Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright side, we're getting advice and lessons
Speaker 2: on love and friendship from one of the UK's smartest
Speaker 2: and most popular writers. Author and advice columnist Dolly Alderton
Speaker 2: is here. It's Tuesday, June twenty fifth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3: And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright side
Speaker 3: from Hello Sunshine, Simone.
Speaker 2: For almost ten years now, Dolly Alderton has been helping
Speaker 2: people tackle life and love's messes with her witty, sexy
Speaker 2: and just very heart filled advice column, Dear Dolly. It
Speaker 2: publishes weekly in Britain's The Sunday Times newspaper.
Speaker 3: She's literally been called a real life Bridge Jones and
Speaker 3: Carrie Bradshaw and I couldn't help but wonder what's it
Speaker 3: like to get paid to write an advice column that
Speaker 3: everyone wants to read. That's my best carry Bradshaw, Danielle.
Speaker 1: I love that well.
Speaker 2: Dolly took her advice game a step further when she
Speaker 2: wrote her twenty eighteen memoir titled Everything I Know About Love,
Speaker 2: and It details her journey through dating and romance and
Speaker 2: just life. The book became a smash hit, and it
Speaker 2: even got adapted for TV by the BBC and it's
Speaker 2: streaming right now on Peacock if you want to watch.
Speaker 3: And she's keeping the love lessons coming with her latest book,
Speaker 3: Good Material. Danielle, you know what's interesting about this book.
Speaker 3: It's about a really tough breakup, but from a male
Speaker 3: perspective and fun fact. To prepare for this book, Dolly
Speaker 3: conducted over twenty hours of interviews with men, men that
Speaker 3: she knew friends of friends about their breakup experiences.
Speaker 1: Men should be talking about their breakups more. They have
Speaker 1: feelings too.
Speaker 2: But you know, Dolly's a journalist, a podcast host, an
Speaker 2: author and truly a lady of love. She's written about
Speaker 2: love and relationships for publications like The Telegraph, Glamour, GQ,
Speaker 2: the list goes on.
Speaker 3: And vice columnist or Agony Aunt, as the British call it.
Speaker 3: She's truly unmatched. I mean she had me breaking out
Speaker 3: the highlighter over and over again. This woman is a
Speaker 3: walking poll quote and she's here with us now. Dolly,
Speaker 3: Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: Thank you so lovely to be here. I wish I
Speaker 4: could match your beautiful, sunshiny voice, but unfortunately my vocal
Speaker 4: cords have been hit by Thankfully aggressive la air conditioning.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, we have.
Speaker 4: The air conditioning doesn't exist me.
Speaker 1: We have a sexy voice going on.
Speaker 2: That's what we called it when we were in sixth
Speaker 2: grade and we lost our voices.
Speaker 4: A sexy voice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Doly, you've really established a distinct voice as a writer,
Speaker 3: and you've even been compared to some of our favorite
Speaker 3: leading ladies like Kerry Bradshaw and Bridget Jones. Do you
Speaker 3: embrace these comparisons? How do you feel about that?
Speaker 4: I find it so flattering you do, yeah, totally. You know,
Speaker 4: I've always been such a culture obsessive. I've been like
Speaker 4: that since I could read, watch, listen, And these people
Speaker 4: there is Helen Fielding writing, Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw
Speaker 4: or my favorite filmmakers, my favorite singers. They are so
Speaker 4: a part of my heart and brain and soul. And
Speaker 4: I so hope that some of that, like bioles mosis,
Speaker 4: went in and you know, comes out in expression, because
Speaker 4: I just think there is no person on earth who
Speaker 4: has had the exact same cultural diet that I've had
Speaker 4: from the moment I was born until now, which means, yeah,
Speaker 4: the Bridget Jones is in there and carry Bradshaw's in there,
Speaker 4: but like Doris Lessing's in there, and you know, the
Speaker 4: Clasher in there. There's like it's a huge patchwork quilt
Speaker 4: of people that have helped form who I am and
Speaker 4: how I think and what I love. So it's if
Speaker 4: tiny fragments of that suddenly appear. I think that's great.
Speaker 3: I think we don't mind being compared to people who
Speaker 3: are good.
Speaker 2: Right, Like I was just gonna say about like Carrie
Speaker 2: Bradshaw and Bridget Jones are so beloved, great comparison. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, there aren't really credentials for advice.
Speaker 1: It feels like to me, you either got it or
Speaker 1: you don't get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's very clear when our friends
Speaker 2: don't get it.
Speaker 1: You know they are you know, different friends for different reasons.
Speaker 1: So's true, they're not the advice friends. You clearly have
Speaker 1: the innate gift. How did you know that you got it?
