Eli Rallo on Dating Apps, “Sex and the City” and Her New Book (Exclusive Excerpt)

Rallo, deemed a “Carrie Bradshaw for the TikTok age,” has written a new book with tips on navigating modern-day dating

Eli Rallo, the content creator and host of the Miss Congeniality podcast, has completed a new milestone: writing a book. The 24-year-old New Jersey native, who currently has more than 112M likes on TikTok, has collected her tips for navigating modern-day dating into her new book I Didn’t Know I Needed This, which publishes today from Harvest.

Rallo, who posts videos to her over 788K TikTok followers on topics like "rules" for dealing with breakups and how to take care of yourself after a bad date, has become something of a dating guide. In her book, she doles out advice for dating at every stage — from first embracing being single to getting onto dating apps, from preparing for a first date to recovering from getting ghosted. Rallo includes her own dating experiences and theories, such as the "ten-date theory," which states that if you go on ten dates with ten different people, you will come out with at least five viable options, which will eventually whittle down to one person. At the book’s core, however, is Rallo’s belief that you are in charge of your own choices, every step of the way.

Here, Rallo chats with PEOPLE about her process and her dos and don'ts of dating, followed by an exclusive book excerpt.

You're a podcaster, content creator and now author — how did I Didn't Know I Needed This come about?
I went to college for theater and creative writing, so I always knew that I wanted to go into [a creative field] of some kind. I was going to go to Columbia to get my master's in journalism, which I did end up doing in August of 2020. Then I had a random viral video on TikTok. I still went to grad school, even worked as a journalist for a bit of time after graduating from Columbia, but my social media really took off.

I was actually technically in-between jobs – I had left my one journalism job for some extenuating circumstances – and I was looking to do something else. While I was applying, interviewing, trying to get my feelers out, I was reached out to by my now-literary agents who said they might have an idea for a book. One thing led to the next, and that was almost two years ago, so it was a very crazy process. I feel like two years sounds like a really long time, but it also feels like yesterday, so it's been amazing.

You’ve been called a “Carrie Bradshaw for the TikTok age.” How do you feel about that comparison?
I have mixed emotions about it, obviously, because I think Carrie as a being...I want to be everything that she is. Fabulous, confident, stylish, artistic, creative, successful — but then when we actually watch the show and get into the nitty-gritty, most specifically how she treats her friends and how often she complains, I'm like, "Oh, boy. I hope I don't act that way." I don't think I do. I would never describe myself that way, but I'm honored that people see me in her, or her in me, because I definitely, when I was growing up, would watch the show and be like, "That's what I want to do with my life."

I think that it's special that I could have watched that show when I was 15 years old and thought, "That's what I want to do with my life," and then 10 years later, I am doing that with my life. I've made a lot of connections to people that worked on the show or [been] a part of the show from the mass amount of people that tell me that I'm giving Carrie Bradshaw. I'll always pay homage to Carrie, but I'm also carving out my own little space in the world and on the internet as well.

Related: Is It Still Possible to Find Love Like the 'Sex and the City' Characters Did? We Tried It

How do you approach writing about dating in today’s world?
Even though the world of dating is transient, I hope that the message and the theme of the book is a permanent thing that can always be true, because I feel like it is. Even if eventually the chapter about dating apps might be outdated, or the way that we communicate to other people in romantic ways might be outdated, I just hope that people really look at the themes and the message as something everlasting.

It was definitely interesting to write about dating, especially through my own experience in that lens. I feel like the internet has really helped me to have a very broad view of how people are feeling in dating today. I'm always talking to my followers throughout my day and connecting to them and seeing how they feel or what thoughts they're having. That's really a lovely and special part about my job: the ability to have connection and learn from my audience as well.

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Let’s talk about some of the specific rules in your chapter about dating apps. What does it mean to have a dating app ghostwriter?
In my experience with having friends and having single friends and having friends that are dating and on apps, people in my life see me as somebody that's a writer, a creative, good with words, witty. A lot of times I feel like I was doing my friends' dating profiles with them or for them or just helping them, or we were all doing them together.

They were like, "Oh, Eli, you always have great ideas about X, Y, Z. Let's do it together." Beautiful, done. I feel like a lot of times I was taking [on] the role of the ghostwriter for other people's apps and app profiles, so I just thought it was fun, too.

Who wants to [be] like, "All right. Let's download this app and put ourselves out there and make prompts and put our best foot forward, boohoo." Of course, that's going to suck. What about me and you go out and get some drinks, and we're having a good night and we open up the apps and we're f---ing around with the prompts. We're being silly and being goofy. All of a sudden that's fun. All of a sudden you're like, "I am somebody that I would swipe right on.”

