is Jane Austen’s unfed libido partly responsible for her work? Did her alleged lack of sexual activity cause her imagination to take rein?

Marginally later, the horny Victorians started causing a stir in the literary world. Austen would pave the way with Mr Darcy’s restraint and sexual tension in moral costume; the Brontës, however, would hide their horniness less, through metaphysical metaphor and implied sadomasochism. It is also speculated that both Emily and Anne Brontë led sexless lives, a frustration certainly felt in Wuthering Heights.

It goes without saying that horny women of the 19th century bore a lot of shame. Sexual repression can be great fuel for blazing fires, but it is not without its moral abjection. A poem that critics frequently argue over is Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market; readers are divided by its meaning and what it warns about lust, whether it is feminist and embraces a kind of sexuality or whether it is intended as a deterrent for wayward women.

Though Rossetti’s Goblin Market serves as a cautionary tale for the disease that is desire, it is steeped in eroticism and has inspired some queer readings by academics. In short, the poem tells the story of two virtuous sisters and a mythical fruit market manned by goblin men who urge the women to indulge in their goods. One of the sisters, Laura, gives in to the goblin men, relinquishing a lock of her hair for the forbidden fruit. When she leaves the market, she falls sick; her only antidote is more fruit from the goblin men. Her sister, Lizzie, seeing Laura’s withering, takes it upon herself to buy the goblin market’s fruit to cure Laura. The goblin men ask Lizzie to sit with them and feast together. When she denies them, they take offence and force their fruit against her lips as the pulp drips and sticks to her face and neck. She runs home to Laura, and Laura kisses Lizzie, licking and sucking the juice of the fruit from her neck.

Rossetti’s poem is not out of place in a society that pathologises women’s sexual desire. Women who expressed sexual appetite in any way were treated as hysterical; doctors performed “massages” to relieve this ailment by inducing “hysterical paroxysm” (orgasm). Fun fact: this was allegedly why vibrators were invented, to speed up the treatment and cure women of their naughty needs.

Of course, nobody knows for sure whether Jane Austen and Emily Brontë died virgins; if they did have rampant sex lives, it would have been well hidden. What is repressed in society is often expressed in art, usually through the coding of metaphors and the hymn of poetry to disguise taboo subject matter. The 19th century denied women sexual authorship of their own bodies, so they built entire fictional worlds where desire could circulate safely and undetectably. Beneath the manners, beneath the morality, beneath the metaphor, is a pulsating story authored by a horny woman.

Days before I finally bit that bullet, I read a simple poem about an orange.

I read it aloud in a seminar for a poetry module at university, voice steady even as something inside me shifted. It confronted me: I hadn’t felt peace and contentment in a while. I had lost appreciation for the mundane moments of life. I needed to break up with my boyfriend.

The second time I encountered The Orange was in the height of an all-consuming love. Tears filled my eyes when I reread the same lines and finally felt some of the joy that the verses are imbued with. I rejoiced as I thought I finally understood these words that had once eluded me.

Well, like all good things, that love eventually came to an end. I’m not sure love like that ever fully dissipates. I like to think it finds a new home within yourself. As Tennyson said: it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

Years later, I pick up the same anthology and read the same poem. To my surprise, I feel this peace and contentment, maybe even more now. See, when I read this poem in the height of a love that consumed me, I kept misremembering that last line. I thought it read, “I love you. I’m glad you exist.” But what is salient to this poem is the word “I.” “I love you. I’m glad I exist.”

Naturally, I once believed that loving another was the key to contentment. I was sure that as long as you had a fervent passion in your life, it blinkered you from the static of the world. For years after my heartbreak, I desperately wanted to find that same love I felt before. A selfless love that requires you to disappear a little and pine, pine, pine.

This is a desire that plagues many women who grew up on fairy tales, removing romance as the penultimate goal requires a lot of unlearning. We see it today, this celebration of debilitating “yearning”, like love is a poison we lick off the finger tips of disinterested muses. I say death to yearning, it’s undignified.

Now, I read this poem, and I enjoy the shopping, walks in the park. I have a little crush that doesn’t consume me and feels rather nice. And most importantly, I’m glad I exist.

Wendy Cope has a knack for putting big feelings simply. When you read her poetry, there’s no decoding of elaborate metaphors, no dual interpretations to argue over. It’s plain on the page but still makes the heart swell. She perfectly captures the simplicities that make the mind tick, whether its oranges or corkscrews, you can tell here is a poet that sees more colours than most.

Wendy Cope taught me that love shouldn’t consume you. It’s best felt when you are entirely present, when you can walk across a bridge and hear the song inside yourself, when you fully feel your autonomy and get the urge to skip. Love doesn’t despair, it is easy, it is as simple as the words that Cope writes.

