The Waves: Gender, Relationships, Feminism · Slate Podcasts

Finding Love Without Romance

·33 min·3 clips

Amy Key chose to write about her life without romantic love, risking pain to invite others into her story.

This episode of The Waves features host Rebecca Onion interviewing author Amy Key about her memoir "Arrangements in Blue," which explores living without romantic love. Key frames her personal story through Joni Mitchell's album "Blue," reflecting on her life from adolescence to age 44. She last had a boyfriend at 22 and uses the book to examine the impact of this prolonged absence of a romantic partnership. Key discusses testing her feelings against the sentiments of Mitchell's album as a teenager, anticipating a future filled with romantic love that largely did not materialize. The book investigates domains of life often privileged for romantic relationships, such as home, intimacy, and financial stability, questioning whether they can be fulfilling alone. Key describes accumulating significant debt in her past, which she connects to attempts to compensate for a lack of love through consumer spending. She analyzes cultural milestones like weddings and homeownership, noting how single people can feel excluded from these ceremonial occasions and collective celebrations. A surprising insight is Key's description of her spending as a form of "self-harm" driven by a lack of faith in her future. She reveals feeling anger and jealousy when repeatedly nursing friends through romantic breakups while hiding her own romantic griefs, which lacked social status. The memoir documents the "blood and guts" of grief, shame, and pain alongside realizations about building a good life independently. Key emphasizes holding ambivalence, acknowledging both the empowerment of solo decision-making and the brutal loneliness of facing crises alone. She advocates for single people designating their own important life events and ceremonies, finding friends receptive to celebrating her book launch like a milestone. Key also connects personal finance to broader housing justice, criticizing the landlord economy and arguing secure housing is a human right. The conversation highlights how she cultivates intimacy through friendships, community, and her relationship with the natural world, rather than solely through romantic partnership. The tone is intimate, reflective, and intellectually curious, blending personal narrative with cultural analysis. The style is a conversational interview that delves into vulnerable emotional territory while examining societal structures. Listeners interested in memoirs, unconventional life paths, feminism, and the intersection of personal and political would appreciate this episode. Those seeking light entertainment or definitive answers about relationships might find its ambivalent, grief-intertwined exploration less engaging.

As heard by us

A quiet, sharp conversation about living without romantic love and the habits built around it.

Rebecca Onion and Amy Key use Joni Mitchell's Blue as a way into a personal discussion about living without romantic love. The episode stays close to Key's own story before widening into money, debt, housing, and the ways spending can get tangled up with wanting to feel more…

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Why you'd press play

A feminist conversation about living without romantic love, with Joni Mitchell's Blue as the frame and money, debt, and housing in the mix.

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