Dr Martens
Since I usually focus on how undateable I am, I thought I’d start 2026 on a high and be a bit more positive this week. I’m talking to a friend who is in a healthy and happy relationship to provide hope both to myself and the masses (there are so many of you, after all).
My friend – let’s call her Dr Love – met her boyfriend at university. Weirdly, they had almost met one another many times before. They’d be in the same room but never speak. It’s giving romcom.
Cut to present day, they’ve been together for five years and are thoroughly, thoroughly in love. Here’s what she has to say about L-O-V-E (Alexa, play ‘L-O-V-E’ by Nat King Cole).
What would you say is the trick to being in a healthy relationship in 2026?
Dr Love: The trick? There are no tricks, it’s loving one another and having open communication. Even at the start when you’re just dating, you need to know if they’re dating other people or if they’re only interested in something short term. Know where you’re at so that if they sleep with someone else, it’s okay, it’s not a secret, you’re prepared. You’ve fostered that trust so you have no worries when you enter into a relationship. Then you can just keep it going.
I’d say that a lot of the time in dating these days, people don’t want to have that open communication from the start. They want to keep their options open. What’s your opinion on navigating that?
Dr Love: Your options are more open if you’re honestly communicating with the people you’re seeing. If they don’t want to be exclusive but they want to keep seeing you, you have the option to end it. You’re in control. If it continues, you can unwind it. I’ve never had that because I always knew, but you should be able to ask and have that possibility.
So, for example, I went on a second date with someone earlier in 2025. In the interest of being open, I did something I never do: I asked what he was looking for. I didn’t mean with me, I just meant with anyone. And he said, “it’s way too early to be asking me that”.
Dr Love: That’s so dodgy, that’s already a red flag. It’s never too early to ask in general. It’s so valid to ask, “shag or marriage?”. When I met my partner he was not looking for a relationship, it was casual. He really liked me, but didn’t plan on being in a relationship. Lots of my friends said I was being silly, but I thought, “he’s being honest, he’s not blindsiding me”, so I couldn’t get that hurt. I guess it was more like I was putting myself in the position to get hurt if it ended, but I knew I wouldn’t regret it because I had a lot of that information from the start. I knew where we were at so if he wanted to be single for a bit, I had the opportunity to make my own choice. I had time to process it, mull it over if it were to occur – which fortunately it didn’t. I was always honest and told him that I would want to be with him until the day he didn’t. It worked both ways.
How do you have the ability to be that vulnerable and communicate your needs?
Dr Love: Date nice people, not arseholes. Date someone who allows you to be vulnerable because they are too. He was just out of a long-term relationship, but he really liked me and didn’t want that to end. I met his family before we were even exclusive. It wasn’t the right time, but I knew. If it’d ended after summer I would have been heartbroken, by then I was already in too deep. When you like someone you’re going to get hurt regardless, but either way, you’re putting yourself out there. You’ve reached deep into yourself to be that vulnerable. As long as they’re not a tool, they should do it back. You’ve had that time to think about and know what you want.
So what was it about him that made you know?
Dr Love: It’s really silly. I slept with him and thought he was the best-looking man I’d ever met. His voice, his name. He was so funny and silly. He was my dream man, I suppose. I couldn’t escape that I’d never met anyone like this in my life. I couldn’t stop talking to him. I couldn’t stop pursuing him. It was all of those together. It all just worked.
Do you know what he thought?
Dr Love: Someone’s asked us this before. We both said we knew the same morning.
The morning after?
Dr Love: Yes, we just clicked. Some people you just click with.
A spark?
Dr Love: Yes, even platonically. I recently joined an amateur sports league. Every week we play, and we’re all mutual friends. Two people met there and went on a date, and now they’re together and in love. They literally met at a weekly sport event. They just had that instant spark and connection. I met my boyfriend on a night out. I never had to work on the physical. But personality is way more important anyway.
So, we’ve been friends for a long time…
Dr Love: …You always go for men way below your league. I don’t know if you think you can’t get someone in your league, but you never go for nice people. If someone doesn’t know what they want, they will use you. You’ll date for a bit, get knocked down and then go back to someone that you’ve dated before.
Sorry for being sustainable.
Dr Love: Dating apps aren’t working for you – you hate them. But you don’t go out to meet people. You say you want to meet someone in person, but where? You don’t go and do anything.
A lot of people meet at work or uni because they spend so much time in the same places that they end up finding someone there. Oppositely, not everyone has an instant spark. Friends or enemies-to-lovers is a huge trope in literature for a reason. If you’re only dating people from dating apps, you’re probably not going to pick up a spark with them unless you have it from the very beginning. But at a minor sports league, for example, you look forward to seeing them at the pub. You’re a lover, completely. But a romantic spark takes you longer to build.
Cheers. Agree. I do sometimes think meeting people is luck. Sometimes you just happen to meet the right nice person. But when you don’t, you’re saying, “get a fucking hobby x”?
Dr Love: Yeah x
I would say it is luck – right place, right time. Everything is luck in that way. With job postings, it’s lucky that you were looking; you wouldn’t have seen it if you weren’t putting yourself in a position to find it. Likewise, a boy isn’t going to fall from the sky. You need to find them somewhere.
Thanks, much for me to spiral about. How do you best resolve conflict in your relationship? Personally, in every relationship I’ve had, we’ve had huge arguments (so I’m probably the problem, hehe).