Speaker 4: Thank you. I've always been the person who's lecturing other
Speaker 4: people how to live their lives. I remember like handing
Speaker 4: out sex advice at school. I didn't use my virginity
Speaker 4: until I was like just shy of eighteen. You should
Speaker 4: have heard me when I was thirteen, advising girls on
Speaker 4: how to sleep with their boyfriends. And I think you know,
Speaker 4: I've always been a nosy person. I've always been quite
Speaker 4: a perverted little kid. I always like hearing about people's
Speaker 4: private lives and people's relationships, and people's desires, and people's
Speaker 4: transgressions and inner workings. You know, the last twenty years
Speaker 4: of my life, the majority of it has been spent
Speaker 4: sitting around a pub table, a restaurant table, or a
Speaker 4: tiny table, or on a sofa, shooting the share with
Speaker 4: women and talking about their lives and giving each other
Speaker 4: our insights, which is basically a PhD in being an
Speaker 4: agony on and an advice columnist. Yeah, I have a
Speaker 4: lifetime experience of this in my teens and twenties to help.
Speaker 4: And I think because I've written in the past about
Speaker 4: my own bad choices and mistakes, and I've been a
Speaker 4: vulnerable writer in the past, that equips me to give
Speaker 4: advice to people being vulnerable because I'm not pretending like
Speaker 4: I make all the right choices. I actually think I'm
Speaker 4: equipped because I've made so many bad ones.
Speaker 2: So you hit on something that I really wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you about, which is I think part I have
Speaker 2: armchair theories all the time and no credentials either. So
Speaker 2: I feel like advice columnists, the really great ones, in part,
Speaker 2: do it because they want to help people not hurt
Speaker 2: the way that they hurt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so true, God, that's so smart. That's exactly why
Speaker 4: I do it. Real the ones I ever said it
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my armchair theory about you is that, like you
Speaker 2: are a girl's girl. You just mentioned like being in
Speaker 2: community with other women and just chatting and chatting and chatting.
Speaker 1: That's how I learn totally.
Speaker 2: So what is your why behind the advice columns and
Speaker 2: the books?
Speaker 4: Such a good question. Why. I think I felt really
Speaker 4: lonely when I was a teenage girl. The minute that
Speaker 4: I found salvation in like minded women, I felt homecoming
Speaker 4: and sole connection and family in a way i'd kind
Speaker 4: of never experienced in my entire life. I'm aware that
Speaker 4: a lot of women don't get that, or they don't
Speaker 4: get that until a bit later in life. The life
Speaker 4: of a woman even now is basically so many markers
Speaker 4: of shame, from crypto toomb. You know, if you look
Speaker 4: at cross section of the letters that I get, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's ninety percent of the letters from women, and all
Speaker 4: of them are am I doing something wrong? Have I
Speaker 4: messed up? And it begins with teenage girls who can't
Speaker 4: get a boyfriend or can't lose their virginity, and then
Speaker 4: it goes to girls in their twenties who feel like
Speaker 4: they're lost and they're not having the career they're meant
Speaker 4: to have, or they're not living the Carrie Bradshaw's city
Speaker 4: life they're meant to live. Well, they haven't got the
Speaker 4: friendships they're meant to have. And then it's I want children.
Speaker 4: I can't find someone to have children with me. Then
Speaker 4: they have children, and then it's like I'm a crap mum,
Speaker 4: and it's like my teenage daughters, I'm worried about them.
Speaker 4: I don't think I'm serving them. And then it's my
Speaker 4: husband's cheated? Was I a bad wife? And then sometimes
Speaker 4: it's even like women in their seventies. I get emails
Speaker 4: being like, how do I spice it up in the
Speaker 4: bedroom because my husband is going to stray ol whatever.
Speaker 4: I'm like, God, this is life long, like shame and
Speaker 4: punitive voice. And women are my thing and they're my
Speaker 4: people and the people I spend most time with them,
Speaker 4: work with the most passionate about anything that I can
Speaker 4: do in my storytelling or in my sharing that helps
Speaker 4: them feel less alone and more connected to each other.
Speaker 4: Just makes me so happy.
Speaker 3: You mentioned feeling loneliness and isolation as a teenage girl, and,
Speaker 3: like Danielle so expertly said, I think you're communicating with
Speaker 3: a lot of inner teenagers that are hidden inside the
Speaker 3: bodies of these grown women who are walking around the
Speaker 3: world today.
Speaker 4: God, you're so good, you two, because that is my
Speaker 4: big theory with my work. Really, yeah, I'm so in
Speaker 4: touch with my teenage self. I'm like on the phone
Speaker 4: tour every day.
Speaker 3: What does she need to hear? What do you tell her?