I’ll start with myself, I’ve just started reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Last year I really got into Hemingway after reading and loving three of his works (A Moveable Feast, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises), so this one seemed like the logical follow up. For Whom the Bell Tolls follows an American dynamitist who is tasked with blowing up a bridge to combat the fascists during the Spanish Civil War. I’m just ten or so pages in but so far I’m enjoying it, it employs that sparse Hemingway prose that his fans know and love.

Amy - Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Giovanni’s Room has sat on Amy’s shelf for a little while, I recommended she pick it up after a lengthy phone call we had about the ad nauseam of reading the same tropes in a lot of contemporary literary fiction.

She says: I’m only 50 pages in but I’m absolutely loving it. It’s my first book by James Baldwin and I really enjoy the way he writes. I feel like it’s going to destroy me and I don’t know if I can handle much more crying on tfl.

Grace - The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek

The Piano Teacher follows a repressed middle-aged piano instructor who enters a destructive sexual relationship with a much younger student.

Grace says: In a bit of a slump honestly, but reading The Piano Teacher right now. It’s right up my street stylistically and thematically but I think its propensity to ruminate and lack of sentimentality are a bit discordant with how I’m feeling at the moment.

Maybe also slightly worried if I lean too much into it I’ll revert emotionally into mopey teenage self. I really wanted to like it and I wish I’d picked it up at a different point in my life! Then again, I’m only about halfway through so maybe it’ll change my life and I’ll change my tune in the next 150 pages… Actually that’s likely to happen.

Gregory - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Fear and Loathing details a drug-fuelled road trip to Las Vegas that spirals into a surreal exploration of the American Dream’s collapse.

When I asked Greg what he was reading he retorted: “Twice you’ve caught me reading some soft boy manipulator shit. Last time Patti Smith, this time Hunter S. Thompson”

I asked him his thoughts thus far, he replied somewhat defensively with “I read Kurt Vonnegut before.”

Carlos - Gliff by Ali Smith

Gliff is Ali Smith’s most recent novel following two siblings navigating near-future Britain sliding into authoritarianism, where language, borders, and everyday life is becoming quietly restricted.

Carlos says: I’m reading Gliff by Ali Smith! I’m halfway through it but I’m enjoying it because I think it encapsulates the kids’ version of the world very well. Like, I remember when I was a child and my mind was bending and twisting reality to fit into something closer to magic. It’s the perfect amount of weird and I find the plot non conventional.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Needing no introduction, East of Eden is regarded as the ‘Great American Novel’. The story is essentially an allegory of the biblical tale of Cain and Abel. I have never come across anyone who has read this book and didn’t love it. Steinbeck masters every pillar of storytelling in this truly perfect novel.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore

Perhaps one of the most realistic portraits of female friendship, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital is tinged with religious trauma and underlying dissatisfaction but is very light on its feet, Moore is one of the wittiest writers of our time.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s first work of fiction will make you feel drunk whilst you read it. The Sun Also Rises follow a group of expats who leave Paris for a sun soaked boozy trip to Spain to watch some gruesome bull-fighting. This book was sweaty and full of lustful yearning.

Elena Knows by Claudia Pinero

Elena Knows follows Elena over the course of a single day as she searches for answers about her daughters alleged suicide. Elena suffers from Parkinson’s, she is trapped in a declining body that betrays her persistent nature. This was a moody read with flickers of noir.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Ignore the criticisms, Intermezzo is Rooney at her best. I feel like I’ve grown up with Sally Rooney, I’ve read every single one of her books within a year of their release. I’ve matured, and so has her writing. Intermezzo takes on new complexities and an experimental writing style, all whilst maintaining all the Rooneyisms.

You find money in the pocket of a coat you haven’t worn in months, when you’re being love-bombed.

The birds sing and wheel in the sky, squirrels trustfully inch towards you and colourful insects tickle your finger tips, when you’re being love-bombed.

Then, without warning, the rug is pulled clean from beneath your feet. You no longer feel like Snow White, ringed by benevolent creatures. What remains is a hollow you did not even know existed until it was suddenly exposed.

I was love-bombed, and it happened like this:

It began on one of those hellish apps, his profile was a welcome surprise after flicking through hundreds of the same grey lifeless gym-mirror pics.

Our first conversation was about the moon, and I should’ve read this as an amber flag, but instead I stepped into my garden and looked to the sky.

On our first date he stood, newspaper in hand, glancing down at a crossword. I felt a flicker of unease, it seemed carefully rehearsed. But we said our hellos, the pints started flowing and I realised that I quite enjoyed his company.

