Everything I Know About Love

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton is a memoir that explores the messy, chaotic, joyful, painful, and transformative journey of growing up and learning what love truly means. Though the title implies a focus on romantic love, the memoir is ultimately more concerned with friendship—particularly the fierce, unconditional, soul-shaping bonds between women. Through a blend of humorous storytelling, raw confessions, essays, fictional emails, lists, personal reflections, romantic disasters, and emotional revelations, Alderton illustrates how early expectations of love evolve as adulthood reshapes identity and priorities. The book covers her life from adolescence to her early thirties, chronicling the experiences that destroy illusions, build wisdom, and teach her that love exists in many forms beyond romance. It is also a meditation on grief, insecurity, success, loneliness, mental health, and self-acceptance.

Alderton writes with vulnerability and wit as she revisits the moments that defined her emotional growth: late-night parties, first heartbreaks, humiliating mistakes, friendships tested by change, therapy sessions, and the eventual discovery that the deepest form of love comes from within. It is a memoir that resonates with anyone who has stumbled through early adulthood believing everyone else has life figured out, only to learn that growing up means embracing imperfection.

Adolescence and the Fantasy of Romantic Love

Alderton begins by describing her teenage years growing up in North London in the 1990s and early 2000s. Like many young girls, she is captivated by the mythology of romantic love, fed by romantic comedies, teen magazines, pop culture, and fairy-tale narratives. She spends hours fantasizing about her future boyfriend, imagining how complete she will feel when someone chooses her. She is certain that romance is the most important measure of a life well lived.

These early years are filled with intense self-consciousness and social anxiety. She obsesses over her appearance, convinced she needs to be prettier, thinner, or more confident to be desirable. She idolizes boys from a distance, crushing hard and hoping desperately to be noticed. When she finally gets attention—from first kisses at parties, flirtations through MSN Messenger, and the thrilling rush of new attraction—she experiences what she believes is love but is really validation.

During adolescence, she develops insecurities that will haunt her well into adulthood: the fear of being unlovable, the belief that being wanted equals being worthy, and the idea that romantic partnership is the ultimate life achievement. Yet, during this time, she also forms friendships that will become the emotional bedrock of her life, particularly her bond with Farleigh (Farly), who becomes a kind of soulmate long before she understands the meaning of the word.

University: Drinking, Partying, and the Illusion of Freedom

When Alderton arrives at university, she throws herself into party culture with reckless enthusiasm. Nights blur into hungover mornings, and alcohol becomes central to her identity and social confidence. She admits she believed that the more she drank, the more interesting and unforgettable she became. Alcohol made her feel invincible, glamorous, and fearless—qualities she struggled to embody without it.

She describes wild nights out, disastrous hookups, strangers she ...