Speaker 4: She just needs permission to be herself. She needs reassurance
Speaker 4: that'll be okay. She needs reassurance that every thought that
Speaker 4: she's had or feelings she's had, someone else, some person before,
Speaker 4: has had it. I just feel her presence so much.
Speaker 4: I feel her in triumph, I give her a high five.
Speaker 4: I feel her in tragedy. I feel I just it's
Speaker 4: just an iteration of self that I just feel so
Speaker 4: will follow me forever. And I think that about all
Speaker 4: human beings, unless you're one of those freaks that had
Speaker 4: a great time as an adolescent. I'm sure there are some.
Speaker 3: There's always something.
Speaker 4: It's like a cool wound being a teenage person, I
Speaker 4: think lives in everyone, and I'm always trying to, like
Speaker 4: those wounds kind of speak to each other without us
Speaker 4: even knowing. I think that's what I love. When I
Speaker 4: fall in love with someone, I'm so fascinated with understanding
Speaker 4: who they were as a fourteen year old boy, or
Speaker 4: who that you know, and whether what they would have
Speaker 4: thought of me as a fourteen year old girl. I
Speaker 4: think it will stick with me forever, that sense of like,
Speaker 4: I think that so much of the making of our
Speaker 4: self confidence, well, I think all of it actually is
Speaker 4: done in those years.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about this quote that went viral.
Speaker 3: You said, everything I know about love I've learned from
Speaker 3: my long term friendships with women. What were you reflecting
Speaker 3: on when you wrote that?
Speaker 4: So there is a girl out there, maybe she's listening.
Speaker 4: I've got to track her down. She took that from
Speaker 4: my audiobook and she put it over a Phoebe Bridge
Speaker 4: a song, put it as a TikTok clip. I think
Speaker 4: it's now. I had like a bajillion zillion people reuse
Speaker 4: it amazing. Off the back of that this week, everything
Speaker 4: I Know about Love will being in the New York
Speaker 4: Times perstsellers for a year. Having bombed when it first
Speaker 4: came out, and having not been we couldn't sell it.
Speaker 4: We went to fifty publishers. I think it's what got
Speaker 4: me my American Asian. I think it's what got me
Speaker 4: a great reception to do material. So if that girl's listening,
Speaker 4: I want to buy you a handbag, pave whatever you want.
Speaker 4: I want to take you out of lunch and take
Speaker 4: your shopping because I really owe that girl something. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's interesting to me that that is the well, that
Speaker 4: quite kind of the heart of the book, I suppose,
Speaker 4: But I didn't know it was the heart of the
Speaker 4: book when I was writing the book. When I started
Speaker 4: writing the memoir, I thought it was about growing up,
Speaker 4: and I thought it was about kind of trying to
Speaker 4: find the romantic love. And I thought it was about
Speaker 4: coming of age and becoming a woman, being in your twenties.
Speaker 4: And I wrote all these chapters, and it was only
Speaker 4: when I went to the final chapter to write it
Speaker 4: I went back and read the whole book and I
Speaker 4: was like, what the fuck is this book about? And
Speaker 4: then I realized there was just one thing that linked
Speaker 4: up every single chapter, on every page of the book,
Speaker 4: and on every page of my life at that time.
Speaker 4: It's just been these women that were there. And then
Speaker 4: I realized that I had been writing a story about
Speaker 4: falling in love. It was about these friendships.
Speaker 2: WHOA so because when I think about falling in love,
Speaker 2: I do not think about my friendships.
Speaker 1: They're very separate to me. What was the link for you?
Speaker 4: I think what it was is I looked back at
Speaker 4: these collected experiences. Some of it was profound. Some of
Speaker 4: it was being there for each other during grief, during heartbreak,
Speaker 4: advising each other. But a lot of it was in
Speaker 4: those stories in the memoir, getting drunk together, living in
Speaker 4: a flat together, going to the movies together, cooking together,
Speaker 4: lying around watching TV. When you're on a hungover on
Speaker 4: a Sunday, just hanging out. And you think you're hanging
Speaker 4: out like that all this time, that you're collecting this
Speaker 4: unit time and memory, some silly, some insignificant, some completely unmemorable.
Speaker 4: You think it's just hanging out, that's the verb. And
Speaker 4: then I think you get to Nity thirty and then
Speaker 4: you look back at how you've got through that first
Speaker 4: section of adulthood. You're like, Oh, it wasn't hanging out,
Speaker 4: it was falling in love. Oh wow. They were the
Speaker 4: people that got me through that. They helped me become
Speaker 4: a woman.
Speaker 1: Really, that's really nice.
Speaker 3: We have to take a quick break. But when we
Speaker 3: come back, Dolly sharing the heartache she never saw coming.
