Dear Dolly

I discovered that asking for assistance was therapeutic in and of itself after confiding in a semi-professional problem-solver about my most personal suffering. It was as if I had secretly descended to the docks in the dead of night and imagined the reception I may have given a message in a bottle. I was admitting to myself that I may be liked by someone, that someone might say the right thing about me even if they didn't know me. Because I wasn't the oddest and most alone woman in the world, as I had assumed, but rather I was experiencing something that other people had felt.

Dolly Alderton has been offering her knowledge, kindness, and humor to the many individuals who have sent letters to her Dear Dolly agony aunt column in The Sunday Times Style since the beginning of 2020. Their inquiries range from the sporadically strange to the painfully—and sometimes hilariously—relatable. They cover everything from relationships to families and friends to dating, divorce, the ins and outs of social media, sex, loneliness, desire, love, and everything in between. They also cover breakups and bodily concerns.

Dolly guides us through the many mazes of life, demonstrating that a problem shared is really a problem halved. She does this without passing judgment and with a profound empathy gleaned from her own, many-chronicled journeys in love, friendship, and dating.