Time passed, but not much time at all.

We spent an entire week together in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. It was only meant to be a couple days but he insisted I stay longer. We spoke with the TV off for hours nightly, senselessly made love, played husband and wife, and were comfortable enough to drop all pretence around each other.

I silently lay beside him with wet eyes, while he stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. It was all so nice. It felt too good to be true, to be held like this after three years of meaningless dating that never amounted to anything more than a text at 2am.

Three days before Christmas he called me at 10:32am to tell me he’s not ready for a relationship. He is not ready for a relationship despite being in one with me. Despite him pursuing me with fierce infatuation. Despite him coaxing out of me the softness I’d spent so long preserving for the right person, only to look at it all, there in my extended arms, and turn away.

Who dumps someone at 10 in the morning? Not only did he ruin my entire Sunday, he practically ruined my Christmas.

As I sat at crowded dinner tables with friends and family over the holidays, I cursed myself for thinking of him. A man that only eight weeks before had been a stranger to me. The snap of Christmas crackers made me jump, the smell of sprouts that I had joyfully devoured in christmases past made me ill, every Christmas song was imbued with reminders of my perpetual loneliness.

How did I let this happen? Why so intensely in such a fleeting space of time?

And who does this to someone? I was eased by his persistence, soothed at every flick of doubt, made to feel safe. He insisted I relax. Was this some kind of cruel joke? Did one of these men that I’ve wronged in my past send him to collect my karmic debts?

The thing about love-bombing is that it leaves you with unanswerable questions. It leaves you distrusting of the next person and their intentions. It’s unsettling how something that unfolds over a matter of weeks can leave a lasting imprint.

The greatest irony of all of this: I did not want a relationship before we met. I was not searching for anything serious. But I met him, and for a short time he painted this perfect picture. I came to realise exactly what I’d been missing for the last three years, so when he left, he left me wanting.

So, what is love-bombing? And what does it do to your brain?

I coped with this in the way I cope with everything. I spent hours researching, scribbling stats and erratic thoughts down on scraps of paper. I wanted to understand what happened to me and why it stung so much. Here are my findings.

1. When you are being love-bombed, your brain is flooded with dopamine. This can override the ability to reason logically. High levels of dopamine are associated with impulse control; the brain’s reward system can prioritise the immediate rewards of romantic gestures and affection over measuring genuine compatibility and long-term consequence. A love-bomber pushes past your walled exterior, adorning the trojan horse of a trustworthy potential partner to reap the best of you.

2. Those with low self esteem are more susceptible to love-bombing. Gaining true confidence can feel like a Sisyphean journey, and is easily pushed aside when someone is showering you with mini ego boosts.

3. Psychiatrist Dr. Dale Archer found strong correlation between love-bombing and narcissistic personalities, and love-bombing and emotional abuse. He states that cult leaders, pimps and gang leaders often weaponise love-bombing to encourage loyalty and obedience. In his study he states “(Love-bombers) are experts in detecting low self-esteem, and exploiting it”.

It feels critical to note that humans are nuanced and complicated. Not every ‘love-bomber’ is intentionally calculated and abusive, some just lack emotional maturity and recycle learnt behaviours, some are ailed with intensity addiction and struggle with impulse control themselves. In my case, I don’t believe I was dating a cruel narcissist. I hope he was just an idiot and nothing more sinister.

“Love bombing” and “limerence” were once terms reserved for explaining controlling and manipulative behaviours and complex psychological issues. The casual overuse of these buzzwords have dulled the very essence they attempt to capture. The problem lies in their overextension, mislabelling the thrill of new sex, fun and meaningful conversations. Fading are the days of pure and vulnerable exchanges that overwhelm us and jump the barriers of second-guessing and self-doubt.

What a privilege it is to feel deeply. There’s a beauty in being the type of person who unapologetically loves. Romantic love isn’t the only space where this passion resides; it extends to friendships, family, even fleeting interactions with strangers. To feel intensely for another is a gift, one that cuts through the veil of modern life’s constant self-preservation tactics. I often joke with my bestfriend about sharing a future together, platonic co-parenting, I’ve had conversations with shopkeepers and have tearfully relayed their stories years later. I have a heart three times too big and it bursts for those around me.

So, why when it comes to new romance, do we instinctively recoil from the multitudes we contain? As we fall, we find ourselves wanting to pull away, anxious about how exposed we’ve become, a fear that stems from a self-conscious desire for control over our own vulnerability. Passion-shaming is real and prevalent, having an appetite for affection isn’t unhealthy. To feel intensely is to trust the process of human connection. When we allow ourselves to embrace these moments we are courageously leaving the safety of detachment and distrust.

