The Great RomCon?

Hope and excitement are powerful human emotions. We all hope for a better tomorrow, whether in our personal or professional lives. Dating apps and social media play into our optimism by showing us aspirational lifestyles, complete with the people that we might want to live them with. But sometimes this promise can turn disappointing, and even dark.

That’s what I want to discuss with today’s guest, Jemma Forte (Instagram, X). Jemma i...

Are our cities and their nightlife changing for the worse, or just evolving to meet modern tastes? When they were first launched, dating apps were originally intended to augment and supplement the existing ways that we might meet someone. One of the challenges of this is that some of the places that would traditionally be fruitful hunting grounds in the West for looking for a date - bars, pubs and nightclubs - have seemingly been i...

Introspection and self-reflection may have become modern-day virtues, but at times we will require an independent, impartial sounding board to truly understand how our past affects our current feelings and behaviour. This is the role of the therapist.

We have all experienced painful memories that have harmed our relationships. So, how can we come to terms with trauma and move forward positively? This is what we will be exploring wit...

In our modern society, we have unparalleled access to other like-minded people and limitless potential for social connection through technological platforms. Yet there is widespread concern that our society is becoming more fragmented and lonely, with time spent on social media making us feel depressed. Dating apps now play a huge role in looking for love, but are they hampering the making of genuine connections?

To discuss this, my...

When we are looking for a date, people often say how important it is that they can make you laugh. This is especially true when looking for a long-term relationship - you want to be with someone who is funny if you are in for the long haul! But wit is often difficult (and sometimes dangerous) to get across online, where tone, timing and accentuation are lost. How can humour win you love, and can you 'laugh someone into bed'?

These a...

It is sometimes said that we now live in the 'attention' economy, where the real product being sold by free or freemium services is us: what we are looking at, watching and engaging with. We call it paying attention as we are giving something of ourselves to our subject. Contrary to popular belief, we are not good multi-taskers, so our attention is necessarily a limited resource. I wanted to look at what our seemingly increasing ad...

Has the constant diet of schmatlz and heart-warming fairytales piped in from LA affected our romantic culture in the UK, and if so - is that a problem?

I speak to film and TV screenwriter Emily Carlton about how the depiction of love and romance has changed on the silver screen and what effect this is having on relationships in the real world.

We discuss how women and relationships on film have changed over the past 30 years: from th...