WEBVTT

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So let me tell you a love story.

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Once upon a time, not so long ago,

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in a land I Googled
to be 5,172 miles away,

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I met a guy, and he was perfect.

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So I'll tell you the meeting story.

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I'd just taped this really cool TV show
about experimenting with your sexuality,

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and I met him at the after-party

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through one of our famous
friends who was a DJ.

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He was tall, dark, handsome,

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kind of a rock star,

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and a little bit emotionally unavailable.

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Very soon, we were spending
all of our time together.

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We threw these really cool parties
for all of our cool friends,

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we went backstage at every festival,

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and, when my hands were cold,

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he would take them under his arms
to warm them up.

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He was my best friend,

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and I thought we would be
together forever.

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And so strong was that belief

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that when the warning signs came,
I just ignored them.

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Until the day that I couldn't
ignore them anymore.

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I'd become quite unwell,

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I wasn't so pretty anymore,

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and I definitely couldn't go out
to any of the parties.

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In fact, I was, for the first time
in my life, actually vulnerable

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because I was miscarrying our baby.

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And at that point,
when I was at my weakest,

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he left.

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It's not a joke.

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Ah ha, um -

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Coming downstairs - and you you know what,

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but I would have followed him
out of the door to the ends of Earth.

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But I couldn't get out of my bed.

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When I did get up, I found
that our house had been stripped bare.

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The paintings were gone from the walls,

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and the rooms that we used
to dance in together were empty.

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I walked around those rooms
like an animal, howling.

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Picking myself up
off the literal floor that day,

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I had to recognize

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that after all of this excitement
and this joy and this fantasy,

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at the end of all that love,

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I had nothing.

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And you know what,

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that wasn't even the first time
something like that had happened to me.

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I was a magnet for chaos.

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I liked chaos,

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because when I was in chaos,

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I didn't have to confront
anything about who I was.

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Truthfully, I hadn't known
who I was for years.

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Because on the floor that day,

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I did have someone, I had myself.

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But for a long time,

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that had come to feel like,
it, well, meant nothing,

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and it was invaluable.

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So I know it seems a bit self-indulgent

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to come out here today

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and talk to you guys
about, like, effectively a break-up story,

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but it was one of a chain
of many incidences

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that made me think, "Maybe there's
other people like me,

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maybe there's other people that aren't
approaching love in the right way."

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Because I think
we've all had experiences, right?

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They look like love, they feel like love,

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but when you open them up,
there's nothing loving about them.

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But we continued to chase love,

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because I think love is sold to us

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as almost like the ultimate
solution to ourselves:

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the things that makes our past okay,

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that gives us the direction
for the future,

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and imbues our everyday
reality with meaning.

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I think love can be beautiful,

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I think it can be exciting;

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but I think sometimes
it can also be an act of escapism.

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And I've had a long time
to think about this,

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as the introduction said,

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I am the artist formerly known
as the UK's leading dating expert.

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And before that I was a ghost writer
in the pickup industry,

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and I vlog about the reality
of love on my YouTube.

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And now I have a completely
different approach,

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a very minimalist strategy
when it comes to dating.

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And that's really because I'm concerned

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that in our quest for love

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sometimes it can be
the ultimate distraction

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to fixing ourselves

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and doing the real work
that will actually make us happy.

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Because, don't get me wrong,

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I think that the desire for attachment,
for intimacy, for security, for love,

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those goals are natural,
they're human, and they're good.

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But I think sometimes the way
we go about them is a bit weird,

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whether that's crazy, ridiculous,
on-off, destructive relationships,

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or needing to go out on a date
every single night of the week

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with a different person.

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You know, like the hip form of dating,

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where you have someone on the back burner,

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someone on the front burner,

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someone under the grill,

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and then someone else
over there in the freezer

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(Laughter)

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just in case, God forbid,
you spend a night by yourself.

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In this, it feels really like
loneliness is the driver,

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or escapism is the driver,

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not love.

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So, I'm kind of starting
to preach the opposite belief now,

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that, of course, the answer 
lies not in another person,

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but within yourself.

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Because I think, sometimes,
the melodrama of love

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takes us further away,
rather than closer,

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to who we actually are.

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So I find that my dating advice

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is gradually shrinking down
to be essentially:

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go meditate,
get some therapy,

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read a book.

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Ha, ha.
(Laughter)

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It's not what you would call

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a sexy strategy
for the millennial generation.

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A generation that is used to
4G download speeds,

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skyping a friend abroad,

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and Netflix and chill with someone
you just met from Tinder.

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(Laughter)

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Um -

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So I think when we're used to expecting
everything we want right here, right now,

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when we can't just vend
an automatic level of human connection,

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we not only feel
like we're getting it wrong,

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but like we're not getting
what we're entitled to.

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And then you just take
one look at Instagram:

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everybody else has it sorted out.

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And we sort of live in the culture
that surrounds us,

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telling us that we should
have fallen in love or be falling in love,

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or at least have had great sex, right?

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Like yesterday!?

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You know, let's face it,

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who actually enters into the arena of love

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looking to, maybe, become a better person,

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to be kinder, to have more integrity,

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to get more grounded?

