Good Material

by Dolly Alderton

How could I have let myself believe, even for a second, that single thirty-something life would be an endless buffet of opportunities, when I know it is, at best, small plates.

But I’m not a member of that club any more. No one is. It’s been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where do I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I’m no longer in a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird?

We toast everything unremarkable because the length of time we’ve all known each other makes the simple laws of time so very remarkable.

The sun sets before five o’clock. The fact of this still surprises me every year.

I once heard a theory about the first relationship that occurs after a big relationship ends. It’s called the 90/10 rule. The theory goes: whatever the crucial 10 per cent is that was missing from your partner who was otherwise totally right for you is the thing you look for in the following person. That missing 10 per cent becomes such a fixation that, when you do find someone who has it, you ignore the fact they don’t have the other 90 per cent that the previous partner had.