Speaker 3: We're back with advice columnist and author the bridget Jones
Speaker 3: of our time, Dolly Alderton. Okay, I have to ask
Speaker 3: you about your latest bestselling novel, Good Material. You wrote
Speaker 3: a breakup story through the perspective of a man. Such
Speaker 3: a refreshing take.
Speaker 1: So, Steve Harvey, of you.
Speaker 3: She is that's the other comparison that she gets, Steve Harvey,
Speaker 3: are they Yeah? Huh. What's the biggest difference between how
Speaker 3: men and women handle heartbreak?
Speaker 4: That's a great question. I interviewed fifteen men when I
Speaker 4: was researching the book. I did like twenty hours of
Speaker 4: conversation with male friends, with my poor friends, husbands and
Speaker 4: boyfriends and male colleagues. Here's where I found. Basically, men
Speaker 4: go through the exact same internal process as women. Personality dependent. Obviously,
Speaker 4: there's not a monolithsgendered experience of difficult emotional things, but
Speaker 4: in terms of like those stages of grief that one
Speaker 4: goes through as a woman that we're so familiar with
Speaker 4: that we know how to be there for each other
Speaker 4: when you're going through it, like you're in shock and
Speaker 4: then you're incredibly sad, and then you're very angry, and
Speaker 4: then you're self lacerating and you're obsessing, and then you're
Speaker 4: blaming yourself, and then you know all those things that
Speaker 4: we know about because every time one of us goes
Speaker 4: through it, the Senate is called, yeah, we will deal
Speaker 4: with it. They go through exactly the same thing. They
Speaker 4: just don't have their people to help them through it.
Speaker 4: So they do have close male friends. Love that I'm
Speaker 4: literally talking like David Attenborough. I guess the male I
Speaker 4: have gone out into the bush and examined these things
Speaker 4: called men. They do have close male friends. And what's
Speaker 4: important to say, because I don't want to be two
Speaker 4: men from Mars women from Venus about this. Every single
Speaker 4: man I spoke to, even when they were talking about
Speaker 4: the failings of their male friendships, all of them talked
Speaker 4: about how much they couldn't look without their male friends
Speaker 4: and love them, So it's a different kind of love
Speaker 4: and support to the support that traditionally women get from
Speaker 4: these female communities of friends. But what they did say
Speaker 4: was they were given a really limited amount of time
Speaker 4: to talk about heartbreak. They were only allowed to process
Speaker 4: it and one pub session or one phone call.
Speaker 3: But who sets those guidelines for them?
Speaker 4: Culture? Is what they said.
Speaker 2: I've heard that for women, breakups, even friendship breakups feel
Speaker 2: like a break in self, and it's different. Men feel
Speaker 2: like the breakup with that person, do you find any
Speaker 2: truth there?
Speaker 4: Wow, that's so interesting, I think again, obviously it's totally
Speaker 4: personality dependent. But a lot of men that I spoke to,
Speaker 4: their fixation was about the other, was about the woman,
Speaker 4: particularly who the woman then moved on with as well
Speaker 4: was something that seemed to us and.
Speaker 1: The primal territorialism away.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, and also it's just I suppose that's like
Speaker 4: putting it on the person. It's externalizing, like something that's
Speaker 4: so difficult to talk about, whereas I think with women,
Speaker 4: I always go back to self in breakup. It's always like,
Speaker 4: what what did I do.
Speaker 1: Well to your earlier point? As the PM punitive right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so interesting that difference. I think the I
Speaker 4: think we're just given more language for emotion, and I
Speaker 4: think a lot of men traditionally don't have that language
Speaker 4: because they don't talk about emotions as much. There was
Speaker 4: this one guy who spoke to He said this thing
Speaker 4: that I thought was really interesting. He's a good male
Speaker 4: friend of mine. He said, when I talk to you
Speaker 4: about emotions, or I see you and another one of
Speaker 4: our female friends talk about emotions, he was like, it's
Speaker 4: like I'm listening to an orchestra to this like finely tuned.
Speaker 4: It's like you tune up the violin and then she
Speaker 4: comes in on the harp and it's like effortless and beautiful,
Speaker 4: and you make sense to each other and it's harmonious.
Speaker 4: And then when I try and join in, it's like
Speaker 4: a Grade one recorder player, like honking along and I
Speaker 4: just can't keep up. And he was like, you know,
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot that's said about toxic masculinity
Speaker 4: and the fear of being vulnerable as a man, which
Speaker 4: is seria and must be talked about. He was like,
Speaker 4: we also just down out of the training, so we're
Speaker 4: kind of afraid of sounding stupid.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been in a relationship with a man
Speaker 2: that you taught to talk because like, and I'm asking
Speaker 2: you because I feel like when I met a man,
Speaker 2: he didn't want to have those conversations, and then years
Speaker 2: later he was trying to have the conversations with me,
Speaker 2: and I was like, we really learned something here, didn't Wait.
