When I was 25 I met a man at a music
festival. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t exchange
numbers, all in all I would say we spoke for
about 40 minutes. For some indescribable
reason — let’s call it “the magic” — I decided
this was the man I was going to end up with.
When I returned to my house share, I calmly
informed my housemates that I had met my
future partner. I just knew we were going to
end up together — I didn’t have to plan for it.
For the following five years, bad dates and
heartbreak were made a fraction easier because every few
months I would once again remember the “Man at the
Festival”, and I would feel a sense of reassuring inevitability.
The fantasy came to an abrupt end when my curiosity and
impatience got the better of me and, thanks to some dili-
gent stalking, I found him on Instagram. The man not only
had the audacity to be engaged to another woman but had
also betrayed my long-held belief about who he was. It
turned out he was a serial adventurer who liked jumping out
of planes (?), as did his fiancée (?), and was worryingly
invested in sports. When I saw we had a mutual friend, I told
her that, for all this time, I hadn’t realised she had known
the man with whom I was meant to spend eternity. “HIM?!”
she cackled. “You would never have dated each other in a
MILLION YEARS.”
So why had I felt “the magic”? I think I felt the magic
because I had wanted to feel the magic. I think the
romantic memories of my twenties were so heavily lensed
with a need for an adventure that in the immediate after-
math I couldn’t see the truth of what had happened. The
memory of the memory became the thing I carried, the
actual details of which only emerged once I had more
capacity to reflect and analyse (thanks therapy). I wonder if
this is the case for you — whether you were looking to
have a romance-filled encounter with someone, and that
he was similarly predisposed, and what resulted was some-
thing you both willed into existence. Alexandra CameronI also think you cannot underestimate
the insidious powers of compulsive
rom-com viewing. I too have been addicted
to romantic comedies since I was a teenager
and it took me a while to realise that I had
picked up a lot of my beliefs about men and
women from films rather than real-life
experiences. While I think this may have
enriched our lives with a whimsical sense of
romance and optimism, I also think it’s
important we examine the lies we’ve been
told. I think the most damaging one is the rule of strangers
falling in love.
Let’s be real for a moment: it’s weird that Colin Firth
goes to Portugal to ask his housekeeper to marry him
when they’ve never had a conversation. It’s weird that
Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack end their perfectly func-
tioning relationships because they’re haunted by the
memory of the ONE NIGHT they spent together years
previously. It’s bizarre that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan
meet for the first time at the top of the Empire State
Building on Valentine’s Day and immediately hold hands.
All of this is weird. If your friend did any of the above you’d
be like, “Mate, stop being weird.”
That’s not what falling in love is like. People don’t fall in
love the night they meet. At best they fancy each other hard,
and then get to know each other and work out whether they
could love each other and build a life together. But
rom-coms have to tell a lot of story in 100 minutes, so you
can forgive them for taking some shortcuts.
You fell for a projection, not a person. But the good news
is: you have a real, actual person you love right in front of
you! Someone you know you’re meant to be with not
because you spent a handful of hours with them, but a
multitude of days and nights filled with conversation and
kisses and arguments and decisions and debates and slices
of toast. The stuff on which real, often slightly protracted,
unscripted love is built. ■Your love, life and friendship dilemmas answered
by Dolly Alderton
Dear Dolly
To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note
to [email protected] or DM @theststyleI met a guy in a pub seven or eight years ago, when we were both in our twenties.
It was my friend’s birthday, he had tagged along not really knowing anyone, and we
gravitated towards one another. It felt like, until closing time, nothing around us existed,
as though we were the only two people in the room, having the type of endless flow of
conversation you only see in a Nora Ephron film growing up. It felt like ”magic”. And
then we said goodbye. I was in an unravelling relationship at the time and it didn’t feel
fair to entertain anything until that had been dealt with, so I ignored the guy, texts, the
evening, everything. The unravelling took longer than expected so I chose not to bother
the guy when it was all over and now, years later, I’m in a relationship with a wonderful
person, yet I still can’t shake the guy in the pub or that evening. What should I do?50 • The Sunday Times Style*