Dolly Alderton: My 58 rules for life

Once your gums are on the run, there’s no getting them back. And you never realise how important gums are until they start edging away. Floss, floss, floss. I insist.

Don’t arrange a first date on a Friday or Saturday night

Don’t let your romantic expectations of a stranger dictate the shape of your weekend. But also, for my money, don’t do a brunch either. Prime time for a first date is a drink on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday that could potentially turn into a dinner.

Stop trying to control the vibe

People can feel you trying to control the vibe and it negates the overall quality of vibe you are striving to achieve. Not every interaction has to feel like it’s lifted from a screenplay. All your friends from different social groups don’t have to love each other. It’s fine if a family member has an awkward interaction with your partner. Relax.

Don’t feel too sorry for people who find themselves in chaos

Watch your judgment of those who end up in situations that you deem messy or dysfunctional. Be wary of your phobias of other people’s problems. Every single one of us has unexpected challenges ahead of us. Most of the time we don’t get to choose them. Show compassion to people in the same way you hope to receive it when it’s your turn.

Don’t take most things too seriously

People who can laugh at themselves, make light of difficulties and easily find a sense of perspective are the ones for whom I reserve the highest of compliments. Classy as hell.

Delete your calorie-counting app

Once you have read the calorific content of food, you can never erase it from your memory, which leads to weird mental arithmetic and strange eating in the name of “health”. You already know what health is. Your body was built with an innate understanding of what it needs to achieve it. It’s eating in moderation, with variation, slowly and mindfully, without deprivation.

Don’t eat or buy low-fat anything. Yoghurt and milk especially

Learn to really, really savour the good times

Buy yourself something beautiful when you get good work news. Dance at weddings, take photographs at parties, celebrate your birthday. Breathe the following in deeply: holiday sea air, celebratory bouquets of flowers, just-cut grass on the first warm day of the year and the downy heads of your best friends’ babies. These moments carry us through the dark times more than we think they do.

Going to a pub on your own …

… having one drink and reading 50 pages of a novel is an astonishingly underrated therapy.

Think about what you want to know about your parents …

… and make the time with them to talk. It may be about their childhood or their romantic life or regrets and hopes. Ask to see their old photos and letters. People want to reflect on their own history, particularly to their children. Remember to ask them questions. So many times I have asked my parents about my grandparents and they’ve said, with great sadness: “I don’t know, I never asked. I wish I had.”

When times are tough you may want to revert to coping mechanisms that leave your body and mind feeling ragged

Try to turn away from these impulses. When times are tough, you have to be match-ready. Eat well, sleep well, go outside, socialise with people you know and love who make you feel safe.

Let go of the life you thought you’d have

Every single one of us will have to do this at some stage. The process is hard and sad and then it can be easy and liberating. In fact, it’s less of a process and more of an art form. It’s spectacular to watch someone do it successfully.

Long walks can be just as physically effective and endorphin-inducing as running

Don’t force yourself to be a runner if you hate running.

Don’t withhold compliments

Not out of shyness and especially not out of jealousy. Withholding compliments does not make the complimentary thing any less true. You’re looking absolutely gorgeous, I really like your partner, I loved that piece of work, what a beautiful home you’ve made, you seem really happy. Say it with sincerity. Don’t say it to make people like you or to get a compliment back. Flood the world with goodwill.

You will always come back to your black dress, black swimsuit, black boots, black coat, black blazer and black jumper, so buy good ones

Engage with the matters that you need to take seriously and take them very, very seriously

Read about them. March for them. Petition for them. Put your time and money behind them. Do more than post on social media about them.

Question every political or ethical opinion that you were told at home growing up

Do not inherit any without interrogation.

Have a pet but only when you’re ready to take care of it

Throw yourself into the routines and responsibilities of pet ownership. Love it to death. If you think you want a dog, remember that a dog is one level down from a baby and a cat is one level down from a flatmate.

A woman’s thirties is a powerful era

Do not let it be ruined by the anxiety of whether you’re going to have a baby or not.