Speaker 4: Every boyfriend have ever had? Wow, every boyfriend I ever had?
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 4: Those bitches they marry owe me so much. Honestly.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned you're thirty five.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about the thirties because
Speaker 2: another one of my theories is that the twenties were
Speaker 2: branded totally incorrectly miss marketed.
Speaker 3: I feel like I was sold a bill of goods wait,
Speaker 3: mis marketed as what people.
Speaker 2: People said this about college too, They tell you, oh
Speaker 2: my god, it's the best time of your lives.
Speaker 4: It's so fun.
Speaker 1: And my mother, Thank goodness for my mother.
Speaker 2: She sat me down before I moved to LA and
Speaker 2: she's said, the twenties were the hardest decade of my life.
Speaker 3: Oh good honor, just buckle up.
Speaker 1: If it's hard for you, buckle up.
Speaker 2: They were really tough for me. The thirties have been
Speaker 2: not that they're not tough. But just more peaceful. I
Speaker 2: feel like I know myself better. I'm curious to know
Speaker 2: how you feel about the thirties so far. If they
Speaker 2: were what you expected, they've been a bit.
Speaker 4: Of a shit show. Actually, got to be honest.
Speaker 3: Am I allowed to swear on this podcast?
Speaker 4: By the way.
Speaker 1: What you're saying is it's very individual.
Speaker 4: What I think I'm saying is I feel like I
Speaker 4: was sold and doun about the thirties.
Speaker 1: Tell me more.
Speaker 4: I was told that the peace thing. I was told
Speaker 4: about peacefulness, And here's the thing. Emotionally, it's much more.
Speaker 1: Peaceful, That's what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, in terms of like how I feel about
Speaker 4: myself and my relationships, my interpersonal relationships, and how I
Speaker 4: communicate with people I work with. I have more confidence.
Speaker 4: I am much more relaxed, I'm much less new erotic,
Speaker 4: and I'm much more transparent with Mike exchanges. So life
Speaker 4: is much easier emotionally. But like I think, thirty to
Speaker 4: thirty five as a woman is a really difficult time. Friends.
Speaker 4: Having babies throws a bomb in your life that I couldn't.
Speaker 4: No one really warned me about that. I was warned
Speaker 4: about the twenties. I was warned, you'll be skinned and
Speaker 4: works really difficult, and boys are horrible, and you'll drink
Speaker 4: too much. I kind of knew that. No one told me.
Speaker 4: Thirty to thirty five, your friendships are going to change.
Speaker 4: Forget you know what I wrote about and everything I
Speaker 4: know about love with people getting boyfriends and moving in
Speaker 4: with boyfriends, that's like nothing. Thirty to thirty five, your
Speaker 4: whole community is going to change, and you're going to
Speaker 4: be really lost, and you're going to feel really left behind,
Speaker 4: and you're going to have like these people that you
Speaker 4: invested in and fell in love with and created this
Speaker 4: world and schedule with, they're going to hit the bricks.
Speaker 4: They're gone for a while, and you are going to
Speaker 4: be If you're single, you're going to be really alone.
Speaker 4: No one warned me about that.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you've lost a lot of friends
Speaker 3: in your early thirties to life transitions?
Speaker 4: This is the thing. This huge four happens at thirty.
Speaker 4: You know, I know lots of friends, they're married with kids.
Speaker 4: They've now told me they really felt like they weren't
Speaker 4: exciting enough for me, or they weren't they couldn't keep
Speaker 4: up with me, or I didn't have the time for them,
Speaker 4: and then on the other side, I felt like, well,
Speaker 4: your children are understandably now everything, and you don't have
Speaker 4: any time for me, and I have to always go
Speaker 4: into your world rather than I was meeting in the middle.
Speaker 4: It's just a really fractured time for female friendship. I
Speaker 4: think luckily I've done so much healing now people's kids
Speaker 4: have got a bit older. But I think that's I
Speaker 4: think that's really challenging. I think the other thing people
Speaker 4: don't want you about is if you're a career person,
Speaker 4: which I am kind of obsessed with it, if you've
Speaker 4: been working like a dog since For me, it like
Speaker 4: predates college, since I was like a teenager writing for
Speaker 4: local papers or doing whatever I was.
