It’s Complicated: Confessions of Messy Modern Love

It’s Complicated is a mosaic of human connections in all their shades - from breaking up to making out, quiet contentment to agonising loneliness, sexting to ghosting, navigating friendships to ’fuckboys’, pregnancy loss to profound fulfilment.

If you’ve ever checked your ex’s social media at 2am - or their new partner’s LinkedIn (because it’s the only social profile you can access) - or are having sex with your partner knowing you’re going to leave - or if you can’t stop thinking about the one who broke your heart a decade ago - or if everyone thinks you’re the perfect couple but you’ve been drifting apart for years - or if you’re swiping to fill a void -then you’ve probably felt a smarting of shame. But let me tell you something radical: your darkest secrets, your most repulsively shameful thoughts, feelings, and behaviours: you’re not alone.

Philippa Found’s project emerged during the early days of the pandemic, aiming to dissolve the isolation that gripped us all. Through anonymous submissions, people shared their unfiltered stories. It grew beyond the shadows, featuring in large-scale street exhibitions across the TfL network and earning an award from the London Mayor. It became a counterpoint to the stigma around love stories, standing against the shame we carry with our love.

Beyond lockdown, the project thrived, collecting over 1,500 stories. This short story collection, showcasing 250 curated pieces for the first time, peels back the layers of modern relationships. Each story gives a glimpse into the lives of others; cultivating empathy and reminding us of our shared humanity. By reading about others’ experiences, we learn to understand and embrace ourselves better - our desires (or lack of) and those burning, poisonous, suffocating, uncomfortable feelings.

The short stories are grouped into sections mirroring the stages of a relationship, including platonic ones. These aren’t love stories - they’re stories about love.

iii.EXES

iv.SINGLE

v.HOOKING UP

vi.DATING

vii.IT’S COMPLICATED

viii.FRIENDS & FAMILY

ix.IN A RELATIONSHIP

x.BREAK-UPS

Philippa Found is a London based artist, curator and writer focussing on the female experience. She is the creator of Lockdown Love Stories and is herself an accomplished writer having won awards for short stories: including the Bath Short Story Award and Short Fiction Prize. She has also published a three-part non-fiction book which was nominated for the Feminism and Women’s Studies Book award in 2011. Found has curated multiple art exhibitions in the UK and served as director of ROLLO Contemporary Art for six years.