It appears, perhaps, that Olivia Rodrigo has manifested her next relationship. Just one month after the artist’s third studio album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, hit streaming platforms, she was spotted with a new potential love interest—one who seemingly fulfills a key request in her song “Expectations.”
On Monday, photos were shared of the star returning to New York City after a trip to Iceland, and she wasn’t alone. Quickly after, the public identified the mystery man as Julian Croonenberghs, a Brown University alum working at private equity firm Hg Capital. (He’s not your average finance bro though; he also played for the U.S. Men’s National Field Hockey Team from 2018-2020 and speaks Dutch and French.)
We don’t know how the pair met, but Croonenberghs’s sister, Jade, works in the music and entertainment industry.
While much of You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love reflects on her relationship with and breakup from British actor Louis Partridge, the penultimate track takes a dive into the writer’s newfound single era. With imagery of boys on drugs and bars in Silver Lake, she sings candidly about the horrors of modern dating and the state of men out there. “He wasn’t smart or funny, I convinced myself he was / He had a great apartment and a car his parents bought / I thought that he was perfect, and now his number’s blocked,” she outlines in the opening verse.
One line that has gained particular attention comes from the chorus, where Rodrigo declares that she “won’t settle for a guy with a fake job.”
In an interview with music reviewer Anthony Fantano, she addressed the lyric: “When I said fake job, I was picturing the guys that I’ve met in L.A. or New York who have really rich parents, who are like ‘producers’ or like ‘DJs’ or like ‘creative directors,’ you know what I mean? And I’m like, ‘I think you work maybe one day a week.'”
Well, Croonenberghs is definitely working more than that.
