MAKE IT MAKE SENSE: Wtf is romance in 2024?!?!?!

going girl/boy sober, never having fallen in love, and the concept of Good Love in the state of the internet

Before we get into it, did you see our announcement yesterday that we’re GOING ON TOUR???? Plz come and see us and phoenix with us 𓆩♡𓆪

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Hi crushes! It’s still me (Bel) while Luce wings her way around a Biden-less America becoming a true Phoenix. In the meantime, never not thinking about this:

If you know, you know and if you don’t, whether you’re a Sex and the City fan or not, you simply must watch the ‘The Post-it Always Sticks Twice’ episode

ALSO our book has officially gone to print, which is the most psycho feeling:

Cute email from one of our editors <3

We’re trying to make grenadine happen, and we are convinced it WILL

This week, I wanted to write about love because:

a) I’m a sentimental gush girl living in a modern world
b) people are always asking me Qs about it for our advice newsy, Wait, But What? and
c) almost everyone I meet has a hot take on the state of romantic world, regardless of whether they’re in a relationship or not.

It feels like, in many ways, romance is where the best and worst of modern life expresses itself: convenience and ease (hook up, swipe right culture), overtness and transparency (being able to ask for exactly what you want), bleak capitalism (more more more, just one swipe or one date away is the true answer and solve to my life), and the infinite mirror effect of the internet making us question everything (Sylvia Plath fig tree analogy).

Luce and I talking about writing about love while three separate NZ celebrities and former fling were in the same café at the exact same time.

When Luce and I were scheming the book, the topic of romance came up, and Luce was like, ‘I don’t care! I’ve never been in love! My work and my friends are my true source of romance!’ and I said, ‘I feel like I could write a whole book on the topic alone!’ and that’s when we decided we had to make it all make sense (cannot tell you HOW many times that accidentally slips into emails at the moment.)

So… what the hell has happened to romance in 2024? I can’t tell you everything here because, well, it’s in the book (which you can pre-order below, j’adore <3). But in the meantime, I thought I’d give you some topline outtakes, as though we’ve met in the outdoor area of a nondescript bar after four chardonnays on a Friday after work, and are now best friends.

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Wtf is the state of modern love?

To start, some words and phrases:

• Going girl/boy sober - the latest dating phenomenon where you take a romantic sabbatical to focus on other areas of your life

• Going lober - an ‘intermittent fasting’ approach to dating where you go through periods of giving it energy and periods without as a way to not let it consume your life

• White Flagging - (Reference to the Dido song, lol) - giving up on it all together

• Lurious - Being in love but feeling curious if it’s enough

• An Analogue Lover - Someone who’s been in a relationship since before the apps were invented, harbouring a unique curiosity for what it’s like to window shop for a crush whilst also feeling deeply relieved they never have to message ‘Hey I’m outside in a green jacket’ to a stranger.

• Sexless nirvana - an affectionate term for the state people arrive at where they haven’t dated for an extended period of time and stop craving romantic attention altogether, replacing it with more reliable things like hobbies and TV shows.

So, what’s going ON out there?

I did a call out about this on Instagram the other week and got so many responses (some really lol), which I thought I’d share with you here, because I think they might help you feel less alone in the world:

Being in a relationship

• “The internet’s made people strive for a perfection in romance that doesn’t exist. It’s like… shut up, take a chance, do better. We’re humans - it’s always going to be messy.”

• “I’m happily in a relationship, but I find balancing giving proper attention to them and my friendships nearly impossible - like I’m either failing as a friend or a boyfriend with no in-between.”

• “Romantic love is cool, but this idea that it’s the thing that completes your life is a total lie.”

• “I’ve been married three times and loved and hated each one, but have never felt like any were a failure.”

• “I love being in love, and I genuinely hope it’s a feeling everyone gets to experience.”

• “I’m queer, in a loving straight relationship that will never be totally enough”

• “I love being in a relationship, but I sometimes wonder whether I know who I truly am without them.”

• “I’m in a four-year relationship and still think the happiest time of my life was when I lived alone in my 20s.”

• “It’s the one part of my life I feel sure about.”

Being single

• “What is wrong with me? What have I done? And also, I’m the single most carefree, lucky girl on the planet.”

• “I feel like a freak for never having fallen in love before. And then sometimes I’ll leave a party whenever I want and feel so extremely alive.”

• “My best (married) friend messages me each Sunday because she knows I find the days really long. It’s the smallest gesture, but it means a lot in a world that feels designed for couples.”

• “I turned my weekend (single) loneliness into cooking. Now, on Saturday afternoons, I cook a bunch of different things and have an open-door policy for friends to drop in. It’s become the best way to turn a situation that was drowning me in loneliness into a way to let more people into my life.”

• “I want that gushing old-fashioned romance we were sold on as kids, and I’m sick of being embarrassed about it. Am I crazy to think it exists?”

• “The apps have gotten unimaginably worse, and I feel like I’m living in a romantic dystopia. You couldn’t make these dating stories up if you tried”

• “If I see another couple pose outside a SOLD sign when I am getting ghosted for the 43rd time on Hinge, I’m going to throw my phone into a ceramics kiln.”

• “Sometimes I watch RomComs and wonder who ever thought they were real.”

• The best coupled-up friends I know make time to visit my life, not just me in theirs, and it’s such a hack. I’m not less of a person for it being just me at the dinner.”

• “I want to open a gift registry for my next birthday so I can get a payback for all the money I’ve spent on my couple friends over time - single people aren’t entitled to milestones, and I think that needs to change. Starting with my 35th!”

What I do know is that you will ruin your own life if you expect romance - that soft feeling that makes you believe life has magic in it - will come entirely from someone else. And that Good Love, when it comes, which might come in a shape different to what you were told it would, feels like a relief. It feels like peace.

Swish swoosh, if you loved this or us, imagine being able to hold a physical copy of this sort of thing in your hands…

Cool, K, Love you, Bye!
xox

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