ABSTRACT
We live in a time of uncertainty about relationships. Old rules about how to date, couple-up, and commit clash with new ideas, dreams, and technologies. Mainstream media and self-help bombard us with contradictory advice about how to do love and relationships. This chapter provides some historical context to the situation we find ourselves in, and explains our tendency to grasp hold of old, or new, rules in such times of uncertainty. The chapter introduces the concept of an ‘anti self-help’ book: one which locates the bulk of the problem in wider cultural messages and social structures rather than in the individual reader. It also introduces the concept of intersectionality: how the way we understand relationships is located in our particular intersection of gender, sexuality, race, class, nationality, age, generation, etc. The remaining chapters of this book each take one key aspect of relationships and consider the existing rules about it, why we might question these, what alternatives are available, and how we could embrace uncertainty in this area.