Speaker 1: Doing, like fifteen plus years.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, the minute that you really hit the ground
Speaker 4: running with work, you can start to make proper money,
Speaker 4: where you're starting to really work with the people who
Speaker 4: want to work with, where you're really leveling up every
Speaker 4: year with all the work that you're doing. That's the
Speaker 4: exact moment that every doctor you see will tell you
Speaker 4: you're about to run out of time to have children.
Speaker 3: Geriatric pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is really so deeply the two things.
Speaker 4: Happen exactly the same time. Everyone at work says, we
Speaker 4: need you all the time.
Speaker 1: How have you thought about it now or how do
Speaker 1: you think about it now?
Speaker 4: I can't wait for the day whether either have a baby.
Speaker 4: I don't have a baby, and this doesn't This isn't
Speaker 4: something I have to think about it anymore. It would
Speaker 4: be allowed to say I never think about it at all.
Speaker 4: I've definitely gone through some very personal experiences that have
Speaker 4: helped me surrender a bit more. There's only so much
Speaker 4: proactive stuff you can do, which is hard for women
Speaker 4: like us because everything else we want to.
Speaker 3: Do we do, we do it, we study, we do
Speaker 3: the work, and we do it ourselves or we do
Speaker 3: it ourselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you can't do that with this, really, So
Speaker 4: surrender's helped perspective, I think has really helped, and I'm
Speaker 4: feeling I'm weirdly feeling way calmer about it. At thirty five,
Speaker 4: then I did it, say thirty three, that's great? Yeah,
Speaker 4: where are you now with it?
Speaker 1: I think about it almost every night before I go
Speaker 1: to bed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I play like a future life out and
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, if I start dating somebody in six months,
Speaker 2: then I date them for a year and then do
Speaker 2: I get prepped, Like I just start playing this fake
Speaker 2: life out and I don't know where it lands.
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you something that really really helped me. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, And there's a reason why. If you look
Speaker 4: at all my favorite writers and directors credit go Amy Schumer,
Speaker 4: Lena's on him, they all approached motherhood late though early forties.
Speaker 4: That's not a coincidence why that happened. And I remember
Speaker 4: one of those women saying to me, Dolly, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you're wage to thirty three. I was single at the time.
Speaker 4: I was freaking out about it, doing the maths of
Speaker 4: like if I meet this person then, and it would
Speaker 4: kind of make me freak out about work opportunities. I'd
Speaker 4: be like, right, if I have to be on set
Speaker 4: abroad for a year, but what if I didn't meet anyone.
Speaker 4: That's a year. You can't think about your life like that.
Speaker 4: And she said to me once, you said, the biggest
Speaker 4: regret of my life is thirty to thirty five is
Speaker 4: a really magic period in a woman's life because you're
Speaker 4: still really youthful and you things are starting to really
Speaker 4: go away with work. You know who you are, You're
Speaker 4: more confident that should be a time where we are
Speaker 4: in our absolute power, that we should be long cloud nine,
Speaker 4: rather than lying in bed every night feeling ashamed and
Speaker 4: anxious about this thing that our male counterparts that are
Speaker 4: busy working aren't really doing. And she was like, my
Speaker 4: biggest regret was that that time in my life I
Speaker 4: wasn't present and I didn't make the most of it.
Speaker 4: I didn't enjoy it, and I didn't stand in my
Speaker 4: power because I was freaking out all the time about
Speaker 4: this fucking baby shit. And then she had her babies
Speaker 4: at thirty nine and forty one. She said, totally, once
Speaker 4: you have babies, I'm sure you can speak to this.
Speaker 4: It's all about babies. It's no going back your life.
Speaker 4: It's just all about the babies. It's all about being
Speaker 4: a parent when you become a parent. So do rush
Speaker 4: to that bit because you gotta go back after that.
Speaker 3: I think that's true. I also think I'm one of
Speaker 3: those moms that you described who has babies who are
Speaker 3: turning into little people.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when I think about it, motherhood like it's
Speaker 3: kind of like every other dream job I've ever had. Interesting,
Speaker 3: you get the dream job and you realize, Wow, this
Speaker 3: isn't what I thought it was going to be in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways, so true, and then once you
Speaker 3: got that thing that you really want a few months
Speaker 3: years later, your life kind of equalizes again.
Speaker 4: That's I think that is so accurate from everything that
Speaker 4: I think, that's like the universal experience. Yeah, for most women.
Speaker 4: I am in a position now where I actually could
Speaker 4: have a baby for the you know, for the first
Speaker 4: time for a long time. I'm in such a flex
Speaker 4: I'm in a personal situation and everything situation where I
Speaker 4: could do that, and I don't want to right now
Speaker 4: because something I realized is thirty thirty five. If all
Speaker 4: you're thinking about all the time is the maths of
Speaker 4: can I do this? Can I do this? Am I
Speaker 4: going to get left behind? Am I going to miss out?
