Dee Salmin

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When Dee Salmin was growing up in Perth, her father, a Russian ballet dancer, was the man of the house.

Life at home and every choice that Dee, her siblings, and her mum made revolved around his whims and moods.

Dee worshiped her parents and all the opportunities they fought for her to have, and so Dee grew up thinking that's what healthy love looked like, and it's what she sought out in her own relationships with men as she got older.

I really do feel like there's so much romance and love in my life, and I'm really grateful that at 32 I've been able to, to come to that realization because a- after my book, you don't really know how it'll be received, but I've had so many women in their 50s and 60s and 70s even just saying like, "I've only just gotten to a place where I've..." maybe post-divorce, right? They've done that journey of being the wife and the mother and sacrifice and not finding out who they truly are and chasing their dreams, and they're now going through that period of their life, and they're so happy and they realize that, like, yeah, you don't need that partner to achieve that love and to feel that love.

I think that is a beautiful place for us to finish.

Dee Salmin, thank you for being my guest on Conversations.

Oh, thank you so much, Brooke.

Like, in fact, you can't really be any better of a position [upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Dee Salmin.

Hi, I'm Bib Rasmussen, and welcome to The Hook Up, where we talk all things love, sex, dating, and relationships.

And today, we have got a very special guest joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Now, look, you have been part of a documentary that is out today called State of Man.

Dee and I watched it.

It's kind of like the Louis Theroux doco for Australians.

Generally, like a partner who knowingly gambles with your safety is certainly not safe to build a life with.

Hi, I'm Dee Salmin.

Hi, I'm Pip Rasmussen.

And this is The Hookup where we talk all things love, sex, dating and relationships.

It's a very like stomach like, ugh, because it makes you feel a bit sick thinking about it.

And you can really hear that in Grace's story.

Dee, what I noticed in some of the DMs and comments was there was this kind of common theme of people Partners wanting to get their sweat on, like Grace kind of said, and we had another DM before saying that they were too slow and they wanted to run up the mountain.

So many people were saying this.

You just opt out for a while.

My guest today is Dee Salmon, and she did exactly that for three years.

And despite being single for most of her life, it was during her boy sober era that she realized she'd never actually been alone or had the chance to really get to know herself.

There'd always been some guy she was texting, pursuing, waiting for, hooking up with, and sometimes crying over.

Been there.

Dee is the host of Triple J's The Hookup and the author of the brilliant It's Not Love, Actually.

And this conversation is really about what she discovered when she finally took men out of the equation.

We talk about male validation and the pressure to be the cool girl.