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No one does that.

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It's because our eyes are off ourselves,

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we're looking for that next adventure,

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that greener grass,

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that new person,

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so we don't have to deal with
any of that stuff.

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And I understand
how easily it happens, right?

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You just kind of meet someone sexy,

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I don't know where,

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maybe it was at a party, on the train,
or the Tube, as we would say in London.

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Or maybe you just met them,
you both joined Tinder that day,

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how magical!

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(Laughter)

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And before too long, you realize
that you have some stuff in common,

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like wow, you both like
almond butter, Star Wars,

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you can name all four
Teenage Mutant Ninja Hero Turtles.

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And then, like, suddenly,
you're retelling how you met,

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like, this serendipitous coincidence
of cosmic proportions -

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it's like move over Romeo and Juliet.

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Not that that ended every well,

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let's all remember that.

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So, when you're thinking about you're not
exactly being Romeo and Juliet,

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and we're actually living
in the real world,

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I think the thing is, the main sell,
when you kind of fall for someone,

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is it 's like: Yippee, I'm not
alone anymore.

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Hooray! Nailed it! Uh ha.

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Coz you get to - guess what you do?

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You get to go home every night,

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and you get to put
your head on the pillow,

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and you don't have to think about,
you know, your needs,

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your wants, your past,

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and, actually, kind of all the stuff

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that's really, probably,
stopping you from becoming happy,

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because you're not fixing it.

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Instead, you get to be entrapped
by somebody else,

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you're intrigued by them,

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your mind has someone new
to spiral into and focus on.

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But I think sometimes when you're focusing
on that perfect romance,

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you're not actually doing the real work

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to fix the stuff that's stopping you
from becoming happy.

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And because of that,

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I think that most of us,
when it comes to love and dating,

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kind of need an epic timeout and reset.

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For myself, I did six months cold turkey.

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No dating, no internet dating,

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and I went to all of two parties.

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Literally, you could have
written up my love life

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on the back of a postage stamp,

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it was that exciting.

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And all this from the girl who used to -

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honestly, I used to pride myself
on having a ridiculous love life.

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The stories - if I was here
two years ago guys,

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I'd have told you some amazing stories.

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But you know what?

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After all of that,
and after everything that happened,

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I thought I would quite like
to know who I am again.

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Because, and I think I'm not alone here,

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if you're experiencing a Groundhog Day
when it comes to your dating life,

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I think that the thing is

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you think that it's
because you're meeting loads of players,

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or nice guys finish last,
or you just haven't met the one yet,

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or that dating is a numbers game,

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but I think actually

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these truisms that surround dating
aren't in fact true at all.

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In fact, I think they lead us away
from what the real issue is.

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Because the problem, and I know
this doesn't make for comfy listening,

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the problem, it's with you, it's with me,

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it's with our ridiculous ideas
around romance,

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it's with our needs
that we haven't realized yet,

00:09:50.161 --> 00:09:53.023
it's with our past
that we don't want to talk about,

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it's with our desire,

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it's with our inability
to get through one day

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with[out] picking up our smartphones,

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and it's with what we value.

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So I decided after all of that -
I was like, you know what,

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I'm done with Groundhog Day in love,

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I actually want to discover
a bit more about myself.

00:10:09.248 --> 00:10:12.282
Because the truth is,
I wasn't even born Hayley Quinn.

00:10:13.167 --> 00:10:14.486
Right!? Right!?

00:10:14.490 --> 00:10:16.816
I chose that name,
I thought it sounded cool.

00:10:19.422 --> 00:10:21.710
I was actually born Hayley Whittle.

00:10:21.714 --> 00:10:25.187
And when I was born -
I grew up in a poor family,

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my parents were disabled,

00:10:26.651 --> 00:10:29.560
I was really teased at school a lot
for being the weird girl,

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I used to work as a dishwasher,

00:10:32.108 --> 00:10:36.176
and because of that, there was
so much pain and shame in my past

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I just didn't want to touch it.

00:10:38.095 --> 00:10:40.067
And the way I ran away from it

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is I ran away from it
with love and with fantasy.

00:10:44.357 --> 00:10:47.739
But I decided after all that running,
I wasn't really getting anywhere,

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I was just re-creating the same mistakes
time and time again.

00:10:51.127 --> 00:10:52.821
So I thought I'd better stop.

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I was like I want
to actually feel something.

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And I can tell you,
when I stopped, I did feel.

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I think I cried every single day
for the first month

00:11:03.301 --> 00:11:04.451
on the phone to my Mum,

00:11:04.875 --> 00:11:06.089
which was awkward

00:11:06.095 --> 00:11:09.508
because I hadn't really spoken to her
for about a decade at that stage.

00:11:09.763 --> 00:11:11.084
And then I'd come home,

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and I'd come home
to this empty, dirty house,

00:11:13.904 --> 00:11:17.119
with no guy and no baby
and no possessions left in it.

00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:19.612
And then some days I'd wake up

00:11:19.617 --> 00:11:24.119
and the pain would be so bad
that it felt like my heart was burning.

