A Substack is born: Welcome to Commitment Issues

Unpacking the 'after' in Happily Ever After

I really hesitated before starting this Substack. I've so enjoyed reading these direct-to-reader newsletters and descendants of the blog, where you can follow someone's passions or story in a bite-sized weekly newsletter. So why did I pause before firing up my own? There’s no easy way to say it: I'm not at a very interesting time in my life.

I was single for many years, going to parties in London, travelling the world solo for work and having multiple dates per week, ranging from hilarious to plain depressing. I was making bad choices and kissing lots of frogs. My eyeliner was often smudged. I often didn’t pack for a trip until 3am, when my flight was at 7am.

It was chaotic and messy, but never dull.

Above: Seconds before Rylan told me I had “a lovely pair of tits, to be fair”

Now? I've met a lovely man and moved in with him. I live in a particularly nice part of North London. We have a labrador, for Christ's sake. I feel like a completely different person. But then I thought, isn't the very fact that the same Lucy who was flitting about the world, taking selfies with Rylan and Alan Carr at the Attitude Awards and knocking back tequila with complete strangers in Tequila, Mexico - isn't it a little bit interesting that she now finds herself in this position? The truth is, my life would look completely different if I hadn't my partner. Not necessarily better, but wildly different.

Commitment is an interesting thing, especially when you come from a world outside of it. If you've never been in a relationship longer than a few months, or if you've never lived with a partner, the first time doing those things feels a little like being an early pioneer to a new planet. If you're single for most of your 20s and/or 30s - and boy, would I still recommend doing that - you generally have the vague impression that one day, life will sort itself out.

“Settling down was something that society had laid out neatly for me, like a smart pair of chinos and a crisp white shirt for the day after my sparkly dresses and heels began to chafe”

And it’ll sort itself out in one specific way: you’ll stop running and confront your own relationship bullshit, do some work on yourself, think about what you really want and *drum roll* “settle down”. But never once, while this settling down was the vague ultimate goal, did I really think about what that meant and how my life would look on the other side of it.

Above: Life did not suck when I was single and living in house shares with foldaway tables

No. My settling down was simply a fact: one day, you will meet someone and you will merge lives. To quote Monica from Friends, it was something that “society, and by that I mean my mom,” had laid out neatly for me, like a smart pair of chinos and a crisp white shirt for the day after my sparkly dresses and tottering heels began to chafe. I never once questioned how would I feel wearing that wildly different outfit. Commitment - in the most traditional sense, the way 2020s British culture has it laid out for us - felt like something that I hadn't necessarily chosen; something that wasn't necessarily my style.

At this point, you may be worrying that I've been single-shamed into an unnecessary or unhappy relationship. But that's the tricky thing: I haven’t! I truly fell in love with a wonderful person and don't want to do anything next except make a life with him.

However: not every person who gets into a traditional, monogamous, socially-approved relationship finds themselves completely fulfilled by that one thing. If anything, our relationships can conflict with our identity and our pursuit of our individual passions. Yet society is largely set up for us to shrink our lives down to that one thing. Think about the milestones we celebrate: moving in. Engagement photos. Weddings. Baby photos. And, as we know, you only ever hear about the upsides.

Above: Solo travel, which I like to think of as “me-me-me time”

That’s why I find it hard to admit that I sometimes find cookie-cutter relationship life… underwhelming. You simply don't take the first Eurostar to Paris on a whim, or charm your way into an after party, or sing power ballads with 200 other people while being showered by confetti cannons until 3am when you're settled down. Social lives get quieter, seemingly inevitably; solo travel can feel selfish, or a symptom of not being full committed. But why is this the case, and can’t we fight it? I hate the thought that my life has to be unrecognisable just because I met a fellow human that my cavewoman brain likes the smell of.

So this Substack is going to be about keeping in touch with yourself, no matter what your love life is doing. Am I still me? Do I still do the things I love? Am I challenging myself? How much compromise is too much? Perhaps you are also in a relationship and feeling a little lost, through no fault of your partner's - but because life doesn't seem to want us to stay our colourful selves into commitment.

It's a pure reflection of where I am now: in a traditional (albeit unmarried and child-free) set-up that my grandmothers would be proud of, but with a different me - one with more freedom, selfishness and impulsiveness - still visible in the rear-view.

Can we still be truly ourselves after we settle down? How can we break the mould of being in a relationship, married, or a parent to make it more fulfilling for the modern individual?

That's what I'm interested in. And I'd love to hear your thoughts along the way.