Drink more water

Eat more protein

Do stuff. Actively

You have to seek out the stuff for stuff to happen. Sign up to events newsletters. Do karaoke, eat dinner outside, get a team together for the bloody pub quiz. Become the annoying person on the WhatsApp group checking who is free for “Abba’s greatest hits played by a string quartet by candlelight”. You won’t regret it. (I did make my friends do this this year and I actually think they may have regretted it.)

Order fewer takeaways

I have really thought about this and I think takeaway is one of the least satisfying ways to spend your money. Have beans on toast instead.

From May to September, whenever you can, go to a pub after work on a Friday

Steer clear of a man for the first year he’s out of a relationship

Let yourself change and don’t be afraid that it makes you a hypocrite

Fear of hypocrisy hampers growth. Allow yourself to be bowled over by how much you might change. Don’t be defensive about it. Tell people when your mind has opened up to another idea/opinion/album/person. I became a Swiftie aged 33. Imagine what else might happen to me!

If a friend is treating you like a therapist, it’s probably because you’re acting like one

Carve yourself into the conversation. Assert your personhood in the relationship. Some people will just talk and talk and talk and forget to ask how you are. Hints and politeness and British passive aggression won’t work. Don’t test them and grow resentful. Give them an opportunity to be a friend to you.

Send postcards on holiday

They always make someone happy.

Don’t give yourself a hard time about how many people you’ve shagged

Enjoy it. Use protection, take care of your heart and the other person’s heart and be a clear communicator.

Simple, easy, delicious things to learn to make from scratch

Arrabbiata, puttanesca, carbonara, roast chicken, chicken cacciatore, beef casserole, vinaigrette, tomato soup, tomato salad, dal, frittata, peanut noodles, shakshuka, oven-baked jacket potato. Let me save you some time and money and tell you that you’ll never be in the mood for a packet stir-fry.

If you keep finding yourself in relationships where you become panicked and insane …

… look at whether you’ve conflated the feelings of stimulation and romance with insecurity and anxiety. I return to this quote from my friend Lauren a lot because it’s such a goodie: “Love is not the absence of fun, it’s the absence of fear.”

Never make plans for a Monday night: you won’t want to go

I can’t give advice on children as I don’t have any

All I can say, having listened to my friends with kids tell me about their experiences, is that everything is a phase.

Don’t give parents advice on parenting

if you are not a parent yourself.

Don’t be put off by a person if they don’t listen to the exact same music as you …

… hang out in the exact same places, read the exact same books or have the exact same friends. Over the years I have realised that a lot of this stuff is a synthetic soul connection. The juicy part of shared culture is the shared humour, morals, desires, intrigue and turn-ons. This is not always measured by the crossover of your record collection. And anyway, a relationship is a brand-new club with two members. Together you get to decide how you want to run the joint — the people you invite in, the food you eat, the music that soundtracks it, the trips and activities scheduled, the in-jokes repeated so readily that you go through hysteria and end up in a place where the words no longer have meaning. You bring your stuff, they bring their stuff, you find new stuff together. It’s so fun. Don’t be scared of it.

Ask for help when you need it

Be clear about what you need. People who love you want to help you. Utilise your friendships.

Being single can really lend itself to self-pity, so watch out for it

It’s true that society is not always set up for single people to have an easy time, either practically or emotionally, and it’s also natural to want to share your life with a partner. But to pretend that life is simply easier for everyone you know in a relationship is tedious. Asking for acknowledgment of the specific challenges of singledom is more than understandable; asking for support from friends or family is also fine. Thinking your problems are greater than the problems of everyone who has a partner is not.

• Dolly Alderton on fashion: There’s more fun to be had in heels

Bring back the sleepover

They’re the best way to spend time with a friend. I don’t know why we ever stopped doing them.

Travel, cinema, live music — this is the money you spend that makes you richer

A ticket will make you feel better than any item of clothing you can buy.

A woman would pass on biceps or a big bank account …

… in exchange for a man who makes a plan for a first date and seems like he’s actually looking forward to it.