Speaker 4: What you stopped thinking about is do I want to
Speaker 4: be a parent And what's it like to have small
Speaker 4: children like babies and small children in my life? And
Speaker 4: how's that going to affect my life? And I think
Speaker 4: so many, not so many. A few women I know
Speaker 4: I've been honest about the fact that they rushed into
Speaker 4: this thing because they were really panicked about it, and
Speaker 4: they and they were like, oh, few, I can get pregnant,
Speaker 4: and I found the right guy, and then the baby
Speaker 4: came and they hadn't kind of thought about what happens.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's so true.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You actually gave me a lot of peace.
Speaker 4: Oh, I hope. So you've got a lot of time.
Speaker 4: It'll be fine.
Speaker 3: We've got to take another break. But when we come back,
Speaker 3: we're going down memory lane with some of Dolly's old
Speaker 3: thoughts on men, dating and love from her Everything I
Speaker 3: Know About Love memoir. We'll find out if she still
Speaker 3: thinks faking orgasms is a good idea stick around. We're
Speaker 3: back with Dolly Alderton. Okay, we're going through some of
Speaker 3: the standout sentiments you've written about love in your memoir
Speaker 3: Everything I Know About Love. So let's see what still
Speaker 3: holds up for you. Okay, all right, So we're going
Speaker 3: to start with a quote that you gave when you
Speaker 3: were a teenager. You said that quote, romantic love is
Speaker 3: the most important love in the entire world. If you
Speaker 3: don't have it when you're a proper grown up, you've failed.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about the importance of romantic love.
Speaker 4: Now, Maad, I've seen about it. I mean this truth
Speaker 4: is I am a real romantic and I've lived a
Speaker 4: very romantic life, even though I haven't had a lot
Speaker 4: of long term relationships. I think here's what I think.
Speaker 4: I think the great human quandary for a lot of us,
Speaker 4: particularly women, is the need for autonomy and freedom and
Speaker 4: independent sense of self and achievement. I think that's so natural,
Speaker 4: and that is counterweighted in a total opposition with the
Speaker 4: need for a partner and the need need for security
Speaker 4: and domestic safety and romance and sex. So I'm really
Speaker 4: interested now in how we balance those two things. That's
Speaker 4: my very diplomatic answer.
Speaker 1: It's great, Dolly, it's time to talk about orgasms.
Speaker 2: At twenty one years old, you said orgasms are easy
Speaker 2: to fake and make both parties feel good do a
Speaker 2: good deal of the day.
Speaker 1: Do you still subscribe to that sentiment.
Speaker 4: No, I can't believe I have a faked.
Speaker 1: I did too. It hasn't everyone.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I remember the day that I said no, I can't
Speaker 4: do this anymore. And it was because tell me about
Speaker 4: the day. It was because it was in my twenties
Speaker 4: and it was with a guy I really really liked.
Speaker 4: And the problem is if you fake early then when
Speaker 4: you stop faking, which you want to do if you've
Speaker 4: fallen in love because you were real into pacy and connection.
Speaker 1: People go into marriages faking.
Speaker 3: It, I know.
Speaker 4: But then when you start the guys like, well, what happened?
Speaker 4: Why is this not working anymore?
Speaker 3: And whenever?
Speaker 1: This is boldero.
Speaker 4: Twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty young.
Speaker 2: But do you think yeah, I think I stopped thinking
Speaker 2: at like thirty, really yeah.
Speaker 4: Because I do think the problem is men aren't told
Speaker 4: that it's more complicated and takes longer, and that that's
Speaker 4: the thing, Like if everyone knew that that everyone could
Speaker 4: be chilly, like if you fake then or like even
Speaker 4: if you don't fake, the fear is that they're going
Speaker 4: to think they're not good or something with their ego.
Speaker 4: It's like, let's just get all the information out there.
Speaker 4: Then no one will feel under any pressure.
Speaker 3: This next one is hilarious. At twenty five years old,
Speaker 3: you said, quote online dating is for losers and I
Speaker 3: include myself in that. Is that still how you feel?
Speaker 4: Do you remember a time you guys must remember a
Speaker 4: time where it was like it was so embarrassing to
Speaker 4: before tinder.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there was a light of shame around it.
Speaker 4: It was so like I have friends who I'm pretty
Speaker 4: sure have lied to me about how they met them.
Speaker 4: Oart know, if they met them pre Tinder, on Plenty
Speaker 4: of Fish or whatever. I think dating apps I think
Speaker 4: they've brought their own whole host of problems, but I
Speaker 4: think they really make sense in particularly in city life,
Speaker 4: the way that we live, the scarcity of time that
Speaker 4: we have. I don't think anyone should feel ashamed about
Speaker 4: being on a dating app.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this next one is my favorite.