00:11:24.122 --> 00:11:28.157
And to resist the temptation
at that stage to not reach out

00:11:28.342 --> 00:11:33.129
and take that little plaster of dating
or love or some attention

00:11:33.129 --> 00:11:35.479
to fix how I was feeling

00:11:35.778 --> 00:11:37.283
was really hard.

00:11:37.312 --> 00:11:39.741
But gradually, you know what?

00:11:39.751 --> 00:11:43.033
A great thing happened,
is that I came back into the room,

00:11:43.339 --> 00:11:46.545
I became aware again,
my mind started to work,

00:11:46.556 --> 00:11:48.407
I reconnected with my family,

00:11:48.417 --> 00:11:50.760
the friends that were left
were the good ones,

00:11:50.773 --> 00:11:54.576
and I stopped being so obsessed
with going out every night of the week

00:11:54.576 --> 00:11:57.566
or whether someone had read
my messages on WhatsApp.

00:11:58.180 --> 00:11:59.476
And so that's why,

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if you're listening to what I'm saying,

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if you even see a shadow of yourself,

00:12:03.454 --> 00:12:07.165
a little shadow of your story
in my ridiculous life,

00:12:08.159 --> 00:12:10.713
I would advise just taking
a time to take that pause,

00:12:10.723 --> 00:12:13.978
and I'm going to tell you why,
I'm actually going to sell it to you.

00:12:13.985 --> 00:12:15.766
So here I go, first things first:

00:12:16.093 --> 00:12:21.712
when you come home and your evening plans
are make chicken soup and read a book,

00:12:22.132 --> 00:12:25.378
this no longer sounds bad,
this sounds awesome.

00:12:26.447 --> 00:12:27.883
Although I'd like to point out

00:12:27.890 --> 00:12:30.947
my chicken soup literally still has
the consistency of porridge,

00:12:30.949 --> 00:12:32.137
it's so bad.

00:12:32.140 --> 00:12:33.843
Work in progress! Work in progress!

00:12:34.654 --> 00:12:35.678
Second thing,

00:12:35.687 --> 00:12:38.305
when you stop waiting
for your prince or your princess

00:12:38.312 --> 00:12:42.149
to come crashing through the door
and save you and solve your life,

00:12:42.177 --> 00:12:44.559
you start kind of living
in the here and now more.

00:12:44.560 --> 00:12:46.373
And when you live in the here and now,

00:12:46.379 --> 00:12:48.895
you become more grounded,
you become more confident,

00:12:48.895 --> 00:12:50.449
you become stronger.

00:12:50.974 --> 00:12:53.274
You also become more self-aware.

00:12:53.275 --> 00:12:54.454
And when you're aware,

00:12:54.454 --> 00:12:56.705
you become more aware of
the people around you.

00:12:56.705 --> 00:12:58.617
And you know what I saw, and what I see?

00:12:58.634 --> 00:13:03.458
I see people running away all the time,
every single day of their lives.

00:13:03.622 --> 00:13:05.288
And then you see those situations,

00:13:05.295 --> 00:13:07.840
and you have the foresight
to step back for a change

00:13:07.845 --> 00:13:09.297
rather than get involved.

00:13:09.694 --> 00:13:12.640
I also learned that life
is pretty dramatic as it is,

00:13:12.651 --> 00:13:14.777
and it throws you plenty of challenges,

00:13:14.780 --> 00:13:17.535
so you don't really need
to create any more

00:13:17.538 --> 00:13:18.919
and go out there on a mission

00:13:18.926 --> 00:13:20.063
to have more drama,

00:13:20.071 --> 00:13:21.292
you can just leave it.

00:13:21.294 --> 00:13:24.786
I also finally realized,

00:13:24.796 --> 00:13:28.415
you know, well, those people
say to you, they say,

00:13:28.419 --> 00:13:33.071
you need to be alone, or be by yourself,
before you can meet someone else.

00:13:33.578 --> 00:13:35.983
I used to think those people were boring;

00:13:36.003 --> 00:13:39.784
now I think they're right,
they're definitely, probably right.

00:13:41.342 --> 00:13:46.029
Because I think, sometimes, actually,
when we actually confront our aloneness,

00:13:46.036 --> 00:13:48.517
and we start to deal
with our needs and the past

00:13:48.522 --> 00:13:49.919
and all that horrible pain

00:13:49.925 --> 00:13:53.830
that, you know, as people, we just collect
and carry with us throughout our lives,

00:13:53.838 --> 00:13:56.694
when we deal with that,
and we're not running from it

00:13:56.719 --> 00:13:58.692
in endless people or endless dates,

00:13:58.707 --> 00:14:01.067
when we don't have anything
to prove anymore,

00:14:01.075 --> 00:14:05.786
when you don't need a destructive,
ridiculous on-off relationship

00:14:05.792 --> 00:14:09.430
in order to feel alive,
in order to feel like you exist,

00:14:10.011 --> 00:14:12.251
when you can just be,

00:14:12.795 --> 00:14:15.045
I kind of actually think that's real love.

00:14:15.384 --> 00:14:16.885
Thanks very much.

00:14:17.037 --> 00:14:20.195
(Applause)