Dolly Alderton: Seven lies millennials are told

Sex and the City has a lot to answer for. Photo / Getty Images

Dolly Alderton loves being a millennial, but not everything is good as avocado and Marmite on toast.

I am proud to be a millennial. I don't see it as a derogatory way to describe a person. I don't mind being called a snowflake (feeling things is good), and I like our generational cuisine (try avocado with Marmite on toast — you'll never look back). I enjoy various pet Instagram accounts (I point you towards Ludwik the hairless guinea pig).

But I do think millennials have been lied to. We've been sold duds and led up the garden path and set to chase the proverbial wild geese. Here are just some of those millennial myths.

Homeowning

For too long I have obsessed about property ownership. I have boiled with jealousy after visiting the flats of home-owning friends who have been helped with their deposit by their parents or the government. I have felt like a failure. I have listened to baby-boomers when they told me: "Renting is just throwing money away." It has taken me years to question this declaration and realise the extent of its insanity. Renting is not "throwing money away", you literally get a home in exchange. I cannot think of a more important thing to spend your money on. The obsession with home ownership has been inherited from a generation that lived in a totally different property climate, and we need to let it go.

Brunch

I am through with restaurant brunch. Long queues, overpriced food, undercooked eggs, not enough bread, too much booze for a Sunday morning, which inevitably leads to a hangover at 3pm or an all-day bender that sees you sending a drunken text to a colleague you fancy and have to face the next morning.

Sex

The lies told to us by Sex and the City, pornography, romcoms and Reddit have led to us all being totally perplexed by sex. Why do they do it on the floor when there's a perfectly good bed next to them? Why do the men on YouPorn do that tapping thing? And why did those four women all have such demonstrative orgasms from half a minute of missionary?

Weddings

Our parents' generation knew how to have a wedding. Register office, local pub, bride in a dress that cost £150 and was slightly froofier than a normal one. They did not feel the need to stage-manage an event to rival Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl, including a personalised website with a 4,000-word description of how the couple met.

Prosecco

For years I drank pint after pint of the stuff, thinking it was the height of decadence. But I have finally realised that prosecco is not what we think it is. It tastes thin and sour, and it gives you a dreadful headache (yes, yes, I admit that may have been the pint thing and not specifically prosecco's fault). I have now seen the light and only drink crémant (the £9 stepping stone to champagne) or prosecco's drier Spanish sister, cava.

Small-plate dining

"Would you like me to explain the menu?" the waitress asks, before telling you she recommends two to three dishes per person. First of all, if there is a need to "explain" a menu, then it should be very clear that the menu is broken; it's rotten at the core. Second, two to three dishes per person is never enough. Five of them would barely be enough. And they all cost £10! Ten pounds for three croquettes! Ten pounds for a slice of cheese! Imagine explaining it to your grandma. It doesn't make any logistical sense — none of it makes any sense. I once shared a miniature ceramic pot of soup with six other diners. Pathetic.

Opinions

Once seen as a thing to exchange, evolve and learn from, now seen as totally unmalleable permanent proclamations to make to the world as definitive evidence of what a good and clever person you are. Opinions are not commodities you accumulate like fast cars to show off your unbreakable brilliance. Or things to detail in a definitive list while imperiously speaking on behalf of your generation. Bloody millennials.

Written by: Dolly Alderton:

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