While it’s a given that dating apps have gamified human relationships – that we binge on social media “likes” in lieu of more nourishing connections and are perpetually distracted – she does bring a certain wistful poetry to the pitfalls of “the endless scroll”. In addition to birdwatching and raccoon-stalking, Liptrot fills the longueurs with musings on the role of technology in our lives. Inevitably, there’s a lot of waiting too. (Liptrot doesn’t even try, instead borrowing from Andy Warhol’s diaries and referring to everyone else in the narrative by the initial “B”.) And because all a person ultimately has to offer is themselves, self-absorption is hard to dodge. It’s rarely heroic and inevitably entails flesh wounds to the pride if not spears to the heart, resulting in moping and tears. It’s a quest that can be surprisingly hard to write about – or at least write about well. Meanwhile, she diligently searches for love, setting off on first date after first date. Listen and you’ll hear the songs of cuckoos and nightingales, though good luck spotting one of its raccoon population, a beast whose feral adaptability makes it an elusive talisman for Liptrot.
It’s scored by invisible networks of dog pee. Her Berlin smells of sausages and pollen. Even so, she makes something distinctive of this chronically hip city. It’s a privileged if penurious existence and, for the most part, Liptrot remains in an English-speaking bubble. For instance, don’t eat pomegranate in bed in a sublet apartment. Much of what she will learn in Berlin will be familiar to anyone who, similarly untethered, has embraced the nomadic ways of the “lifestyle migrant”. Appealingly, she happens to have an app on her phone that allows the moon to text her when it’s full
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