I wrote this for a submission for something but it didn’t make the cut and while that felt a little bit gutting, it does mean that I get to put it on here. The prompt as it were was writing a letter to your younger self and I ended up here.
I’ve changed the title (because it wasn’t named after a song and what is a Substack post of mine without a song title as a name) and made some small changes because I wrote it before I was 31 and now I am 31.
Dear 26 year old me,
A version of me that is now half a decade old, but also feels like a version of me that existed lightyears ago.
The only advice I have for you now at 31 is simple; do not date.
More specifically do not date the boy who said your hair was wild and kept calling you a model because you happen to be tall. Do not date the boy just because he is 6”6 and said that he likes Brooklyn 99. Do not date the boy who tells you that he loves Taylor Swift and then only talks the physical ways in which he loves her because let’s be real other than the height you look nothing like her. (Although you can thank him for making you watch the Reputation Tour because it did remind you that she is a master lyricist and one day that will spark a match that opens the creativity floodgates in a way that you will not believe.)
Do not date the boy who gloats about the fact that he had been asked out by other women on dating apps but he was turning them down because he found The One. Do not date the boy who while also calling you The One calls you Queen. Do not date the boy who feels the need to tell you that he is impressed that you would eat something like a burger because of your ‘model looks’ and the fact that you work out. Do not date the boy who insists on seeing 1917 on a date and then seems put out when you are not jazzed by the whole experience.
Do not date the boy who invites you to his flat a month in and says ‘there is no pressure’ and then within minutes has you pinned to the side of his fridge and is trying to stick his hands into your underwear and then gets openly perturbed when you tell him to calm down and not stick his unwashed fingers inside you when it’s drier than the Sahara down there. Do not date the boy who then insists on rubbing his penis all over you and when you say that you would rather not have sex he checks that it’s okay if you can still get him off and then starts to pull away immediately once he’s found a release.
Do not date the boy that ended things after that failed attempt at sex. Block his number in amongst your tears on the Overground on the way home. Do not say that you want to still be his friend. Do not engage. That should be it. Drawing the line there will save you so, so much. Most importantly your self-worth (and maintaining a regular menstrual cycle).
But say you don’t believe me, the one of us who made it to the other side, here are some more reasons to not date the boy
Do not date the boy because he said he lived in London but he actually lived in Kent and as a result, you have to make ninety minute journeys from his flat back to your house after midnight. Weekly. For 6 months. Even when he said that he would drive you back. In fact the one time he did drive you back because all the trains were cancelled he somehow made it your fault that you found yourself in that situation.
Do not date the boy who drives you to Eastbourne/Beachy Head and then proceeds to watch the cricket on his phone while you are at a pub waiting for a Sunday Roast. And then he takes a portable radio onto the clifftop and makes you sit there while he holds it to his ear and ignores you for the sake of cricket commentary.
Do not date the boy who plans for you to meet his best friend and then doesn’t tell you that he is going straight to Waterloo instead of meeting you at St Pancras like he said he would so you are left standing in King’s Corss for nearly 40 minutes. Do not date the boy who then enters a dick swinging contest with said best friend because he wants to show off that he managed to bag you. He thinks it’s endearing and is incapable of reading your body language which is annoyed at best, angry at worst.
Do not date the boy who does not appreciate the sexiness that is dry humping. Do not date the boy who stops taking any kind of interest in your orgasms and just lies there while you get yourself off yet continually insists that you get him off. Do not date the boy who says things like “I’d use my tongue but I don’t want to get hair in my teeth” but proceeded to wave his penis about your face in expectation. (Also, don’t get a complex about having pubic hair, he had the same attitude post-Brazilian also, so he was just a knob.)
Do not date the boy who makes you cry on your birthday. Do not date the boy who doesn’t appreciate Wicked in the slightest (no one has to love it like you do, but indifference or borderline dislike is not the energy you need in your life). Do not date the boy who said he would watch Bridesmaids (aka your favourite film) with you and then tries to have sex with you throughout because he doesn’t find it funny…
Do not date the boy who insists that you spend Valentine’s Day with him, his sister and her partner (both of which you are meeting for the first time) and then once again tries to show off.
Do not date the boy that you are reluctant to introduce to your best friend. Or your parents. Or your brother. Because you know. You know. And R knows. She knows so much that she knew she didn’t to become an emotional support system when you told her you broke up with him because she knew that you were fine.
Do not date the boy who wants a reward for reading Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race in the summer of 2020 while you are just trying to make it through the day because the white supremacists are out and vocal. Do not date the boy who then makes you feel bad because you stop showing him affection like you’re not spending all your time in survival mode. He’s proven that he is not a relationship worth nurturing because it’s more exhausting than beneficial.
But I know you, so I know that you are not going to believe that you let any of those things slide. You are not going to believe that you contorted yourself in so many ways for the sake of a boy.
So here are some other things that you need to know.
The work to build yourself back to what you were before you dated the boy is shit. The months involve a lot of inner work. They involve teaching yourself how to be alone once again. Not lonely, rarely lonely, just alone.
You have to do a lot of them in some form of isolation, but you are not alone there, everyone is in some form of isolation for a long time.
Getting back out there and enjoying doing things on your own is daunting. It feels odd for a while. People still want to make you feel odd for choosing to do things solo, but that’s fine. It’s not about them. It’s about you.
It’s about finding your own peace again. Which you will do. And will learn that there is nothing wrong with you finding peace and solace in being single and not having any desire to change it.
I can tell you now that the foundations you have built are nothing compared to what you will have by the time you hit 31. You think this now and get proven wrong but I can tell you now with absolute certainty that you won’t contort yourself into impractical shapes to keep someone who isn’t contributing that much to your life in the grand scheme of things.
But still, do not date the boy.
Love,
31 year old me
Jumpin’ Jumpin’
What I’m reading - Roll Call Time (I think this is shorter than last time…)
ARCs read - Rival Hearts - Maggie Rawdon (out today) and Mortgage of Convenience - Dani McLean (out now) (both on Kindle Unlimited)
Other books - Player - Hattie Jude, Splintered - Isabel Lucero, Their Ball Boy - Addison Beck, Before the Chaos - Maggie Rawdon (a prequel to Rival Hearts), Rules of Our Own - J. Wilder, Muted - S.E Green, Bride - Ali Hazelwood (my entire personality right now, it is truly for the Jacob girlies, but then also kind of for the Alice ones as well), Kismet - Ashley James and The Influencer - August Jones. (all but Bride and on Kindle Unlimited).
Currently reading - Girls with Razor Hearts - Suzanne Young (still, I don’t think I’ve read anymore of this book since the last one of these, it will not be on the next roll call), A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik (this is a re-read) and Fangirl Down - Tessa Bailey
(Bookshop links are affiliate links)
What I’m watching - This Is Us s6 has been sitting there just waiting to be watched pretty much since it became available but it required some emotional resolve before embarking. That emotional resolve has been found and we are reaching the end.
Title Inspiration - A Boy Like That - West Side Story (2021)