Related: Stars Who Have Used Dating Apps and What They Had to Say About Them

I like that idea of reframing the process as collaborative. You have people who love you, and who are supportive of you, bringing out traits that you might not have shared yourself.
Yeah, 100%. Obviously, I think highly of myself, but my best friend is going to think, I would say, more highly of me or less critically of me. She's going to be like, "You look amazing in that photo. You've got to post that photo. How are you not confident in that photo? You look amazing."

All of those things, just having your own hype woman. I always say you should treat yourself like you treat your best friends. Your best friends treat you amazing for a reason. They love you. Having them be a part of the process just makes it more fun and lighthearted, and it's not as stressful and scary.

You write in your list of rules that Snapchat is a big “no.” Why?
Somebody not wanting your messages in a solid, receipt-able format — that's never going to be a good thing. I'm not saying that if you have a boyfriend or friends, you can't Snapchat them pictures throughout your day or whatever else. That's fine. But when it's your primary form of communication, it's never a good thing, because that person or you yourself likes the fact that it's not in permanent ink.

I just think if somebody has your phone number, and they're choosing not to use it, you need to ask yourself why. There are exceptions to this rule. Maybe there's a world in which you're seeing someone and it goes from Snapchat to text to a ring, and you're married with kids.

I have no idea. Crazier things have happened, but as I've seen it and as a lot of other people have seen it, for the most part, if someone has your phone number and they're choosing to use Snapchat, there's a reason for that. It's likely because they're looking to have something casual with you. Otherwise, they would be fine messaging you in permanence.

Your last rule is the “ten-date theory,” which is ultimately a numbers game, with ten potential dates leaving you with one viable option. Can you elaborate on this rule?
I think that we have this idea in our brain that there's one true soulmate for us. If you break up with someone that's the love of your life, you're never going to love again. Or some people say your first love is puppy love, but your second love is the real love, and there are only two loves. That is such a limited and, honestly, destabilizing way to think about love. That is not the case.

I write about soulmates and how I think that we have probably an infinite number of opportunities to meet people that could be our soulmate. So the "ten-date theory" is a way to show people that it is a numbers game. It's about luck. It's about fate in many ways as well, but it's about luck, and it's about numbers.

One of those people [on those 10 dates] could be a viable partner for you because that's a lot of people. I think it's more about telling people there's no one way to meet someone. There's no one scientific theory, but if you are actively dating and putting your best foot forward and going on app dates and getting set up by friends, you're going to meet someone because you're putting the odds in your favor.

That's a whole episode of Sex and the City, in fact. There's a whole episode where Charlotte tells Carrie, "You have two loves of your life." Carrie realizes she's already been in love with Aidan and Big, and she's single. She spirals because she's like, "Oh my God." I'm pretty sure by the end of the episode she realizes that it's not true, or maybe she realizes it is true.

Related: Sarah Jessica Parker Reveals Why Her New Heroine in 'Divorce' Is 'Wonderfully Different' than Carrie Bradshaw

I think there's so many limited ways that we think of dating that make people hate dating. There are ways to make it more fun and easier or even like a self-challenge. That's what that rule is trying to accomplish. 

What do you want readers to take away from this book?
I think the most special thing that I see happening when people read is they take what they need to take from it. What someone needs to take from this book might be something I didn't even intend to write, and that is very exciting for me. The idea that someone could say, "Oh, my God. I had this breakthrough after I read your book because of X, Y, Z." In my brain, I could say, "Well, that was not intentional. That was not what I was trying to do."

I feel like so often we're trying to shove one message down people's throats, but the only message I'm trying to get across here is that you always have yourself. You always have your choice. You always have your voice. Use it. Let's talk about that, especially through the lens of dating.

See Rallo’s full list of rules for dating apps below:

Rules for Dating Apps
1. On a dating app profile, 90 percent of the photos should be of JUST you.
2. Get a dating app ghost writer. Have your friends help you.
3. Make your prompts on your profile approachable—give people an easy in.
4. If a date is not set within forty-eight hours of connecting on a dating app, it is time to move on.
5. HUMOR is a green flag, always.
6. NO. SNAPCHAT.
7. You are the captain now. It is not all about if THEY like YOU. It’s also about if you like them!
8. The stakes are low, so keep them low—you’re just trying this person on!
9. The ten-date theory.

From I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED THIS by Eli Rallo. Copyright © 2023 by Eli Rallo. Reprinted by permission of Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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