‘At Least You’re Young Enough to Start Again’: What Not to Say to a Friend Getting Divorced at Thirty
‘Finding the Right Person is About Discounting the Wrong People First’: Ten Red Flags that Mean It’s Time to Ditch Your Date
Anyone who’s old enough to remember the unrealistic yet somehow aspirational rom-com How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days is most likely old enough to have as dire a dating life as me. If you’re craving that ‘90s whirlwind romance, then you’re reading the right article. Not because I have some magical instructions on how to manifest movie-like love, but because I have a myriad of failed romances that you can learn from…
Sinking the Situationship: Say Goodbye to Drama and Emotionally Draining Dating
With the casual nature of situationships, you’re never owed loyalty from the person you’re in it with. So, while you have those comforting nights together, you also have a lot of nights when you’re cancelled on, not replied to or ditched. The comfort against loneliness can be taken away just as easily as it’s given, and there’s not much you can do about it…
‘At Least You’re Young Enough to Start Again’: What Not to Say to a Friend Getting Divorced at Thirty
I fall into months of despair. Dark, frantic days that I drink bottles of wine instead of eating meals and analyse every facet of my personality to find the flaw to explain why we ended up here. Why didn’t we succeed? It is amicable, and we are friends. And yet I can’t suppress the feeling that it is all my fault. Or all his fault? I want a reason, just like everyone else…
‘I Don’t Know How to Flirt in My Mother Tongue’: What is the Love Language of an Expat?
I truly learned how to have sex in English, if sex is a learned thing. I read its dictionary in people's beds after I moved to London. My first long-term relationship was with a Brit, and the following one as well. The things I asked for, what they asked of me… I only knew one language to say those words in…
Queerly Beloved: A HER Success Story
Outwardly I am very straight passing, which though not an obstacle per se made it harder to signal my interest in spaces that weren’t queer. One time, at a friend’s house party, I got chatting to this beautiful girl. We laughed and flirted the whole night and exchanged numbers to meet up for a drink later that week. Over espresso martinis in a chic, low-light bar, she leaned toward me and said how happy she was to make a new friend. It's a queer girl rite of passage...
‘The Scarcity of Positive Representation Distorts Reality’: Recognising Abuse in Lesbian Relationships
It’s in the little things – the missed classes, the unwinding friendships, the interests that you’ve picked up because it makes sense. You can’t be alone because why would you be? You can’t make your own decisions because this is a partnership. Things that had consecrated themselves so deeply in your identity, in your very being, lose their importance and one day you look in the mirror and what you see isn’t a reflection of yourself but of your relationship…
Sick of Dating Apps? Try Giving Out Business Cards Instead: An Experiment in Love
I have always found it very difficult to approach people and it has been my goal to get better, especially since I don’t drink much alcohol anymore (the classic inhibition remover). Inspired by a friend, I decided to make some business cards to give out to people I fancied…
‘Bisexuality is About Attraction, Not Action’: Embracing Authenticity and Coming Out as a Bisexual Woman Marrying a Straight Man
In a world that often tries to confine individuals within predetermined boxes, the path to self-discovery and acceptance can be an emotionally charged journey. For bisexuals, embracing their true selves while in a relationship that doesn't align with societal expectations can be particularly challenging…
Am I Conflating Comfort with Happiness? Why It’s Time to Question Our Romantic Relationships and Learn to Value All Love Equally
bell hooks’ book, All About Love, completely changed my life when I first came across it as a 20-year-old in my undergraduate course. What struck me is the notion that not all interpersonal connections are treated as if they matter in different important ways. Many of us inevitably lose out on robust friendships as we’ve been taught that nothing is more important than a romantic partner…
‘Representation Hugely Informs How We Come to Love’: Navigating a Second Adolescence After Coming Out as a Lesbian
Girls were not exposed to anything other than heterosexual relationships. My school library would not stock queer love stories for fear of corrupting students, depriving young queer people of a script. This was never something I consciously realised, but when you only see women being adored by macho heroes or knights in shining armor, there is a risk of falling into binarised traps and maybe even wanting to save distressed damsels!
Playing the ‘Feeld’: Getting on the Sex-Positive App and Opening Up My Marriage Last Year
We’re ethically non-monogamous. Keen to have fun with emotionally intelligent, kind humans. This is what my profile reads. I’m the most excited I’ve been in a long while about my sexuality. Having met my husband so young, we’ve only ever been with each other. Now there was the biggest, widest door open before us. I was so fucking ready…
Travel, Communication and Commitment: A Conversation With My Partner About Our Binational Relationship
Having met in post-Brexit times, we don’t have the EU to fall back on for easy permits and open borders. This fact makes living in the same place that much harder for us now that we’ve decided to stay in the UK for the foreseeable future. The bureaucratic hurdles are intimidating. And expensive. Plus, it’s a completely new political and financial system that I’m not yet familiar with…
‘We Were Never Going to be a Normal Couple’: Dating a Former Client as a Sex Worker
Now, I might be old school, but back in my day we had three basic rules in the industry: no kissing on the mouth, never share your real name with a client and never date a client outside of work. I broke all three…
Love After Death: Navigating a Relationship with a Widower
Nothing in her experience, lived or talked about or read in passing in a novel, had prepared Girl for how you really feel when the backdrop to your burgeoning relationship is photographs of Boy with another woman in his arms…