Relationships Talk

7:36 PM PDT 5/11/2018 by Adrienne Wichard-Edds

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle show the value of real-life relationships over technological connections, said the author and Hearst content chief at her Washington soiree, where Sen. Amy Klobuchar and media doyenne Sally Quinn were among guests toasting her tome.

Joanna Coles knows plenty about why your love life is flagging, and she’s going to tell you how to make it a whole lot better. On tour for her new book, Love Rules: How to Find a Real Relationship in a Digital World, the former Cosmopolitan editor, Hearst chief content officer and executive producer of (and inspiration behind) Freeform’s The Bold Type argues that one of the first rules of dating in a swipe-happy world is to stop depending on technology. “You can’t use only dating apps,” she said at her May 9 event in Washington, D.C. “You also need to join sports teams, join the choir, get involved in a community activity that allows you to expand your social circles and have a bigger life. You need to use social apps to try to expand your whole life — not just to find one person who can save you from the rest of your life.”

The D.C. stop on Coles’ tour was an intimate gathering at one of the city’s buzziest new restaurants, Del Mar (the Obamas are fans, as is their longtime advisor Valerie Jarrett), hosted by a handful of local influencers and recognizable faces, including MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle and media guru Tammy Haddad. Among a small but power-packed crowd on Wednesday evening, U.S. senators (Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar) mingled with media moguls (Sally Quinn) and well-heeled businessmen (Mark Ein) clinked glasses with journalists-du-jour (Michael Wolff). In a sleeveless, tuxedo-style jumpsuit, Coles glided among them, dispensing dating advice to single partygoers and toasting the opportunity to gather IRL. “Imagine how boring and dull and depressing this would be if we were doing this all on a Google Hangout,” Coles said, raising her glass to the intimate crowd gathered on the waterfront perch.

“Dating apps are fantastic tools, but they can’t actually do the work for you of having a relationship,” she told THR. “I worry that people spend too much time online as voyeurs of other people’s lives and stop becoming participants in their own lives. Participating in your own life is fraught with peril — there are ups and downs, you make mistakes, but what you get out of it is incredible excitement, joy, connection.”

Coles wrote her book as an antidote to the distance created by the convenience and impersonality of online connections. “I think we sold people a false bill of goods about digital connections being the same or as valuable as real-life connections,” she said. “Even the way Facebook has co-opted the word friend … a Facebook friend is not the same as a friend you went to high school with, or the friend whose hand you hold as they’re going through chemo, or the friend who asks you to be in their wedding party.”

While characters on The Bold Type — which was renewed for two more 10-episode seasons on Freeform in January, with season 2 launching June 12, had some adventures with Tinder in the first season — Coles, if she must, would choose another app: “Bumble, because it empowers women. Women have to make the first move, and they have to do it within 24 hours. So you can’t virtual-shop on Bumble the way I virtual-shop on Net-a-Porter — which is to say I put a Gucci jacket in my cart and I never commit to purchase.”

However, real-life social circles are where the best matches happen, Coles insists. Take the latest royal pairing: “Meghan and Harry were set up on an old-fashioned blind date by friends. Your friends have a sense of who you are, of your character, and can put you together with someone in ways that algorithms can’t.” As for whether the British-born Coles is looking forward to the royal nuptials, “It’s a rather wonderful love story, isn’t it? The fact that [Meghan] has a rather unusual background for the royal family is great. They seem very welcoming of her, very excited. I’m sure it will be hard for her to live within the confines of the royal family in Britain, but clearly they’re trying to modernize and remain relevant.”

Coles remains realistic about the prevalence of dating apps and acknowledges that social media has its place: “If you’re gay growing up in rural Louisiana, how wonderful to be able to reach out to other gay people and have your life choices validated by a group of people,” she said. “But friendship in real life is the most valuable thing we have. Relationships are the connective tissue that binds us together. We cannot contract that out to digital.”

RULES GIRL: Meghan Markle follows The Rules.

Before she met her Prince Charming, the royal-to-be reportedly got dating tips from a self-help book called The Rules.

“Meghan used to quote The Rules all the time and really put it into practice with a number of her boyfriends,” a friend told The Sun.

The book, published in the ’90s, was a guide for women who want “marriage in the shortest time possible” and offered rules that a woman should follow to find her Mr. Right.

“She was never without a boyfriend for more than two or three months and always striving to have someone by her side,” the friend said.

The book, written by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, was a bestseller when it was first published in 1995, but also upset many feminists with its old-fashioned advice.

Some of the tips from the controversial dating bible include:

• Don’t talk to a man first (and don’t ask him to dance)
• Don’t meet him halfway or go Dutch on a date
• Don’t call him and rarely return his calls
• Don’t see him more than once or twice a week

She reportedly took advice from the book while dating her ex-husband, film producer Trevor Engelson, 41.

Trevor Engelson attends The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Next Generation reception at My House on November 6, 2009 in Hollywood. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

MARKLE’S EXES: It seems Markle has some very diverse tastes in men.

Her exes reportedly include: an unnamed Argentinian business tycoon from her days as an intern at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires; college basketball star-turned coach Steve Lepore; actor and screenwriter Shaun Zaken; and Scary Movie actor and former porn star Simon Rex, 43.

Simon Rex arrives for the premiere of “Scary Movie 5” at ArcLight Cinemas Cinerama Dome on April 11, 2013 in Hollywood. (Michael Buckner/Getty Images)

The reason why she thought ex-husband Engelson was “The One”? It was his red hair.

A source told The Sun that during her stint at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires in 2003, the then-aspiring actress was told by a fortune teller that she would wed a man with “curly red hair.”

The clairvoyant obviously failed to mention that he’d be a prince.

ROYAL SWIMSUITS MAKE A SPLASH: Forget about commemorative china and shortbread cookies, the royal wedding merchandise bonanza is heading to the beach.

British online printing company Bags of Love says customers have been uploading the faces of the soon-to-be wed royal couple to personalized items on its website.

“Our favourite has to be the Harry and Meghan and Wills and Kate swimsuits,” a spokesman told Metro.

(Bags of Love photos)

“Nothing like printing the face of a Prince or Duchess on a swimming costume and rocking it proudly on the beach,” says the caption on its website.

While the swimsuits might seem a tad odd, they are not the most bizarre royal wedding keepsake. That honour goes to British condom maker Crown Jewels Heritage Condoms for its box of “Royal Wedding Souvenir Condoms.”