everything i know about 'everything i know about love'
a book, a show, a way of life—and the reason i’m convinced i need a fringe
I first read Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton in the way all great books should be read: on the floor, in my pajamas, ignoring a list of ‘Very Important Things I Should Be Doing’. The pages smelled faintly of wine and perfume (mine, not Dolly’s), and by the time I finished, I was entirely convinced that my life needed more moments.
You know, the sort of cinematic ones that involve running through the rain, dancing in a dive bar to a song you’ll never remember, or crying into your best friend’s shoulder about absolutely nothing and everything all at once.
If you’ve read it, you know—Dolly Alderton writes with the kind of wit that makes you want to highlight every other sentence and text it to someone immediately. She captures the exquisite mess of your twenties: the terrible dates, the best-friend heartbreaks, the self-inflicted disasters, and the staggering, all-consuming love you feel for your people. The kind of love that makes you say, “Forget the soulmate. I’ll take the girls’ group chat instead.”
And then there’s the show.
When Peacock released the TV adaptation, I prepared myself for heartbreak. Could it possibly capture the magic? The humor? The sheer chaos of being young and stupid and alive? It could. It did. Watching Maggie (our TV Dolly) stumble through life—her messy relationships, her clumsy ambition, her misadventures in friendship—felt like watching a fever dream of my own best and worst moments. The parties that felt like the beginning of everything. The terrible boys who were, unfortunately, quite fit. The long walks with friends where you fix the entire world over coffee and croissants.
Or, in my case, Pret coffee and a croissant from Sainsbury’s, because I was a broke American doing my master’s degree in London and didn’t have the budget for anything fancier. I moved there with a suitcase, a dream, and the deeply misguided belief that I could become someone new. Someone effortlessly chic - very Meghan Markle-esque - who drank flat whites instead of vanilla lattes and read The Guardian in the morning. I was convinced that simply existing in London, in all its rainy, magical, chaotic glory, would turn me into a person with style and grace and maybe, just maybe, the kind of woman who wears a beautiful fringe.
I have yet to get the fringe. But every few months, when life feels slightly less sparkly, I stand in front of my bathroom mirror with scissors in my hand and think, “Is today the day?” Because surely, surely, a soft, face-framing fringe would unlock the full Dolly Alderton experience: heartbreak that makes me wise, parties that feel like literature, a little bit of tragic romance, and a fabulous career in which I make a living writing about my feelings.
But Everything I Know About Love isn’t just about reinvention. It’s also about the parts of life you can’t control—the friendships you build, the relationships that surprise you, the ways you let yourself down and the ways you surprise yourself. The book (and the show) held up a mirror to something I hadn’t quite worked through yet: the joy of being truly, unabashedly you.
Living in London as an American with big dreams and small savings taught me so much about what I truly value. I learned that, yes, I could survive on a student budget (barely), but I could also thrive on spontaneity. Some of my best memories—sprinting through the streets of Notting Hill with my best gals, grabbing takeaway pizza with friends at 2 a.m., or meeting up with visitors from ‘across the pond’ at a pub to show them how fabulous my new life was—felt like a movie unfolding in real-time. Everything I Know About Love reminded me that those are the stories I want to fill my life with, the kind that aren't planned, but happen. The ones that pop up when you least expect it, when you're embracing the chaos, and you’re just living for the moment.
I still haven’t cut the fringe. But one of these days, when I’m feeling reckless, I might. And if I do, I’ll raise a glass to Dolly Alderton—because if there’s one thing I do know about love, it’s that the truest kind is found in the friendships that make every heartbreak, every questionable decision, and every ruined pair of shoes completely worth it.
xo,
liv
P.S. Still no fringe. Still hopelessly devoted to Pret coffee. Still looking for life’s next great moment. If you need me, I’ll be rewatching Everything I Know About Love and texting my best friends dramatic declarations of love at 1 a.m. Dolly would want it that way.
oh i LOVED this book, had no idea they made a tv adaption - sprinting to it!
Obsessed and now I need to read this book TOO!!!