I don’t want to play my cards close to my chest, connection isn’t a game of poker. We are not at war with eachother.

Ask my parents and they will recall the dramatics of my crying fits and my faux-suffering in my teens. Then, in my early twenties, willing myself into scandalous situations. Whether I was punishing myself or desperate for material, I don’t know. I thought pain was necessary to make art. I followed the footsteps of my favourite writers, sought out messy romances, drank myself silly and more than experimented with hard drugs. The trouble is, this is what most people do in their early twenties, so you don’t necessarily feel guilty for the harm you’re inflicting on yourself or others.

This year something brittle in my thinking finally broke, and left space for something softer. I needed to jump off this freight train I was on. Torturing myself wasn’t as productive as I hoped, when I sat to write of all the horrors I made myself endure, I couldn’t find the words. When I did, I read them back and waves of repulsion went through me at the self-indulgence of it all.

I read a poem, Let it Enfold You by Charles Bukowski. (I’d thoroughly recommend reading the entire lengthy poem, but here’s the gist):

I changed jobs and
cities, I hated holidays,
babies, history,
newspapers, museums,
grandmothers,
marriage, movies,
spiders, garbagemen,
english accents,spain,
france,italy,walnuts and
the color
orange.
algebra angred me,
opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a
fake
and flowers were for
pansies.

peace and happiness to me
were signs of
inferiority,
tenants of the weak
and
addled
mind.

Then, later…

I walk onto the blazing
sunshine.
the whole day is
mine
temporarily,
anyhow.

I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.

Bukowski moves away from a life defined by hardness, and embraces an almost radical optimism.

Another poem that called out to me like a hymn in this journey of ridding my angst was Mary Oliver’s The Journey:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

It occured to me that pain alone isn’t interesting enough for a story. Yet we pedestalise Sartre, Plath, Kafka… The very desk I write at has a photograph of Ernest Hemingway. We make literary martyrs of these writers. I see now: it wasn’t their pain that gave them their knack for words and sentences, though it was arguably a vital ingredient. What actually allowed them to put pen to paper were their moments of sobriety, of disconnect. Each of these great writers had the essential ability to just snap out of it (if only for a moment).

Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” had a renaissance in the last year. On social media, folks were mourning him as though his passing wasn’t nearly thirty years ago. The song reached thousands of listener’s top five on Spotify Wrapped this year. Similarly, the TV show Normal People became an instant hit, and is still reflected on by agonised fans five years on. Misery has a pull, and the artistically inclined will forever be fascinated with suffering. But you must not let it consume you. Don’t drive yourself mad for words that will never come.

It’s easy to tenderly reminisce about a pre-social media age that I didn’t personally experience. I do not doubt that for the right charmer, I would have been just the type to cancel evening plans and wait impatiently for the telephone to sound. Perhaps getting no call at all would have been more deflating for the ego than the slow fizzling-fade of a number of potential romances that could have worked, had our modern age not failed them. Nostalgia clouds reason at the best of times, but most of all when considering romance. Longing for a time of letter-writing and landlines is cliché and perhaps a bit naive, but the lifespan for romantic relationships in this era seemed less fleeting and more carefully considered.

We are spoilt for choice. True love is only a swipe away. Why settle for someone when they present a few minor flaws when the perfect match must be out there among the thousands of dating profiles? We advocate pickiness, advising our friends against new romantic partners when they reveal themselves to have negative-leaning human tendencies, all in the name of having higher standards for oneself.

Ten, twenty years ago, dating was more blinkered. You’d meet your future life partner through a friend, at a bar, or at university. Courting played out under the eyes of mutual friends and shared community. Now, we pluck a few strangers with nice faces from the never-ending list of suitors, juggle them, grow restless in the process of picking just one (if we so wish), abandon all of them and have a refresh of new characters to mingle with by the following week. This is why our modern relationships are so meaningless. Without the watchful eyes of communities and mutual friends, accountability is lost. You can go on several dates with someone before even mentioning them to your closest friends, allowing them to get away with more and allowing you to easily ‘ghost’ them without the inevitable questions and the faff of explanation.

It seems as though Gen Z has a propensity for shallow connections, because narrowing in on one person may mean missing out on ‘the one’. We are far too versed in each other in such a fugitive space of time, speedrunning relationships, reaping the thrill of new sex and cutting our losses before nurturing something deeper.

But wouldn’t it be terribly pretentious to suggest email and landline phone calls as a means of communication? Why are we so afraid of silence, of stillness, of monogamy? If silence, stillness and monogamy are becoming obsolete, are we losing more than just tradition?