Stop worrying that your friends feel sorry for you

Don’t let a paranoid fear of sympathy stop you from being honest with the people you love and trust the most. Pride is intimacy’s murderer. Push back hard against it.

Best wedding present? Turning up and being a great guest

The best thing you can send a new parent is frozen meals. The best present you can give a godchild is a book collection or a record collection built over decades. The best housewarming gift is a cocktail shaker.

The worst thing a woman can hear on a first date is a man talking about how tired and/or busy he is

Put your phone on flight mode when you go to bed

Ideally it should go to sleep half an hour before you do. When you wake up, make sure that the first thing you do is put your feet on the ground. Don’t turn your phone back on until you’re out of your bedroom.

On the whole, women mellow with age and men get more rigid

Nearly every woman I know who has been married for decades is desperate to try new things as opposed to their husband who is, euphemistically, “set in his ways”. Knowing this, if you’re a heterosexual woman looking for a long-term relationship, choose someone with a real passion for life and an appetite for experience. It will stand you in good stead come retirement.

All a great event needs is carbs, wine, Motown and soft lighting

Most of us have an unhealthy relationship with or addiction to social media and tech

This is something that all of us should be thinking about. Don’t be embarrassed to impose sanctions to stop yourself from using your phone too much. I am a full-blown addict and the minute I recognised that and found ways to help myself, I felt much more free. Sorry to be one of those bores but it cannot be said enough: the time we have on earth is our most precious asset. We don’t know how much we have left. Don’t hand huge, towering wodges of it over so mindlessly to the reels of a trad wife influencer in North Carolina showing you how she packs lunch for her husband.

Best friends who are also professional peers can be a complicated thing

But if you can navigate the trickier moments, those friendships will become totally and utterly invaluable to you.

When women start having babies, it is an enormous test for a female friendship group

Everyone, on all sides, feels left out. Everyone, on all sides, feels like they’re about to be abandoned. Summon all the good faith and patience you can with each other during these years. Make space for the babies, make space for the women without babies. Be honest with each other. Love each other. One day you’ll be 36, and the first wave of it will be over, and you’ll be so glad that you all got through it.

The most northern and southern tips of Britain are the most beautiful

Devon and Cornwall are the Maldives of the UK. Scotland is our very own California — it has every landscape you could hope for. If you don’t have the money or time to travel the world, get on a train going towards Mallaig or Penzance.

As soon as you start thinking and talking about heartbreak as grief, you have a map to get out of it

You may not ever be able to “get over” losing them, but you can get further and further away from the event of the loss until you barely think about it.

You always need less rest than you think you do to completely recover

When you’re burnt out, it feels like the only thing that will fix it is retiring, moving to New Zealand and turning off your phone for a year. Really, you need nine hours’ sleep and a weekend with no plans.

Things that get better with age: perspective, humility, sex, friendships, opera, nature

Things that get worse with age

Hair density, hangovers, metabolisms, camping at festivals, lumbar spines.

We can never truly understand the length and meaning of life

But one of the ways we get close is by unexpectedly coming across people from our past. The maths teacher who was your age when she taught you, now walking with a cane through the frozen aisle at Sainsbury’s. The barely recognisable university stud who lost all his hair and gained three screaming kids. The baby sister of your old school friend who used to wipe bogies on the sofa, now telling you in a meeting that she’ll keep you in mind for any future projects. Only when that happens do we, for a nanosecond, get to peer over God’s shoulder and catch a glimpse of his Google Calendar before it’s hidden again.

The best thing you can do for a person you love …

… who is grieving a person they loved is take a day off work and go to the funeral. You’ll always dread it or worry whether it’s appropriate for you to be there. You’ll always be glad you went.

Floss!

Dear Dolly returns every month from October 6. To celebrate Style turning 30, join us for an evening with Dolly Alderton in conversation with Style’s editor, Laura Atkinson, at Town Hall, London WC1, on October 15. For information and tickets go to style30dollyalderton.eventbrite.co.uk