I should preface this by saying that I am 100% fine (beyond just the everyday casual rage I feel at well…the general state of the world) but was just in my feelings and I find the best way to get out of those is to write it out and so here we are.
On a casual Sunday in late June, a series of events aligned and slapped me right in the face with some feelings and I found myself hurtled back to a weird ass place that once upon a time I had to claw my way out of.
Firstly, I got a Co-Star notification that said ‘can you tolerate being alone?’, which yes, I can. The issue is that I might be a bit too good at tolerating that.
Secondly, I started reading All About Love by bell hooks and even the introduction to that seemed to do a number on me. So much so that once I finished the intro I just had to put the book down and pick up a book that came out of the gothic/horror section of Waterstones Piccadilly.
Thirdly and finally, Instagram’s time-hop feature thingy gave me some memories of an old relationship that at the time was on the brink of falling apart for the first time (it really should have been the only time, but I digress). It was the combo of all three things that sent me over the edge, but the last one was really the kicker.
For whatever reason by the time I reached my mid 20s I had just come to the conclusion that I wasn’t particularly worthy of love.
Maybe it was because I consumed a lot of media that involved teenage girls falling in love and getting their hearts broken and feeling like their world had ended when a boy didn’t like them and I never had that. Even when the world was ending they managed to find love (in a hopeless place).
Maybe it was because I was fed all these tales about how people met ‘the one’ at uni and ended up building whole lives with these people and I think I got hit on once at uni. Maybe twice. In three years. The guys always went for my friends who were smaller and whiter than I was.
Maybe it was because by the time I hit 25 I was acutely aware that I was coming in at about a year younger than my parents were when they got together and 3 years shy of when they became parents to me and I could count the number of boys that I kissed on one hand (still can).
Maybe it’s because my 15 year old brother got a girlfriend then and they are still together over a decade later and he’s younger than me by three years and for whatever reason that balance just doesn’t feel right.
More complicated than thinking that I wasn’t worthy of love, I had also come to the conclusion that maybe I am just too hard to love. It’s been implied to me in the past and I kind of brushed it off, but I guess in some ways I internalised it and looked at myself and decided that it was just too hard for someone else to love me.
So in that regard I just came to the resolution that I was going to have to work really hard on loving myself. After all, RuPaul closes all episodes of Drag Race out with ‘if you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else’. I dismissed the second part as I decided it wasn’t relevant and doubled down on the first part.
Loving myself.
I’m annoying to be around. Or rather, more accurately, I annoy myself a lot. My brain is a very chaotic place to be and I am not very good at shutting it up. I am an incredibly anxious person who can send herself truly insane over fucking nothing. I have an overactive imagination that has never really known when to calm the fuck down and although in some ways it is a blessing because I can channel that into stuff, it is also a curse because it never stops.
As I said before, I am good at being alone. The thing that I found the most annoying about being in a relationship is that suddenly all the time that I spent alone had to be filled by another person involved in my plans because the weekends were the only time we could spend together. I want to just go do things that I want to do and only have to take my own needs and wants into consideration.
Maybe that also makes me a little bit selfish.
The jury is still out on this one, but I might be a bit high maintenance. I think that really depends on what your definition of that phrase is, but personally, I think it’s a phrase that was invented to make women feel bad for having standards and not wanting to be treated like shit.
The things that make a person high maintenance all seem to be surface-level things. I’ve been dragged for getting my nails and eyebrows done on a regular basis, for the fact that I sleep with a silk pillowcase, for using a microfibre towel to dry my hair, for having a skincare routine, for wanting to shower post workout when I am nothing but a sweaty pile of bones on the floor. The list is oddly endless.
It plays into that whole idea of being the ‘Cool Girl’. Gillian Flynn encapsulates that idea flawlessly in Gone Girl and it is something that I find myself coming back to on a regular basis whenever someone wants to throw the phrase ‘high maintenance’ around. There is this idea that everything you do has to be effortless, but if someone sticks around for long enough then they see behind the smoke and mirrors.
And also, and I know that this will sound defensive (let’s get on to that one in a moment), but I sleep on silk pillowcase because it minimises frizz and means I can get up to 3 days out of a wash and go on my hair. I use a microfibre towel for the same reason. I’m in a never-ending battle with the hyperpigmentation on my face and so my skincare routine combats that and also minimises the number of breakouts that I have in general. And I like my eyebrow arch to be in check and to keep my nails looking pretty, but like, my world doesn’t end if neither of those things is true (they sure as hell weren’t in lockdown).