Is the answer to say a whole lot less to each other? Or in this ruthless dating scene, does that risk us being forgotten and replaced? But perhaps this is the paradox of our time: to connect more than ever, yet feel increasingly disconnected.

Through weird turbulence, I relied heavily on my cherished friends and family. Their fierce loyalty and non-judgmental nature steadied me greatly. I also relied on some films, books and music.

Films

• The first thing I watched was a needed “what the fuck?!” Netflix documentary: Unknown Number: The High School Catfish (2025). It did exactly what I needed it to.

• I finally watched 13 Going on 30 (2004), which provided the perfect level of entertainment - without requiring critical engagement.

• I was floored by All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)

• Comforted by Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) for the umpteenth time

• Disturbed by Watership Down (1978)

• Freaked by Blue Velvet (1986)

• I finally crossed Parasite (2019) off the to-watch list after just six years

• Admittedly, weirdly slightly aroused by The Shape of Water (2017)

• Closer (2004) hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve seen it before, but this time Natalie Portman’s character was a little too apt.

Books

• Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali, this one hurt pretty badly.

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne De Marcken. I went in with high expectations after reading some serious hype about this book. It was great, but at times I felt it was losing its way a little.

• For Esme- With Love and Squalor and Other Stories by J.D. Salinger. It took me a little while to get through this collection, but I lapped up those sweet short Salinger stories like a dog with heatstroke.

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, A reread, a lot of pathetic fallacy, a friend of mine described it quite perfectly, “windswept as fuck”.

• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk - a good, kooky novel, and what a title!

Music

• I wept to Joni Mitchell’s Album Both Sides Now (2000), specifically on one day whilst on a walk, as it suddenly started raining cats and dogs.

• My most played songs were both ‘Nobody’s Son’ by Sabrina Carpenter (I screamed these lyrics in my head repeatedly) and ‘Girl Of Constant Sorrow’ by Joan Baez

• Once I got over myself, I rinsed ‘Mayonaise’ by the Smashing Pumpkins

• See my September Spotify playlist here:

A few days into October now, and I feel quite hopeful for the rest of this month. I’ve stared at the full moon whilst listening to a meditative Spotify mix and have made some promises to myself.

In light of all these aids, I have curated a list of films that steer clear of any romantic tomfoolery.

1. Sideways (2004)

Sideways is pain relief in film form. That’s not to say that it’s not deep. It explores the relationships we share with friends in the context of a wine-tasting trip. Although romance is mentioned (one of the protagonists is soon to be married), it puts romantic love into perspective. It removes the ‘be all and end all’ theme that is typically associated with relationships. It’s light on its feet, comedic, and the perfect remedy to reminiscing.

2. The Worst Person in the World (2021)

Okay, so this one does dive quite deeply into romantic themes. But, if you can stomach it, this is the perfect film to convalesce in. We follow Julie, who is entirely lost. She’s unsure of herself, her career goals and her romantic partners. She is no saint; she is raw and real and unapologetically figuring it out. I don’t want to spoil, but the ending of this film is so reassuring to watch as a fellow lost twenty-four-year-old woman who is admittedly losing hope in all things romance. The Worst Person in the World is an all-time favourite of mine. I’ve revisited it multiple times since its release and have been able to relate to different elements of it each time.

3. Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Trigger warning: this is a Woody Allen film. Deconstructing Harry is one of Allen’s less popular films, though I’ve always puzzled over this as I think it might be his second-best. It has an absolutely stellar cast: Bob Balaban, Billy Crystal, Toby Maguire, Demi Moore, Robin Williams… to name a few. The story follows a writer who is suffering from writer’s block, so he draws on his friends’ private lives as inspiration. It causes hilarious chaos as his friends try to untangle the mystery of pseudonyms, and all affairs and secrets are revealed.

The personal essay is a tricky territory to crack. You must find the balance in poetry and the mundane. Too much to one side and your personal essays can quickly sound overly self-indulgent and eyeroll-inducing, too much to the other side, and they can read as blandly as a bystander’s witness statement for a petty crime.

You don’t have to go all the way back to Saint Augustine’s Confessions to grapple with writing ‘the self’, but exploring the history of the autobiography will certainly strengthen your execution.

Here is some required reading for your benefit.

Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes

Reading this helped knock some of the unnecessary flowery-ness out of my own personal essays. Roland Barthes writes well, but flatly, about events in his life. He is perfectly unpretentious. I will confess, I have not read any other Barthes, so I cannot fully grasp the context of his autobiography, but this was an educational read nonetheless.

Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy

I could sit here and throw Orwell’s autobiographical oeuvre at you, but Deborah Levy is slightly more in tune with the twenty-first-century experience. Her memoir trilogy starts with Things I Don’t Want to Know, where she references George Orwell’s Why I Write and spins off on her own tangents. Deborah Levy strikes a delicate balance between prose and punch in her writing, which makes her literary tone so distinctive. This, I feel, is an absolute essential read if you are looking to write a personal essay in 2025.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

You want to be Joan Didion. Who doesn’t dream of writing like Joan Didion? The Year of Magical Thinking is not my favourite Didion (it’s a close call between Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album), but it feels like her most profound. Whilst in a lot of her reporting, Didion remains coolly unattached to the horrors of 60s L.A., El Salvador in 1982, Miami in ‘87, in TYOMT, we see a grief-stricken vulnerability bleed into her passages about losing her husband John. The Year of Magical Thinking is hailed as one of the best memoirs of all time, and for good reason.

With the required reading out of the way, I feel the need to recommend more personal essay collections/memoirs that I have thoroughly enjoyed.

• Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz

  Another classic essay collection, Babitz’s writing completely swept me off my feet. I devoured this book in a single sitting.

• Outline by Rachel Cusk

  I’ve seen this marketed as a novel and an autobiography. I love how Cusk toys with the genre in Outline.

• Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde

  Another one that interrogates the genre of the ‘autobiography’, this is one of the most engaging autobiographies I have read.

• Love’s Work by Gillian Rose

  Gillian Rose wrote this short memoir when she was told she had terminal cancer. I thoroughly enjoyed her reflections on being an outcast child.

• Down the Drain by Julia Fox

  I was very pleasantly surprised by this one. Julia Fox had me laughing out loud one moment, then on the verge of tears the next. She is only 35 - and what a life she has lived already!

• The Argronauts by Maggie Nelson

  I truly believe that this book will become a modern classic. The Argonauts is a groundbreaking exploration of queer identity, told through artefacts and stunning prose.

• The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

  This is one I recommend to everyone. Even people who don’t enjoy memoirs. The Copenhagen Trilogy spans decades of Ditlevsen’s life with careful detail that feels deeply personal.

• Motherhood by Sheila Heti

  This is a great read for anyone looking to write about one specific delicate topic. In Motherhood, Heti is in conversation with herself, asking if she wants to one day bear the burden of becoming a mother.

Do women have a natural inclination for beasts? Here are three stories in which women, in the throes of oppressive societal structures, have left men in the dust and opted for another species.

Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls (1982)

Dorothy is in the depths of grief following the death of her son and a recent miscarriage. Her husband is largely unsupportive and serially unfaithful. Amidst the misery, she hears the news of an amphibious creature escaping a local research centre. In this absolute feverdream of a book, Dorothy embarks on an unconventional affair that confronts the miseries of women in patriarchal and capitalist society.

The Picses by Melissa Broder (2018)

Lucy is in limbo. Following the breakdown of a relationship with a side of career dissatisfaction, she housesits for her sister in LA. In an attempt to relieve her racing mind, Lucy takes evening walks along the beach. One evening, she sees a man swimming by some rocks, only he is not a man… The Pisces is a weird but wonderful exploration of love and joy. There are many quietly moving moments and surreal sex scenes that make this story impossible to put down.

The Bear by Marian Engel (1976)

Lou is a timid librarian who is called to do some inventory work at a remote location in Canada. When she arrives, she discovers a bear who has been chained and held captive. This is not only a story about intimacy with a beast, but a tale of freedom. In many ways, Lou herself is chained; the bear is both a reflection of her and an embrace for her.

The Beautiful Summer by Cesare Pavese

Titually apt, The Beautiful Summer, set in 1930s Italy, begins with the line “Life was a perpetual holiday in those days”. Sixteen-year-old Cecil meets a new friend, brushes shoulders with bohemian artists, and finds a doomed love. At just 100 pages, this book could easily be devoured in one seaside sitting.

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

Sofia and her mother, Rose, have come from England to a clinic in Greece to cure Rose of an unknown ailment that renders her wheelchair bound. This is a novel about fickle mother/daughter relationships, the burden of being a carer, and feeling as though you’re wasting your youth. Sofia jostles with an eclectic bunch of islanders as she grapples with her identity. Who is Sofia without the demands of her mother?

The Odyssey by Lara Williams

I am patiently awaiting Lara Williams’ next novel. From the author of Supper Club, The Odyssey is a story set entirely on a luxury cruise liner following jaded employee Ingrid. Her routine of working, then getting black-out drunk on days off, is disrupted when the elusive captain selects her for an employee-mentorship scheme, but things start getting a bit unorthodox...

