Isla Vista: the home of daygers, beaches, and casual relationships.
I don’t know about you, but to me, it feels like finding love in Isla Vista is a near-impossible feat; between the pace of the quarter system, the pervasiveness of hookup culture, and an unfortunate uptick in online dating, love seems to be perpetually out of reach. This can honestly feel incredibly demoralizing, as we live in a culture where the highest form of validation stems from romantic attraction. In other words, being single can feel like you’re unwanted and unvalued.
To make matters worse, lately, it seems as though everyone around me is getting into a relationship. The friends in my unspoken pact of singleness suddenly got boyfriends and girlfriends, and I’ve found myself listening to Lizzy McAlpine’s “Ceilings” on a near-infinite loop. So, when my sister gifted me Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love, it felt like a moment of divine intervention.
In short, this book is a deep dive into what it’s like to be a woman in your twenties. Through real-life anecdotes, Alderton delves into conversations about everything from bad dates, substance abuse issues, loss, loneliness, eating disorders, and aging. It’s impactful, engaging, and incredibly apt for the college-aged student.
Part of the magic of this book is that it’s a perfect mix between consumable and serious. A funny anecdote about Alderton’s poetic ex-drug dealer, and his love for carbonara, is followed, mere pages later, by an interrogation into what it’s like to have one of your best friends slip away from you. Honestly, this book is an emotional rollercoaster in the best way possible, and reading it approximates the intimate experience of having a late-night conversation with a best friend.
More than just entertaining, Everything I Know About Love, is also validating as it deconstructs our harmful beliefs about love and belonging. Take for example the way Alderton rebuts against the narrative that love has to be this perfect explosive thing.
Towards the end of the book she writes, “I know that love happens under the splendor of moon and stars and fireworks and sunsets, but it also happens when you’re lying on blow-up air beds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in the emergency room or in the queue for a passport or in a traffic jam.” By allowing love to exist in the mundane, and removing any pressure for it to be something cinematic, Alderton makes it feel more attainable. Which in turn, makes me more hopeful.
Though this book contains many gems of knowledge—such as “no practical matter is important enough to keep you in the wrong relationship” or “you’re going to have to make a lifestyle choice between gel nail manicures and playing guitar”—I think my greatest takeaway can be found within the line, “nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learned in my long-term, friendships with women”.
When we get lost in the search for romantic acceptance it’s easy to forget that there are already people who are actively choosing to love us. Yet with this singular line, Dolly Alderton assuaged some of my fears about being unlovable by reminding me that I already bask in so much of it.
I have four wonderful roommates who love me enough to save me pesto so I have something to eat when I get home late and who show up to all of my artistic endeavors with flowers and wide smiles. I have best friends who love me enough to get matching tattoos, and who tirelessly listen to me lament about everything—from a scuff on my favorite pair of cowboy boots to my fears that my future is directionless.
And I have a sister, the same one who gave me the gift of this book, who loves me so fiercely I know she’d fly home at a moment’s notice if I told her I needed her. Being the recipient of all of this love, from this wonderful army of women, is proof enough that I am worthy.
So although Everything I Know About Love didn’t solve my woes by outlining ten sure steps to getting a boyfriend, it did offer the much-needed reminder that love already exists all around me. And what’s more, that love is immensely valuable in whatever form it comes in.