From weekly podcast to published book: Four years of The Independent’s Millennial Love

As Olivia Petter marks the release of her relationship book based on the Independent’s award-nominated podcast, she looks back on what four years of talking about love has taught her

(Olivia Petter)

At the age of 23, I’d never been in a long-term relationship, had only slept with two people, and thought romance was like something out of a Richard Curtis film. I was clueless about love, which is why it’s strange that my editor asked me to start doing a weekly podcast about it. The brief was simple: explore the impact the digital revolution has had on the way young people date now.

That podcast was Millennial Love, and it has since been nominated in the British Podcast Awards, garnered more than one million downloads, and featured an array of best-selling authors, musicians, and TV stars as guests, including everyone from Sara Pascoe to Raven Smith. It has also become the inspiration for my book of the same name, which combines memoir with social commentary and anecdotes from previous podcast guests.

It’s funny to think how much has changed in the four since that podcast started. Not just in my own life – I’ve now been in a long-term relationship for nearly three years – but in the world around us and how that has shaped the conversations we’ve had on the show. Initially, my co-host and I would get together every week, pick subjects to discuss that had been in the news, and share tidbits from our own dating lives. We covered a lot. From sober dating and attachment styles to texting compatibility to period sex. Nothing was off the table.