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

A coming-of-age novella that scandalised readers of its time. Set in the French Riviera, seventeen-year-old Cecile intends to have a summer to remember. Reading this transports you back to that summer from your youth.

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Summer is the season to tick this classic off your to-be-read lists. It needs no introduction. Over the course of a single June day, Mrs Dalloway, wife of a political figure, is preparing for a party. In under 200 pages, we follow her stream of consciousness, flicking between memory and present-day.

What he hated about Lana was obvious. The femininity she exudes in her persona, her songwriting, and her overwhelmingly female-dominated fan base. Evident in the fact that most of his arguments against Lana Del Rey always ended up bitterly circling back to an ex-girlfriend of his who was a huge fan.

As an eager-to-please eighteen-year-old, not wanting my slightly older boyfriend to find another thing about me ‘cringe’ (an insult he regularly used to belittle my interests and outfits), I stopped listening to Lana Del Rey in 2019 - just before the release of Norman Fucking Rockwell.

Six years passed.

Shon Faye begins her second chapter of her memoir, Love in Exile, detailing the catharsis she experienced listening to Lana Del Rey’s album Norman Fucking Rockwell. Reading this, I took it as a reliable prescription for healing an emotional wound, and, for the first time, listened to ‘NFR’ from beginning to end.

I was surprised to find myself already knowing every single lyric to some tracks, telling of how pervasive LDR has become in pop culture. Songs I did not immediately recognise have now become new favourites of mine. This last week, I revisited the album six times. Never too late to jump on a bandwagon.

My ex’s arguments against LDR were that she’s shallow, basic, even problematic and - in his words - “encourages young girls to do drugs and date older men”. I’d be interested to see if he thought that The Brian Jonestown Massacre encourages fans to try heroin.

The strings and piano that open “Norman Fucking Rockwell” wash over you, then she cuts in to deliver that iconic opening line: “Goddamn, man-child, you fucked me so good that I almost said I love you”. She tears the same man to shreds, “Your poetry’s bad, and you blame the news”. The song essentially dismantles this ‘tortured artist’ type, who believes himself to be profound - when in fact, he is emotionally stunted and painfully ordinary, and “just a man”.

“California” is my most played track on the album. Lyrically, Lana is somewhat beaten down; she vulnerably puts herself on a platter for the man she sings about. It takes on a completely different tone from the typical LDR hit, where the men are usually stoic and she, cooly unattached.

The more I learnt about Lana, the more frustrated I got with past-self for ever discrediting her. Admittedly, I was a bit sceptical of her popularity and palatability. It sounds pretentious, but as an angsty eighteen-year-old, I thought that mainstream = bad.

Naturally, the older I get, the less I resist liking things out of preconceived notions about where they rank on the ‘cool’ scale. In all honesty, I had never resisted a ‘guilty pleasure’ until this pedestaled boyfriend entered my life and dictated what I should listen to, wear and do. Ironically, this man hadn’t read a single book in our entire two-year relationship - I should have never held his opinions in such high regard.

I guess the moral of the story here is an obvious one: there is artistic merit in everything. Don’t let your twenty-something illiterate boyfriend make you feel bad about what you enjoy consuming. He just doesn’t get it.

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Dutch), Translated by Michele Hutchison

Not for the faint of heart, The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld is perhaps the most unsettling novel I have read. We follow ten-year-old Jas in the wake of her brother’s death. Raised by deeply religious parents on a farm in rural Holland, Jas and her siblings are an isolated and troubled bunch.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang (South Korean), translated by Deborah Smith

The Vegetarian was the first piece of translated fiction I read, and what a place to start. Since its UK release in 2015, where it was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, Han Kang has won the Nobel Prize for Literature and become a literary icon. The Vegetarian is a Kafka-esque story about a woman suffering from mental illness whilst all of her loved ones fail her.

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (Palestinian), translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

I first read Minor Detail back in 2021; it was important then, and it’s even more important now. Our narrator is a Palestinian woman reflecting on the events of 1949. She becomes fixated on the history of a woman who was raped and murdered by Israeli soldiers years before her lifetime, all whilst living in occupied Ramallah.

Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro (Argentinian), Translated by Frances Riddle

I recently read this and was absolutely blown away. Elena Knows is a truly stand-out piece of fiction following a mother seeking answers about her daughter’s suicide. With themes of ageing, loss of agency, living in a declining body and motherhood, it begs the question: how well does a mother really know her child?

