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Dolly Alderton Books

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Ghosts

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Good Material

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Dear Dolly

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“None of us would ever fully grasp the extent of our magnificent unoriginality -- it would be too painful to process...There was the evidence, in all these profiles, where who we really are and who we'd like everyone to think we are were in such unsubtle tension. How clear it suddenly was that we are all the same organs, tissue and liquids packaged up in one version of a million cliches, who all have insecurities and desires; the need to feel nutured, important, understood and useful in one way or another. Non of us are special. I don't know why we fight it so much.”

PeopleLifeOnline Dating
Book:Ghosts
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“A much-underrated and incredibly simple considering factor when it comes to choosing a partner is how much you love their company. Since my friends have started having babies and I've watched how they operate as couples, it's become even more apparent to me that the most important thing in a relationship is how well you work as a team. It's the hackneyed notion for a reason: a couple needs to be really, really good friends.”

LoveLifeRelationshipsLiving
Book:Everything I Know About Love
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“I knew he would date again. Probably within weeks, just like Max had done. I imagined all the women Jethro and Max would date, while they were “confused” and “not ready,” standing next to each other in a long factory line. Each of them would give these men something—a story, a weekend away, their attention, their advice, their time, a sexual adventure, an actual adventure—then they’d be forced to pass him along to the next relationship. These men would emerge at some point, full of all the love and care and confidence that had been bestowed upon them over the years, and they might commit to someone. Then, most certainly, another one. Then another one when that one got boring. Their greed would not be satisfied by one woman, by one life. They’d get to lead a great many lives. Life after life after life after life. Because these men wanted to want something rather than have something. Max wanted to be tortured, he wanted to yearn and chase and dream. He wanted to exist in a liminal state, like everything was just about to begin. He liked contemplating what our relationship might be like, without investing any time or commitment in our relationship.”

LoveRelationshipsDisappointmentEmotional Vampires
Book:Ghosts
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“He explained to the table why he thought there were so many eligible thirty-something women who were single. 'It's the Blaire Bulge'...'Women with degrees will only rarely marry men without them, but men are less fussy...Because Tony Blair made more people go to university, there are loads of university educated women who struggle to find suitable long-term partners. This cohort is the Blair Bulge.' 'So basically, we've become too smart for marriage.' 'Precisely' he said.”

FeminismDating
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“I knew he would date again. Probably within weeks, just like Max had done. I imagined all the women Jethro and Max would date, while they were “confused” and “not ready,” standing next to each other in a long factory line. Each of them would give these men something—a story, a weekend away, their attention, their advice, their time, a sexual adventure, an actual adventure—then they’d be forced to pass him along to the next relationship. These men would emerge at some point, full of all the love and care and confidence that had been bestowed upon them over the years, and they might commit to someone. Then, most certainly, another one. Then another one when that one got boring. Their greed would not be satisfied by one woman, by one life. They’d get to lead a great many lives. Life after life after life after life. Because these men wanted to want something rather than have something. Max wanted to be tortured, he wanted to yearn and chase and dream. He wanted to exist in a liminal state, like everything was just about to begin. He liked contemplating what our relationship might be like, without investing any time or commitment in our relationship. Jethro liked talking about the home he would buy with Lola, but he didn't want to turn up to the viewing. They were like teenage boys in their rooms, coming up with lyrics to write in their notebooks. They weren't ready to be adults, to make any choices, let alone promises. They preferred a relationship to be virtual and speculative, it could be perfect. Their girlfriend didn't have to be human. They didn't have to think about plans or practicalities, they weren't burdened with the concern of another person's happiness. And they could be heroes. They could be gods. It was pathetic.”

Dating
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“He felt a little cheated. He'd fallen in love with a rootless girl who wanted nothing but to pack a bag of plimsolls and jeans and go on any adventure he took her on. Who embroidered his initials into jumpers and spent the entirety of a party locked in a bathroom with him, sitting in the empty bath, staring at his face with eyes like saucers. He ended up with a woman with her own adult identity and a preoccupation with her work. I felt our relationship had been one of the most enriching experiences of my life, and I knew he would always be a huge part of the person I'd become, but we had outgrown each other. I knew I had to let him go, so he could be with someone who really wanted to be in a relationship, with all the love and commitment he deserved.”

LoveRelationshipsGrowing UpMoving OnBreakups
Book:Everything I Know About Love
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“Her best friend did a reading of a breathtaking piece Florence had written for her year-book page. ‘It may seem that life is difficult at times but it’s really as simple as breathing in and out,’ she read. ‘Rip open hearts with your fury and tear down egos with your modesty. Be the person you wish you could be, not the person you feel you are doomed to be. Let yourself run away with your feelings. You were made so that someone could love you. Let them love you.”

