You’re Not The Only One F*cking Up by Lane Moore

subtitled Breaking the Endless Cycle of Dating Mistakes.

When I picked up this book for review, I did not realize that it would become incredibly relevant to my personal life. Everything happens for a reason, and I was genuinely pleased to get a little guidance as I navigate a chaotic (and frankly exhausting!) new-again world. But even if you’re not currently in the dating trenches, this short non-fiction book has a lot of great advice for those trying to figure out their own hearts and relationships, as well as the patterns that have brought them to where they are in their emotional lives.

Lane Moore is a bestselling author and comedian whose show, Tinder Live, dissects modern dating with both humor and heart. Wanting to further highlight the universality of the confusing and occasionally self-defeating dating experience, she put out a call for horrific dating stories, several of which form the backbone of this absorbing book. Too often, it’s made clear, people make poor choices almost out of habit, ignoring things they know are bad for them in hope of finally finding The One.

A lot of this, Ms Moore points out, is due to societal pressure on women in particular to make relationships work. The general expectation is for women to put in the labor, emotional or otherwise, in order to make a man choose her. This is, ofc, utter nonsense, but a hard lesson to unlearn given how ingrained it is in so much of society:

So, as women, we take on people like projects — not simply because we believe it’s the only way we might find love, but also because we falsely believe it is noble to work, to grind, and to contort ourselves to have the love story we’ve always wanted.

Ms Moore takes pains, however, to remind readers that all this chaos isn’t just a modern innovation. With the story of George, a sixty-eight year-old who dated well before the Internet, she underscores how people have always fallen into self-defeating patterns when it comes to seeking out romance. Modern society might be a mess, but it’s certainly better than eras past, when fewer people questioned the entirely sexist notion that women had a shelf life while men could remain attractive forever.

But this book isn’t about women being long-suffering saints cleaning up after trash men (tho there are certainly paragraphs that allude to that due to the sheer prevalence of that situation on the relationship scene.) It’s about self-assessment and being realistic without being self-defeating. You’re Not The Only One F*cking Up urges readers to truly evaluate what they want out of romantic relationships, to ask if something is actually a red flag or just something society tells them should be, and to believe in their own self-worth and dignity:

We must know, without a shred of a doubt, that we are absolutely allowed to want what we want, and to want a whole person whom we don’t have to fix.

This is a terrific, quick read filled with humor and wisdom that is invaluable to anyone navigating the dating scene. It also has a lot of great advice for anyone just worrying about love in general.

You’re Not The Only One F*cking Up by Lane Moore was published January 17 2024 by Everand where it is exclusively available.