To all the discussions yet to be
When creating “To All the Boys I’ve Dated Before” I envisioned literary conversations between friends and cohorts that centered on may aspects of this book. This collection of poems tells a deeply personal journey that navigates modern dating and all the encompasses it. Yet, while the book is personal, the lessons are fundamental truths that exist within each of us and lessons we all must go through. Therefore, I give you…the discussions yet to be for you and your friends or cohorts to discuss in your book clubs!
First Loves and What Happens After
The one who shaped you before you knew you were being shaped. The version of yourself you can only see clearly from five years away.
Who was your William? What did they help you become without knowing it?
In the book, the author has a basic understanding of French. He is attempting to communicate in a language practically foreign to him with a basic understanding, yet trying to express complex thoughts—have you ever had to express complex thought to/about someone with limitations either in language or knowledge of situations? If so, what would you go back and say now that you have experienced it?
Have you ever had to rebuild your faith from scratch (from God or from others)? What does your version of "finding God at the beach" look like?
The Power of Belief tracks the erasure of self in real time. Have you ever looked back and realized you'd stopped doing something you loved for someone who didn't even notice?
What's the one relationship you're genuinely grateful ended?
If you could write two sentences to the version of yourself in your first love, what would you say?
The Widower
What happens when you love someone who is still loving someone else.
Is Anthony the widower or the one who passed?
Have you ever been in a relationship where you felt like you were competing with a ghost of someone else (living or dead)?
The Warning says: "Don't be threatened by the dead. Be wary of the ones they leave behind." Has someone's grief ever become your burden to carry?
A Sad Truth: "I knew it wasn't love when I realized you're with me because you can't be alone." How do you tell the difference between someone choosing you and someone needing you?
What act of unexpected kindness had a profound impact upon you?
From the list in “How To Know If You're Anxiously Attached” which item hits closest to home?
The Psychologist
The one who saw you completely. And used it.
Have you ever felt reduced to one dimension of yourself by someone who claimed to love you?
The Great Impersonator describes someone who echoed your own insecurities back at you deliberately. How do the people who know us most deeply sometimes become the most dangerous to us?
The Talk ends with "you deserve to be held, you deserve someone to see you." Why is it sometimes easier to know what we deserve intellectually than to actually accept it from someone?
One Last Confession ends with humor. Where in your own life do you use laughter to hold something that's actually breaking you?
Gay In The City imagines the relationship as an HBO series with a reunion ending. What story are you still telling yourself about someone that might not be true?
The Regrets
The chapter that turns the lens around. Not what was done to you. What you did.
Is there someone you owe an apology to?
To The Boy From Fergie's: "I wish I had never met you so that I wouldn't have to ruin you." Have you ever recognized your own capacity to cause damage? How do you hold that without letting it become another form of self-destruction?
Have you ever been the one waiting? Have you ever been the one who came back without intending to stay?
This is the shortest chapter in the book. Why do you think sitting with guilt feels different from sitting with grief?
He Chooses Himself
The arrival. .
The Greatest Love Of Your Life describes the love that is still coming. What does your version of that person look like, and how does the poem's final turn, becoming that love for yourself, land with you?
How To Be A Gilmore: "Never let anyone dilute you. Stay the original flavor you are." In what areas of your life have you allowed yourself to be diluted? What would it mean to go back to your original flavor?
An Ode To My Dearest Friends names five people and what each one means. If you were writing this poem, who would be in it, and what would you say that you've never said out loud?
The View From The Septa is the fantasy of reunion entertained and then released. Have you ever consciously chosen to keep walking? What made it possible?
The Unfinished Marriage Vow ends mid-sentence. If you had to finish writing it based on someone in your own life, what would you say?
Does the Author ever truly choose himself?