Speaker 2: At twenty five years old, Dolly, you said, if a
Speaker 2: man has always been single at forty five, there's a
Speaker 2: reason don't stick around to find out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do you think I stand by that?
Speaker 3: My mom says this to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because at thirty three, I'm getting into the age
Speaker 2: range of like forty five could be okay to date.
Speaker 4: By the way, forty five is the perfect age.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can offline about it, guys.
Speaker 3: Here's the flip side of this that no one wants
Speaker 3: to talk about. Is the same true for women at
Speaker 3: forty five? No?
Speaker 1: No, I don't think it's the same.
Speaker 3: It's for men.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it is.
Speaker 4: Because here's the difference with women, particularly women of our generation,
Speaker 4: the dating app generation. Our generation have been massively let
Speaker 4: down by millennial men because I understand why they've done this,
Speaker 4: and if I were a man, may be able to
Speaker 4: done the same. I think millennial men have been afforded
Speaker 4: a kind of lifelong boyhood, and I think because of
Speaker 4: the advent of dating apps and the fact that they
Speaker 4: don't have the biological pressure that we have, a lot
Speaker 4: of men of our generation will be settling down in
Speaker 4: their forties and fifties with much younger women, which leaves
Speaker 4: the generation of millennial women kind of fucked unless they're
Speaker 4: going older.
Speaker 1: Right or younger at twenty eight years old. You said
Speaker 1: men love a naked woman.
Speaker 2: All other bells and whistles are an expensive waste of time.
Speaker 4: I do agree.
Speaker 3: What are the bells and whistles?
Speaker 4: Lingerie, lingerie, fake tan, all this crazy stuff we do?
Speaker 3: But we do those things because we can't walk around
Speaker 3: naked off the time. But that's why we do this thing.
Speaker 4: But you know, the performance or the basically I think
Speaker 4: what I'm getting out there is I feel so fine
Speaker 4: getting naked with a man now for the first time.
Speaker 1: Daly, you shure Diese, but I now know.
Speaker 4: Through a lot of field research. Let's say, men really
Speaker 4: don't care how big you are or small you are,
Speaker 4: if you're perky tids or psachityds. They just don't care.
Speaker 4: If they're into you and you're sexy and they enjoy
Speaker 4: your company, they are just so happy or naked, it
Speaker 4: doesn't make any difference at all. I wish I could
Speaker 4: make young women understand that. Yeah, because I really I'm
Speaker 4: not trying to make people feel better, it's really true.
Speaker 3: That is such a great reminder, Daly, you have been
Speaker 3: so much fun. Thank you so much for entertaining and
Speaker 3: informing us. Before we let you go, we have to
Speaker 3: call out that you're the first international expert that we've had.
Speaker 3: On the bright side, so when it comes to dating,
Speaker 3: what dating principle have you found to be universal?
Speaker 4: Okay, here's my best dating tip, Thurst. Date don't do
Speaker 4: them on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. And what
Speaker 4: I mean by that is practically, don't use your most
Speaker 4: important times of your week to invest it in a stranger,
Speaker 4: but psychologically don't invest in a stranger. Really approach it
Speaker 4: all with lightness. Go for a Wednesday afternoon drink, then
Speaker 4: have a dinner with someone else planned.
Speaker 3: Afterwards double bocom. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I just think when you're in trouble with dating apps
Speaker 4: is it's the over investment in people that don't owe
Speaker 4: you your future. So move through it lightly and then
Speaker 4: you can have fun.
Speaker 2: You just saved me so much because I get stuck
Speaker 2: at a table with somebody because I can talk.
Speaker 4: And then you make them have a great day and
Speaker 4: terrible time.
Speaker 1: And so it's like, sorry, I have dinner, I gotta go. Yeah, exactly, Gollie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, so lovely.
Speaker 4: I've loved this, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I don't want this to end. We could talk to
Speaker 3: you all day, so you'll just have to come back.
Speaker 3: Will you come back your next book?
Speaker 4: I will, yeah, And well may I'll come back and
Speaker 4: we have spicy mogs down the road. Please.
Speaker 3: You're speaking my love language now. Dolly Alderton is a
Speaker 3: best selling author and advice calumnist. That's it for today's show. Tomorrow,
Speaker 3: it's Wellness Wednesday, y'all. Stress expert doctor Adit Narukar is
Speaker 3: here to tell us how to manage our stress levels
Speaker 3: and alleviate burnout.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: I'm simone Voice. You can find me at simone Voice
Speaker 3: on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: That's r O B A.
Speaker 3: Y See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.