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Japanese), translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

A little more light-hearted than the others on this list, Convenience Store Woman tells the story of thirty-six-year-old Keiko, who rejects societal expectations and finds contentment in her job at a convenience store, known as a ‘smile mart’. This novel is short and genuinely joyous.

Some other highly rated titles that are on my shelf, but not yet read, are below:

• The Years by Annie Ernaux (French), translated by Alison L. Strayer

• Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz (Argentinian), translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff

• I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacquliene Harpman (Belgian), translated by Ros Schwartz

I’ll start with myself, I have too many half-finished books on the go, but… I’m currently reading Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro. I was sent this novel by The International Booker Prize team back in 2022, along with the entire International Booker Prize Longlist (very generous), during the peak of my book blogging. It sat on my shelf, gathering dust for a couple of years. I’m only forty pages in, and it’s looking very promising.

Amy: Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare

What are you reading right now? I’m reading Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare. It’s really good, about a group of girl friends in Belfast who are dealing with the death of one of their housemates.

How did you hear about it? My friend sent me a video on TikTok saying “I feel like you’d like this” and it was described as “think Dolly Alderton, but with the sharp edges of Eliza Clark”, and they are my two favourite authors right now, so I definitely had to pick it up. I just love lit-fic about girls being unhinged in their twenties, and I love that Irish authors seem to be leading this trend at the moment.

Gregory: Just Kids by Patti Smith

What are you reading right now? Just Kids by Patti Smith. It’s an autobiography focusing on her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe as far as I can tell - I’m twenty pages in.

Thoughts so far? A breath of fresh air after reading the Anthony Kiedis semi-autobiography - read begrudgingly, not exactly by choice. The writing is quite inspiring and certainly filled with juice. Twenty pages in this afternoon, and I’m really enjoying it, is all I can say.

What made you pick it up? The never-ending pile of books offered to me, and I accepted. It’s been on the list.

Lexi: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

What are you reading right now? I’m actually re-reading All Quiet on the Western Front.

Interesting, why the re-read? Since I read it, it’s been in my top three. I just found it incredibly powerful. We never really hear about what it was like on the German side of the First World War - or I hadn’t. And it’s written by someone who was actually there. It’s very graphic, it’s very heartwrenching.

The first time I read it, I was in a very dark part of my life, and I found great comfort in it. It sounds weird to say, but it put a lot into perspective for me. And now that I’m in a much more settled point in my life, I wanted to reread it and see if I found the same comfort in it.

I love semi-autobiographical books about heavy topics like mental health… Like Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, then this book is literally my top three.

Grace: Art Sex Music by Cosey Fanni Tutti

What are you reading right now? I just finished Art Sex Music by Cosey Fanni Tutti, it’s an autobiography about her contribution to the birth of industrial music in the late 70s, her experience working in the sex industry, and blurring the lines between the two.

What did you think of it? I think I enjoyed it; it was a very frank depiction, veering from completely debauched and grimy to incredibly mundane and sincere, but there was also a lot of detail that, whilst I can appreciate the inclusion for bigger fans, kind of disrupted the flow and slowed down the pace for me personally.

How did you find out about this book? I read a few other music autobiographies last year, like Viv Albertines and Carrie Brownsteins, so I think it was on my radar, and the Gregory (Grace’s partner) had it, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Evie: Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz

What are you reading? My current book on the go is Die My Love by Ariana Harwicz.

What made you pick it up? I went to Grace’s (Evie’s sister) and asked her for a new book a few months ago, and she recommended me Die My Love or Giovanni’s Room, which I’d heard about at the time through a friend, but which also turned out to be the book I’d read the ending of over Grace’s shoulder. Anyway, I chose Die, My Love because it looked shorter, and Grace described it as a woman on the edge, which is what I was feeling at the time.

How are you finding it? I really enjoyed it for a few days and got close to the end, but put it down a few weeks ago and haven’t looked at it since, but I would love to finish it soon, as I know a movie is being made of it with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Patterson. I’m excited to see how they adapt it given the sporadic and dreamlike style of writing.

BONUS: The parents

Dad: The Wager by David Grann

What are you reading? I just finished The Wager by David Grann.

What made you pick it up? I heard Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio were making it, so jumped ahead.

Thoughts? It’s great. As it’s based on a true story, some of it is quite horrific. Really enjoyed Master and Commander (the film), so it was easy to visualise.

Mum: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

What are you reading? I just picked up Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, but I’m struggling to get into it.

What don’t you like about it? Done the first chapter, but it’s not making me want to pick it up to carry on… It felt slow to start, and I couldn’t get a sense of what it would be about.

(I may be at fault for this recommendation)