Everything I Know About Love

Alderton wishes to never just “pass through” life, but she fears that as she ages, she will inevitably transition from relishing life to merely tolerating it. As she turns 30, however, Alderton no longer believes in the notion that life would only be meaningful if she were in her twenties. She has to make new meaning in her life, as life is not always meaningful on its own. In an echo of Chapter 39, she knows she may not have everything she envisioned for herself as a teenager or everything other people said she ought to have by the time she is 30, but she feels power and peace in what she does have. Alderton’s perspective shift is crucial to the memoir’s final statements about love and friendship.

At the conclusion of Chapter 45, Alderton writes that while she once worried she was not “built” to “float in a sea of love” like everyone else, by reframing her idea of true love as her strong female friendships, she realizes that she has floated on a “sea of love” all along. While her friendships may not lead to romance or sex, that does not make them less worthwhile than a romantic love relationship. In fact, Alderton posits that her female friendships are often more gratifying, empowering, and loving than the romantic relationships she has had with men. What she proposes is the expansion of how one envisions love—what it is, can be, and should do—to include the close social bonds that are tantamount to being familial. That love, Alderton writes, is just as worthy, just as serious and sophisticated, and just as important to living a good life as romantic love.