Everything I Know About Love

Alderton recalls the sound that defined her adolescence: the tones of AOL dial-up internet. Growing up, her family lived in Stanmore, a suburb in the “farthest fringes of North London” (5), which was neither urban nor rural. At school, she meets her best friend, Farly, and they are opposites in nearly all respects: height, hair color, attitude to rules and authority, punctuality, etc. They bond over eating junk food and watching American sitcoms while their parents are out. When AOL and MSN Instant Messenger become available, Alderton feels like she is “knocking on the wall of a prison cell and hearing someone tap back” (7). She connects online with friends from school and new people her age from nearby schools, but the internet brings with it her first major interactions with boys. Her circle of friends largely talks online with the same boys, and this is a source of drama in the group. Sometimes, they meet the boys in person for dates, but these occasions are always a disappointment.

When Alderton is 15, she meets Lauren, a guitarist in a local band that Alderton briefly joins as a singer. Shortly after, Alderton relocates to a boarding school further north in an effort to meet and interact with boys more regularly. She soon discovers she has little in common with boys her age, and the ones she wants to kiss never want to kiss her. Alderton quickly finds that boys are not as interesting, kind, or funny as the girls she knows. While at university, Alderton messages boys through Facebook, but when they meet in person, she finds herself again disappointed by the reality of who they are.

In 2002, at age 14, Alderton’s friend Natalie introduces her to Betzalel, a Jewish boy her age. Natalie sets up Alderton and “Betz” through MSN Instant Messenger, with the hope that Alderton will replace her old friends, whom she lost by spreading hurtful gossip. When Alderton meets Betz, she is disappointed to see he looks nothing like his online photo. She calls his purchase of Toy Story 2 “babyish,” and he says her skirt looks like a Scottish man’s kilt. When Alderton returns home, Betz messages her a long series of paragraphs rejecting her. Alderton reprimands him, replying that “he knows I fancied him less than he fancied me and he didn’t want me to say it first” (20). Betz blocks her but soon forgives her, and they become “relationship confidants” for the next few years.

Lauren invites Alderton to a New Year’s party while they are both home from university on Christmas break; Alderton has recently become sexually active and eagerly scans the party for boys. She spots a boy who was a runner on the sitcom set where she worked after her exams, and they eventually find their way into the bathroom to hook up. Lauren interrupts: She needs Alderton’s help removing the shapewear under her dress before she hooks up with a boy, Finn. Alderton stashes Lauren’s shapewear behind the toilet. “The Runner” and Alderton’s efforts to be sexually intimate are unsuccessful—they break the showerhead in one attempt—and she rejoins the party. Alderton and Lauren chat with members of a band they know, when Hayley, one of the party’s hosts, announces that someone has broken the shower and they need to pay for the damage. Alderton makes up a story about another partygoer being the culprit and sends people off searching for a boy who does not exist. Then, she finds a quiet place to sleep before her shift at a retail store in the morning. When she wakes, Alderton borrows a dress from Hayley, who says she knows Alderton broke the shower. After work, Alderton checks Facebook and sees Hayley uploaded a photo of Lauren’s discarded shapewear, with the caption, “WHOSE PANTS ARE THESE?” (26).

Alderton gets drunk for the first time at a friend’s bat mitzvah when she is 10 years old. The caterers serve all the pre-teen girls champagne, and Alderton’s decision to have her first, second, and third kisses that night provokes a “suburban child orgy” of kissing at the youth tables. After the bat mitzvah, Alderton develops a taste for alcohol, and by the age of 14 she regularly sneaks sips from her parents’ liquor cabinet while home alone. Alderton despises being a teenager and thinks of alcohol as her one avenue of adult independence.

Alderton describes her university experience at Exeter as three years that “left [her] more stupid than when [she] arrived” (32). Alderton writes that she would regard her time at Exeter as a complete waste, had it not been for the women she and Farly befriended: Lacey, AJ, Sabrina, Sophie, and Hicks. Hicks is the “ringleader” of their group; Alderton describes her as “impossibly envious and enviably rock ‘n’ roll” (34).

After graduating from Exeter, Alderton begins a master’s in journalism in London. Her alcohol use escalates, and one night, after several bus trips in opposite directions, Alderton goes to Leamington Spa to see Will, a “tall, wild, wiry Canadian,” whom she “had always had a gigantic crush on” (40). The cab driver says the ride will cost £250, but Alderton only has £100 in her account. She haggles the price down, and Will picks up the remainder. Alderton wakes up at three o’clock the next afternoon; she has no money in her account, and her worried friends text non-stop. Sophie books Alderton a seat on a bus home, and when she returns, Sophie scolds her: “Do you know how vulnerable that makes a person? Wandering around London that drunk?” (45). Some time later, Alderton and Hicks meet two strangers from Dubai at an expensive club, and they accompany the men to the home of a “party boy” friend. One of the men tells Alderton she looks like a woman he knew in the 1970s; after further description, Alderton realizes the woman, “Barby,” is her own mother, Barbara. She finds Hicks and demands they leave immediately.

Alderton details a recipe for macaroni and cheese, one she makes for herself and her friends when they are hungover. The description before the recipe explains it is best served while wearing pajamas and watching serial killer documentaries.