Author: Zoë

As you may or may not already know about me, I’m a very big reader. I enjoy reading various genres to help get my imagination going (and maybe, inspire me enough to get my damn novel finished!). 

This post is about two novels I read recently that I would label as romance with a comical feel-good vibe. Here is my take on two books I brought on a rim on recent shops:

‘We never have sex anymore’ by Julia Jones.

This book had me drawn in from the beginning, a witty comedy about a woman called Lottie, who has been in a blissful loved-up marriage for quite some time. Except for one problem: they never have sex anymore. 

Lottie gets drunk one night and makes the intoxicated error of calling in to her favourite Sex talk podcast about the lack of intimacy in her marriage, although anonymous to begin with, what happens next is a chain of unexpected events which result in her personal problems becoming viral, experiments take place courtesy of the podcast, with some extremely funny outcomes but there’s one big problem. Lottie has not told her husband about any of this.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was written very well, very modern and also had many LOL moments. It was real and relatable I think for a lot of people, but also pressed on one of the most important things we all need to have in relationships but forget easily: Communication.
I couldn’t stop reading this as it made me intrigued as to how it would all play out. Julia wrote it so well that I didn’t want to put it down and was dying to find out just how Lottie would get herself out of this mess, and not to mention the intrigue as to why her husband was so oblivious it seems and not wanting to have sex with her. I think the novel does well at touching on a lot of modern problems we can have in our relationships, not to mention how taboo we still find it to just tell a partner how we’re feeling or that we want to be intimate. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read and I’d recommend it to those of you who maybe want to try something that’s easy to read and can give you a good giggle.

‘The Good Part’ by Sophie Cousens

I actually read this one a while back but have been dying to write about it as soon as I got my blog up and running. I’d never heard anything about this before and came across it in 66books (a warehouse in Hemel Hempstead that does twice a month book clubs where you can buy books at a discounted price – highly recommended), I was intrigued by the blurb so added it to my basket. What I didn’t expect was to read the book so quickly when I got going.

The story focuses on Lucy Young, she’s twenty-six and completely fed up with her life (we’ve all been there), by chance she comes across a wishing machine in a local store, wishing that she could get to ‘the good part’ of her life. When she wakes up the next morning, she’s forty-something, happily married with two children. The only problem is, as perfect as this life is, she doesn’t know anything about her life between when she made the wish and this ‘present’ moment. As she tries to navigate this new life and understand it all, there’s a lot of sad and horrible lessons she learns about what’s happened in her life that she doesn’t remember, because of course, she personally hasn’t experienced it.

As the blurb states at the end ‘Does she want to go back to being the girl she once was? Or is the good part bright enough to stay in?’.

I don’t want to spoil the plot and the outcome, as I highly recommend you read it yourself, but what I will say about this book is that it handles the dilemma beautifully and not in some predictable way which I always found frustrating with some time-travel novels and movies, you know the one’s, where they see what their future is like so they go back knowing what’s ahead of them. I always think that as tempting as we all may be, it is a massive cheat. Sophie Cousens writes this book so well where you can really relate to the dilemma Lucy is facing, she writes it all so beautifully, also spreading an important message about how we may not always appreciate the ‘good part’ in our lives, if we haven’t been through the bad. 

A beautifully well-written novel that made me feel really positive at the end – it was at a time that I really needed to read it as I was experiencing a bit of a slump with my life, there were even certain parts of it that made me teary. A beautiful book to suggest for anyone who may themselves be wishing they could skip to the good part!

If you are looking for a bit of a giggle, or a positive feeling – I recommend you grabbing your hands on these books ASAP 🙂

This post is something that has been lurking around in my brain for quite some time. I will pre-warn you in advance, this post does not provide any ‘cure’ for this feeling. It’s just a chance for me to express some personal thoughts from my own experiences.

Unfortunately for me, particularly in the last decade. I tend to be a Situation-ship Princess. I don’t purposely do it, I just always seem to find myself dating men who never quite see a future relationship (or worse, just not seeing one with me).

I’ve had a few situations over the years where I’ve been in a dating scenario with someone and before it gets serious, it falls apart, and I always feel like it’s wrong for me to feel sad or talk about it because you always get the reactions of ‘but it wasn’t serious, you weren’t together’.

I felt silly for feeling upset and hurt so much about it, because we were never relationship labelled or ‘serious’, there’s a whole myth around what you can and can’t be upset over I think. So I pondered heavily over why it felt like something that wasn’t serious was hurting me so much.

It comes down to the basic fact that: labels or not, when you are communicating or connecting with someone on a daily basis, over a period of time, you are going to become attached. It’s unavoidable. When that attachment stops, it can still feel exactly like you’ve just lost a relationship. In reality, you have. It was only the label that was missing.

For me personally, I understand there’s genuine reasons why something can’t work out. Everything happens for a reason, sometimes the timing is off, maybe something will change in the future at a different time. Maybe you just dated an arsehole (this has happened to me a fair few times), I think the thing I personally struggle with, is the change.

