“[Though] I didn’t really understand why everyone was in love with Timothée Chalamet. I had a theory that a lot of people’s ‘celebrity crushes’ were faked just to fit in.”

In this quote, Alice Oseman highlights how crushes on celebrities are less a matter of individual attraction and more of a societal beauty standard. It also emphasizes how little Georgia understands sexual desire in others, implying she doesn’t understand sexual desire herself—as she is later revealed to be aroace.

“She was right. About knowing me and about me not being like that and about tonight being my last chance to confess the crush I’d had for seven years, and the last chance to kiss someone while I was still a schoolkid, while I had a chance to feel the teenage-dream excitement and youthful magic that everyone else seemed to have had a little taste of.”

Georgia doesn’t have a real crush on Tommy, but wants to feel the expected excitement of a first kiss. Popular media and her peers’ experiences have made her believe there is something magical about teen romance. As she is about to start university, she is running out of time to experience this romance—this pressure being arbitrary but felt nevertheless.

“But it didn’t bother me, because I knew my time would come. It did for everyone. You’ll find someone eventually—that was what everyone said, and they were right. Teen romances only worked out in movies anyway.”

In this quote, Oseman uses a cliché to emphasize the societal pressure to be in a relationship. By encouraging young people to hope and wait for their fated partner, society perpetuates the idea that everyone wants a partner and that a lack of a partner means something is wrong. Georgia has internalized this message through popular media—specifically, teen movies that feature young people finding love. This becomes destructive to her as she discovers her aroace identity.