LoveLifeSadLearn
Author:Dolly Alderton
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“Mi ha spiegato che la raccomandazione a non fare i capetti, i vanitosi o gli intelligentoni crea delle barriere intorno a certi recessi della nostra personalità e da adulti ci spaventa l’idea di riscoprirli. Allora tendiamo a nascondere quelle parti di noi, quelle parti eccessive, oscure, eccentriche o ambigue, per la paura di non essere amati. Ma erano proprio quelle parti di noi -secondo lui - a essere le più belle.”

AcceptanceAccepting Yourself
Book:Everything I Know About Love
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“Aveva quell’indicibile fiducia in se stesso che senza dubbio era frutto di una scuola iperesclusiva. È un tipo di sicurezza che ti viene dall’avere le spalle coperte, dall’età di tredici anni, da un blazer identitario di antica fattura che consta di: un certa gamma di colori per le case, un orrendo soprannome, e un motto che riesci a cantare anche dopo cinque pinte. È quella sicurezza sfacciata che deriva dal far parte di un club che organizza dibattiti fin da quando hai tredici anni e che alla fine ti dà una spintarella per arrivare ai piani alti della politica; quel tipo di sicurezza che dai per scontata e che ti fa pensare di avere cose da dire.”

Confidence
Book:Everything I Know About Love
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“I was completely alone, but I had never felt safer. It wasn’t the bricks around me that I’d somehow managed to rent or the roof over my head that I was most grateful for. It was the home I now carried on my back like a snail. The sense that I was finally in responsible and loving hands. Love was there in my empty bed. It was piled up in the records Lauren bought me when we were teenagers. It was in the smudged recipe cards from my mum in between the pages of cookbooks in my kitchen cabin. Love was in the bottle of gin tied with a ribbon that India had packed me off with; in the smeary photo-strips with curled corners that would end up stuck to my fridge. It was in the note that lay on the pillow next to me, the one I would fold up and keep in the shoebox of all the other notes she had written before. I woke up safe in my one-woman boat. I was gliding into a new horizon; floating in a sea of love. There it was. Who knew? It had been there all along.”

QuotesNew LifeAdult LifeEverything I Know About Love
Book:Everything I Know About Love
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“...romantics are, ironically, the worst culprits for being relationship avoidant. This is for two reasons. The first being that committing to someone would mean they would have to call off the search for love, and nothing is more romantic than longing. The second is that they spend a lot of time thinking about who their partner might be, so it's hard to find the 3D version that matches who they've invented in their mind. It's less about perfection, and more about prescriptivism. They write their own version of how they think love is going to pan out, then they find it perplexing that no one seems to know the specific plot and characters other than them.”

LoveAdviceAvoidantAttachment TheoryRomantics
Book:Dear Dolly
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“I pour myself one more drink and go outside for one more cigarette. I wonder where she is now - I imagine her doing her long night-time skincare routine or getting a taxi home or doing an impassioned rant in a pub somewhere with her third glass of wine in her hand. And then I say goodbye to her. I wash up the glasses and remember the ongoing dispute we had about how to stack things on the drying rack. I say goodbye. I go upstairs to bed and I remember when she first came here, how strange it was to wake up next to her in my childhood bedroom. I say goodbye. And it feels okay. I say all my goodbyes, ready to no doubt meet her tomorrow to say goodbye all over again.”

RelationshipsHeartbreak
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“You were the one who made it intense. You were the one telling me you wanted to marry me. Or that you couldn't stop thinking about me. You rang me twice a day. You insisted we spent every other night together. I just wanted to hang out and get to know each other. You decided the entire pace of this relationship then you slammed on the brakes when it suited you. It was like I was just a lucky passenger along for the ride.”

RelationshipsDating
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“Eres la suma de todas las cosas que te han pasado hasta ese último sorbo de té de la taza que acabas de dejar sobre la mesa. Cómo te abrazaron tus padres, eso que te dijo una vez tu primer novio sobre tus pantorrillas... Todo son ladrillos que te conforman desde la planta de los pies a la coronilla. Tus excentricidades, manías y cagadas son el efecto mariposa de lo que viste en la tele, de las cosas que te dijeron tus profesores y de la forma en que te miraba la gente desde el primer momento en el que abriste los ojos. Ser un detective de tu pasado -deshacer todo ese camino para llegar al punto de partida con la ayuda de un profesional- puede ser increíblemente útil y liberador.”

Therapy Tips
Book:Everything I Know About Love
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“To this day, I am convinced that the three years I spent at Exeter left me more stupid than when I arrived. I did little to no work; I went from being a voracious bookworm to not reading a single page of a book that wasn’t a set text (and I don’t think I even finished one of those). From September 2006 to July 2009, all I did was drink and shag. All anyone did was drink and shag, pausing only briefly to eat a kebab, watch an episode of Eggheads or shop for a fancy-dress outfit for a ‘Lashed of the Summer Wine’ themed pub crawl. Far from being the hub of radical thinking and passionate activism I had hoped for, it was the most politically apathetic place I had ever been” Excerpt From Everything I Know About Love Dolly Alderton This material may be protected by copyright.”

Good Education
Book:Everything I Know About Love
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