Though she's best known for sharing her dating tips and "rules" on TikTok, Eli Rallo is offering even more wisdom through her upcoming book, I Didn't Know I Needed This.
Rallo believes that success comes with self-confidence, particularly in the dating world. While she says that she's always been an "opinionated" person with a strong sense of self, it took some time to develop self-worth.
TikTok Star Eli Rallo Shares Her Dating Hacks
"I think society really sees, like loud, opinionated women as something to fear or something to immediately squash or stifle," she tells Sonia Baghdady of Advocate Now. "Society doesn't like that type of woman. It's not something that they're used to or told to tolerate."
It was examples set by other strong women that Rallo says first instilled confidence within her. She shares that she was inspired by many through reading, which inspired her to pursue the creative field, and pen her own book.
"Through reading and surrounding myself with strong, opinionated women to look up to, I realized that I'm not too much and I can act how a man acts," Rallo explains. "There's no sort of script that I have to follow."
"I Didn't Know I Needed This" dives deeper into the dating world from Rallo's perspective, which she hopes will shine a light on the experiences of women, while also helping readers navigate their own experiences.
"I think a lot of times women and non-men specifically look at dating as though they're in the passenger seat and they're waiting for someone to drive them around," she says. "But you have the agency to make choices."
Rallo adds: "You're both dating each other. You're both on the same level. And once you start realizing you're in the driver's seat, you can make a decision to hit the gas and go, to put the car in reverse, to break, to get out, to stop, to look at the view, to pick somebody up, to drive by yourself."
For more interviews like these, watch Advocate Now on The Advocate Channel.