Dr Love: I think it’s important if you’re in a row to go and have quiet time. Go do something else, sit in separate rooms. Think, mull. A lot of the time it’s petty. A lot of the time it’s because there’s something else going on and it’s one thing they’ve done that has pushed you over the edge. But they’re not the problem. There’s often a deeper problem, and you should discuss it properly and openly. I think we often assume that people are mind readers and should know what’s wrong, but that itself is wrong. We should discuss it and come to a compromise. A lot of the time, both sides are being irrational. Take some time and think about it before you have a full-blown screaming match with someone. That works for us, anyway.
What if there’s a motif that keeps cropping up – it’s the same underlying issue, really, but it keeps coming back again and again, just in different ways?
Dr Love: You probably need to dump them xx
You should both be compromising. There are things you’ll disagree on. Like, if you live together, some chores might irritate you or you might have different ideas about taking each other out on dates. But some people won’t change just for you. If it’s not in his nature, it will be in someone else’s. Obviously it is hard when things are so good at the start but then end. It probably means that they have lost interest in you and it’s time to get a new boyfriend.
Savage. I’m going to ask you about something that I know has come up in your relationship before: continuing to have people from before you were together in your life. How did you resolve this, as it doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore?
Dr Love: We just talked about it openly. We discussed his feelings, as well as the fact that I needed to work on my communication. Towards the start of our relationship, I understood his discomfort about me being in touch with people I’d slept with as it was more fresh then. But the longer it’s been and the more the relationship progressed, if he met anyone else I’d slept with, we talked about it openly so that everyone was comfortable.
So, my issue is, every time I have a problem in a relationship, it creates a crack in my perception of the other person forever – it breaks that trust with them.
Dr Love: It certainly hurts initially when one of you accidentally does something that upsets the other. Especially if you feel as though you haven’t done anything wrong or that they’re overreacting. But you must take accountability for your actions. Just because you didn’t mean to upset them doesn’t mean you didn’t upset them. You should always discuss it afterwards and understand their point of view.
Really, what was wrong with my past relationships is that we didn’t actually resolve our problems.
Dr Love: You two would argue and then he’d call you ridiculous, but you probably weren’t being ridiculous. You have to try and understand what you’ve done to cause someone to get to that state, and they need to try and understand you, too. Everyone’s feelings are valid. Unless you want to end the relationship, you try to find the root of the problem and resolve it. You need to stop accepting them being so horrid to you when they don’t even try to do this.
Yeah, I think sometimes I wanted to hurt my ex because he’d hurt me first.
Dr Love: Yes, well these things taint your view. Unless they explain, you talk about it. You taint each other for a while. We all spiral out of control.
So what’s your advice?
Dr Love: My advice is to understand where they’re coming from. Find the cause of the problem. They need to understand they’ve upset you and that goes both ways. Think about it like a friend.
What’s your favourite thing about your partner?
Dr Love: He’s so caring and supportive, no matter what is going on. I’m not good at talking about my feelings, especially if they’re negative. He always gives great advice. He asks “what things can and can’t you control?”, or he says, “there’s only use in thinking about the things you can change”. As a result, I can communicate better going forward, fix it moving forward. He never invalidates my feelings. Ever. Even when it’s petty, he understands but also discusses the deeper issue. It’s little things like that – he’s so loving. We have the same love language (quality time) and it’s really sweet to have someone you can lean on, talk to, cry to. Someone who understands and gives you meaningful advice. Someone who asks about stuff.
Can we talk about shagging? Is it good x
Dr Love: This is a very interesting topic because it’s still good. Sex now is very often loving. Sometimes it’s still really hot. When we met, it was 24/7 and very passionate. I think when you’re committing to someone, you’re committing to only sleeping with one person. People sometimes crave that at the start when you’re obsessed with each other, but there’s something about having sex when you’re deeply in love. When you’re deeply in love, it’s always fun. I always have fun with him. Because you love them so much, it’s fun.
How is it fun?
Dr Love: We always joke around and we’re super silly and giggly. Sex should be fun, and it is when you’ve been together for a long time. It could be silly, passionate, wanting to be close to one another, loving. All the cringy looking-into-their-eyes stuff. It’s always passionate after a holiday when we’ve had time away from each other. Anyway, it’s nice to have that variety that you might not get from casual sex. It’s a shame when people don’t recognise that. You can trust them completely, let go completely, let loose and have so much fun. It’s meant to be fun and intimate. Good times.
Do you miss being single?
Dr Love: It’s been a long time; it’s a great question. No, I like having someone to lean on. I know I have friends, but when I was single I missed that companionship. I miss that best-friendship. I guess I miss going out and flirting with people, having drinks bought for me. I’d maybe miss making out with people on nights out if my boyfriend wasn’t there for me to make out with.
I think that’s the only thingto miss – you’ve got quite a good deal.
Dr Love: I haven’t lost my independence. I’m good at balancing my friendships. I’ve lost no friends, no independence. I’ve just gained.
You’ve gained extra happiness.
Dr Love: Yeah – someone to go on holiday with. If I wanted a job abroad, yeah, I’d have to discuss it with him, but I’d probably not do that anyway. It’s just nights out, but I love having fun with my friends wherever, so yeah. Nothing. I quite like him.
What’s your biggest piece of advice?
Dr Love: Don’t settle. If it sucks, end it. Crying isn’t worth it. There is someone else out there. There is only so much that open communication can do. You’re of course going to find someone else. My nan just got remarried.
Congrats nan! Thanks, Dr Love.
Dr Love: Thanks.