It’s sudden. You go from having someone in your life everyday, then out of nowhere, it stops. For me it’s the ongoing feeling that you no longer hear from them, they no longer want to talk to you, they don’t miss you or think of you like you are them, and that is what gets me crying randomly at quiet intervals. I wasn’t hurt because they had been cruel in any way, or that there wasn’t good reason. It’s that horrible feeling when you miss something and you know that it’s possibly the opposite for them. (I say possibly because, you never know how it is for someone else).

Maybe it’s an ego thing, but I get hurt by the concept that I’m the person a guy can just forget about, feelings disappear completely like it was never a big deal, it’s the sad realisation that I was just so easy to cut out of their life. Which is a common hurtful feeling to have in any situation when someone you care about no longer feels the same way and can get on with things without giving you a second thought.

I guess the purpose of this post was to get my feelings off my chest. But also to explain to anyone who experiences these things: it is okay for you to be hurt or upset no matter how ‘serious’ someone else was about you.

We live in a generation now where people are afraid to ‘miss out’ on other options, or focus on one person. So these casual dating scenarios are more common than we’d like. It is okay to feel hurt and like you’ve been lied to or however you want to feel. No-one is in your shoes, we all feel differently.

It’s important really, that we change this narrative of ‘but you weren’t together though so it’s not that big a deal’. Any connection you make is a big deal to you.

So if you have a friend who’s upset over someone who ended something casual, be mindful that we are all different in how we function.

Situationships don’t necessarily hurt more than a relationship break up, we just feel like they do because the lack of labels indicates it wasn’t serious enough to be sad about, so the frustration and hurtful feeling multiplies a little.. as you feel it’s a feeling you aren’t allowed to experience. But you are totally okay to feel however you want to feel.

If it felt real for you, it’s the same as a break-up. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I want to start off before I dive in, by stating that I am fully aware of the positive effects social media has had on our generation. We get to know more about the people we care about, there’s reuniting with friends and family members, we can track where people are to know they’re safe. Technology has been a great tool for our generation, but of course, there are downsides we need to consider, which is what I am going to write about here.

‘The Social Dilemma’

Back in 2020, a documentary was released on Netflix called the Social Dilemma. At the time of its release, it blew people’s minds and scared people with how intelligent and invasive technology had become. I remember seeing multiple statuses on social media at the time from friends talking about how insanely scary it was and that they were going to put their phone away, delete social media etc. But of course, after a few months it went under the rug and people got more involved in the abyss of social media.

For those of you who have never seen this documentary, I highly recommend you watch it, it will change your view on a lot of things. The documentary focuses on interviews with a lot of the people who were involved in the early stages of Facebook, Instagram, Google, Pinterest etc. along with a mini fictional family movie playing out showing the effects social media has on people today. It shows the inability we have now to just not consistently be on our phones and also touches on how social media has looped us in as a product. We all know this, we are the product.

Nothing you see on your phone is a coincidence, the documentary touches on in fine detail how your phone picks up on everything you spend more time looking at, so it knows when to draw you in with a new advert or post to keep you engaged. It does the same for people you look at, if you are constantly checking up on a person’s profile, it will make sure you’re getting the updates very early on as soon as they post anything, because it knows it will keep you engaged. 

It’s gotten more frustrating over the years, the algorithm has gone completely off the mark and all you mainly see is sponsored advertisements. Because let’s face it, if you’re using something for free… it’s not free, you’re being used as some sort of advantage to make money. 

It’s important to bear this in mind, don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware of the fact that if I ever want to be a successful writer and have any books published, I will have to depend on social media and advertisements to get anywhere. It is a really unique tool in some ways, and I think it’s difficult to get hold of anyone these days without having to use a social media app to get to them, because everyone is glued to their phones.

I don’t think I’ve ever been at a social gathering or on a date, where the person or people I’m with haven’t frequently checked their phones. It’s made me sit back and reflect a lot on my relationship with my phone and social media and the steps I want to take to not allow myself to be glued to my phone when I need to be more present in the moment. So here’s a few things I’ve learned about my relationship with social media and the changes I’ve made to make it healthier.

Notifications are distracting, turn them off.

This isn’t an easy solution for everyone as it depends on your personal circumstances. For me, I’m not anyone’s emergency contact, there’s nothing from my side that is going to dramatically change someone’s situation if I reply to their message in 5 minutes or 5 hours. My problem was, I got so attached to messages and having to make sure I was up to date in conversation at all times, that I expected other people to do the same and my anxiety would be through the roof if someone was taking an age to reply to me. Turning off notifications allows me to only check in on my app’s when it’s on my terms and I want to check in and see the latest posts or messages. It also gives me that bridge of my conversations with people are sporadic and there’s no anxiety on either side if I or they don’t reply within minutes of a message, because you’re not focused on the dependency of active immediate replies.

Don’t compare, ever.

There are posts about this all the time on social media. A common problem we have made for ourselves is we all post the good stuff, all of our cute moments or massive achievements. We don’t always share the bad stuff, because we know people are going to comment on it negatively. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not, you put yourself out there and people will have opinions. But remembering that not everything you see on social media is real is important. Let’s face it, half the pictures you may see of that person you’re jealous of because they’re always getting attention that you’re not, has probably taken 70 other pictures (and also, are their posts natural or filtered to hell?) we’re going to post the good bits and the cute selfies because we crave that attention. We’re human. But don’t compare yourself to another person who’s probably facing their own battles you know nothing about.

