February roundup

I couldn't help but wonder: will all be well come Spring?

Oh baby, we are back! We are now at the end of February; a blink-of-an-eye month compared to decades long January. I am high on the relief of Spring edging closer, finding myself pondering: does it really feel like this every year?

Tragically, I pulled a muscle in my chest during my work out and am now unable to move without brief agony and each bit of exertion is accompanied by a grunt. I finished off writing to you propped up in bed on paracetamol and ibuprofen gel rubbed into my aching pectoralis. I find myself humbled, once again, by having a body! Much like the inescapable frustration of having a blocked nose, you can’t help but think about every moment you were not suffering with the affliction that now consumes your every waking hour. Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself! If being back in the trenches (on Dating Apps) wasn’t bad enough (fyi: it is!) then hurting myself in this way has been a malt vinegar in the wound of my single status. I guess you could frame this as a challenge to override my psychological suffering (wishing someone was around to help me and feeling terribly sorry for myself) with radical acts of care for myself. Learning to really be on your own team is a vital lesson.

Back to the apps. Look, I won’t spend too long here, because as I mentioned, it is a mess. It’s been really disheartening to be honest. I had this vision, albeit a naive one, that dating once I was in my 30s might be a little softer. It was never going to be as carefree as the dating in our early 20s, but I hadn’t assumed it would be so hard and exhausting - even to get ON a date. A lot of my friends are coupled too, which is hard at times because sometimes you need solidarity from people in the trenches with you - especially because the culture of dating is not static. Some lessons in love are evergreen, of course, and others are of the moment. In my despair, I find myself asking questions like: Should I be paying for Tinder? Should I be applying for Raya (also paid)? Should looking for love in a city with presumably hundreds of thousands of singles be so in the hands of Big Tech companies who are charging (quite a lot) of money just so people can connect in an efficient way? (Obviously, no.) Should I give up on it all and go speed dating? (Is this an option? Where do I go?)

More and more I feel inclined to return to Sex and the City, a show which is so brilliant and full of wisdom, some of which might soothe my maudlin heart with humour and the glamour of city life that I dreamed of as a wee gay guy in a suburban village. FYI: I’m 100% not interested in the wrong opinions of people who do not rate (or, in some cases, understand) SATC. The show celebrates and captures the life of women who live defiantly as themselves against cultural expectations. It embraces, documents and celebrates the mess of life in a city, resisting tradition. It captures a lot of those evergreen lessons about life and love I mentioned earlier, whilst celebrating friendship as a central tenet of life. Plus, later this year I will be the same age as Carrie in Series 1 (32). Me and her have a lot in common: I am single, a writer living in a big city, I have credit card debt and some nice clothes and so often I cannot help but wonder…….she makes bad decisions….. but so do I! She is messy sometimes but honestly…so am I! She’s annoying, but who isn’t? Maybe it’s time for a rewatch so I can be primed for arguing when it goes on Netflix and we are inundated with a sea of bad opinions from people who say they want “more complex female characters” but can’t even handle Carrie Bradshaw LOOOOOLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!

me af!!!!!!!

She really was the blueprint!!!!!!

Books

Big Swiss - Jen Beagin. My friend Kya Buller posted this book on Instagram saying it was amazing, so yeah, I went right out and got myself a copy. This book might be one of my favourites ever? The protagonist, Greta, is a transcriptionist for a sex therapist in a small town. The plot really kicks in, when she becomes obsessed with and then begins an affair with one of the therapist’s patients. I won’t say more about the plot, although that was a hook enough for me. What I will say, is this novel contains so much depth, so much feeling, such visceral descriptions of what it is to be a human being. It’s funny, moving, beautiful, dark, hilarious, healing. I love love love loved it.

None of the Above - Travis Alabanza. I have been a fan of Travis’ work since I first saw them perform their poetry at a queer event when I first moved to London. I knew then that I was watching a visionary, a star in the truest, queerest sense of the word. Their singular voice knows no bounds; from theatre, to poetry, to literature. This book pushes back against, and denies simple categorization. A deeply moving and vulnerable exploration of difficult questions about identity (in the individual and how we consider it in a collective sense) and about culture at large. This book is bold for an author, a risk, in that it decides to do something different than the obvious or expected, and let’s you in on the fact that’s what is happening. This is both confronting at times, and exhilarating.

Articles

Sophie K Rosa's advice column Red Flags for Novara Media. The latest installment on the complicated yearning for romantic love, even when it sometimes conflicts with our beliefs is particularly great!

Joan Didion. Source: Vox

There are many good pieces of journalism that stick with you for a long time after you’ve finished reading. They make good conversation pieces at the dinner table, and are often referred to as a great example of something in discussion “oh yes, that makes me think of ____!” and everyone nods sincerely, agreeing, even if the reference is one that one only knows tangentially, or can’t quite remember what it was about. Let’s not pretend we don’t all do it! I would say a great example of this kind of writing is Joan Didion’s On Self-Respect for Vogue in 1961 and then featured in her collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem. It is the sort of piece that you tell yourself, ‘ah, yes, I remember that one’ but I would argue that it is full of such a sage wisdom that it is worth revisiting every few months. Didion’s sharp observations often rouse me from feeling sorry for myself in a way that a self-care Tik-Tok could never:

In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in connection with homely children and with United States senators who have been defeated, preferably in the primary, for re-election. Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.

Although not directly related, I think a great companion piece to this is Megan Nolan’s “He didn’t love me, but he changed my life” from Vogue’s Love Stories column, about a formative love she had in her early twenties. A beautiful, honest reflection on how the people we meet and love can open up how we see ourselves and the world!

I wasn’t miserable when we met, but I was keeping the wildest most essential parts of myself at bay, and meeting him forced me to question why. He forced me to question why. He told me I was a writer and to identify that way. He encouraged me to think outside of my immediate circles, to be aware of art in the broader world, to believe I could be a part of it. - Megan Nolan for Vogue

source: @tvscholar on IG

Expats by Lulu Wang - I stumbled upon this somewhat randomly, but it is a marvel. I like storytelling that is not rushed; not oversaturated with plot. I like depth and tension and development! This show delivers what I like in abundance, it feels more like a movie than a TV show. Set in Hong Kong, the show centers around a community of Expats. I won’t say more because I think the rest is best revealed by watching, but through the episodes we explore grief, class, colonialism, morality, and how all of these intersect with how we treat each other. The final episode is bold, brilliant, moving and will stay with me for a long time. I am DESPERATE to talk about this; so message me when you watch! There’s a great episode of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso where he chats to Lulu Wang and I love love loved their conversation about it.

Why We Dine Out (or Don’t) - Critics at Large - The New Yorker
This episode about going out to dinner post pandemic is so fascinating! I was SHOCKED when I found out about Resy and ‘shoulder’ reservations.

What if your Best Friend is your soulmate? - Radio Atlantic
A moving and beautiful exploration of friendships that are held in as high esteem as romantic relationships. It reminded me of another bit of SATC, when Charlotte says to the girls: “Maybe we can be each other’s soul mates. And then we can let men be just these great, nice guys to have fun with.”

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Finally, the best thing on the internet recently has been following the y2k2006 IG account and others that document the nostalgia of early 00s pop culture. It makes me so happy..

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Thank you for reading. I hope your Sunday scaries aren’t too bad. We’ve got this. Let’s hope this week is better. Soon it will be Spring & things won’t feel so heavy. Right?

All my love,
David x