Have set times away from all the ‘noise’.

Keep your phone in another room for a couple of hours, or set it to airplane mode. There is nothing wrong with disengaging for a little while, the right people in your life will understand this. Become more aware of your surroundings, go for walks, have a no-phones rule while you’re out with somebody. Or, set time limits on your phone. All phones have those settings now, so take some time to focus on something that isn’t in your hand.

Social media is a great tool, but don’t let it overpower you.

I have spent most of my adult life on the edge when it comes to relationships. Consistently being controlled by anxiety and living in fear that everything is false and going to go wrong.

It was only more recently when I experienced another failed situationship with someone, that I started to do a lot of work on myself internally and addressing the areas of my behaviour when I’m with someone and also what the root cause is. I’ve always been aware of the fact that I suffer from the ‘anxious attachment’ relationship style, but I never really took the time to internally investigate why I was so stuck in this mindset of living in paranoia that if something isn’t happening how I want it to or how I expect, that everything is wrong. 

I came to learn that I have always found myself drawn to the drama. It was only when I recently read a self-help book about getting to the bottom of overthinking that I realised that due to my entire adult life being constant toxic situations and unknown events, I was naturally drawn to those areas because let’s be honest, when it’s the only thing your brain has ever known – rejection, toxicity, looking for problems in the silence, you naturally feel like it’s something you have control over. My brain is afraid of experiencing anything different to that.

Any man who has dated me over the past ten years, may express the same story, that I was a bit much or I couldn’t trust them properly, I was always overwhelming and overanalysing every message and movement. These men would not be wrong. Don’t misunderstand me though, some men I’ve dated were bad eggs for me, they weren’t perfect, however I was bringing some of this on myself because I was drawn to emotionally unavailable or toxic men. It’s all I know after all, why would I even try to beeline for anything the opposite of what I’ve known? 

It’s all about the pattern really. Our brains are programmed to stick to what is comfortable for us. With anxiety, I naturally overthink the situation I’m in. I have lost count of the number of times I have got myself all worked up over a conversation or situation that I have imagined. Not to mention that 95% of the time said imagined situations didn’t even happen. 

It is not worth the broken sleep nights or the physical nausea to try and overanalyse something that’s out of your control.

It’s hard to break out of an anxious mental cycle though, as I said, our brains are programmed to want to overthink and overanalyse every single scenario, so we then feel like we are ‘prepared’ or in control. But the hurtful truth of the matter is, we never are.

You can’t get rid of anxiety. It’s part of who you are. So I’m not here to stand on a box and tell you how you can overcome anxious attachment in some quick easy steps. What I have done though, is found some ways in which I can overcome certain obstacles to retrain my mind to loosen those attachment strings a little, and understand what control I do and don’t have.

I can’t control what situations or events happen to me, but I can control how I react to them. That’s the big secret, it’s not being in control of what happens, it’s being in control of how you address and behave with what’s happening.

I did a few months of CBT last year, one thing I loved about the exercises was that they didn’t sit and tell you: ‘you’re worrying over nothing, don’t worry twice’, there was an exercise that I’ve started practicing regularly now.. When the anxiety gets a little overwhelming. You write out your anxious thought, then you write out what the facts are backing up your thoughts, you then write facts against those thoughts. The best part though, is after you’ve weighed out those facts and addressed how they make you feel, there is a final question ‘if my anxious thought does happen, how will I overcome it?’. That there is the important part, because you get to write out how you can (and will) overcome that situation. Once you have managed to sit and remind yourself that you are perfectly capable of moving on, weight lifts, and you’re able to handle the situation a lot better.

Remember: we can’t control what happens, we can control how we deal with it.

One final note, if you’re like me, and can get a bit dramatic when your anxiety and overthinking levels are hitting the roof, you might find yourself tempted to let out that rage and message the friends/family/person you’re dating with that reaction. Don’t do it. Pause. One thing I’ve started doing is using my Notes app, if it’s really getting to me and I can’t calm myself down, I write out all of the frustrations and what I want to say to that person on the notes app. I’ve got it out of my system. So my brains had that release, but I keep it in my notes app and tell myself I will only paste it into a message later when I’ve calmed down and the other person hasn’t proved me wrong in that time frame.

Of all the ‘notes’ messages I’ve written, there’s been over 50, I’ve sent zero.

I think I’ve gone on enough now. So I will leave this blog post here with one final message…

It’s not about eliminating our anxiety. It’s about taking power over the control it has on us.

Welcome to my Blog page: Positive, Yet Cynical.

The site and blog will hopefully kick off and go live April 2026 (I just need to reteach myself all the ways of wordpress and blog posting as it’s been an age since I’ve done this!)

This blog will be regular posts about real-life stuff I face, some dribbles of my own poetry and prose, book reviews and updates on my journey to try and write something publish-worthy!

Watch this space 🙂