Should I move on to why I think I’m difficult to love with the fact that I am incredibly guarded or the fact that I am not a particularly nice person? They are linked, so let’s two birds one stone this bitch.
I can’t really say that this is a running ‘joke’ between my Dad and me because it’s based on fact and also this is a very truncated version of events, but I’ll do something and he’ll ask why I’ve done it and I’ll respond with ‘I’m not a nice person’ and he’ll say ‘I know’.
Mikki Kendall explained what I mean by not being a nice person in the clearest way that I have ever come across in Hood Feminism (side note, read this book):
I'm a feminist. Mostly. I'm an asshole. Mostly. I say these things because they are true, and in doing so, the fact that I am not nice is often brought up. And it's true: I'm not really a nice person. I am (at times) a kind person. But nice? Nope. Not unless I'm dealing with people I love, the elderly, or small children. What's the difference? I am always willing to help someone in need, whether I know them or not. But niceness is more than helping; it is stopping to listen, to connect, to be gentle with your words. I reserve nice for people who are nice to me or for those who I know need it because of their circumstances.”
I don’t know what came first me realising that I was too nice to people and having it backfire so I built up some solid castle walls or me building the walls and just slowly becoming less nice but at some point in primary school (so ages 4-11) this became the fortress that I existed in and it’s one that I’ve not really ventured out of all that much.
When I tried to be vulnerable, which for me does kind of link with the idea of being nice, to someone it felt like it would get thrown back in my face in a lot of ways. It also paved the way for a lot of condescension and I never received the same level of vulnerability in return. I’m not saying that everything has to be like for like, but it does feel like there should be some reciprocity if you’re telling a person that they are The One…just me?
The only thing that I have really come to learn is that when I try to be ‘nice’ I get it thrown back in my face and have to do a lot of work to get myself back to my own personal equilibrium. It’s exhausting and frankly not worth my time in the grand scheme of things. And so the walls go all the way up and I’m not particularly quick to let them down anymore.
I’m never a straight up bitch to a person but I can’t say that there are people out there that would refer to me as nice. And I’m fine with that to be honest. Not because it minimises the chance of getting hurt but because it’s when I feel the most ‘me’ and at the end of the day I am the primary person who has to live with me.
I feel like this has ended up being a total mess of me trying to figure some stuff out and not really reaching any kind of conclusion on it.
The bottom line is, I can quite comfortably say that I don’t actually think that I am all that difficult to love anymore now and I am fine with the fact that I have a set of standards and boundaries that I am willing to stick to. I am also perfectly fine on my own and take great comfort and joy from being in my own company. I also know my own strengths and weaknesses and am always finding new things out about myself.
As wanky as it sounds, I am currently just doing this thing where I am dating me and am not really all that bothered about finding anyone else. I think somewhere deep down, I am a romantic and so I am can’t be bothered to settle for anything less than a full wooing and at the moment, I am just in the space where I want to invite that energy into my life.
Was there a point to this post - I’m unclear to be honest. But I do know that it got these thoughts out of my head where I don’t want them, so I am taking that as a personal win.
Jumpin’ Jumpin’
What I’m reading - I mentioned that I was reading this book at the end of June, but I finally finished The Devil Makes Three and I’ve had some feelings about it. It is very rare that I am legitimately moved to some kind of physical reaction when it comes to books, but the last line of this one. My God, the last line of this book ruined me and dragged an audible gasp out of my mouth. I have also come to the conclusion that swearing off a whole ass genre, no matter how logical, is actually a sure fire way to make me want it more and so I’ve lifted my self-imposed ban. This means I have now read The Romantic Agenda - Claire Kann and at the other end of the spectrum, I’m getting through The Library of the Unwritten - A.J. Hackwith. Oh, I also read A Lesson In Vengeance - Victoria Lee. I also updated my reading challenge goals for the year to 80 books and 30,000 pages and I am still ahead of schedule for both (not that that is important). (affiliate links)
What I’m watching - I watch a lot of cooking shows. But for whatever reason, I have never watched Iron Chef before. There is a new series on Netflix that keeps getting forced upon me and I finally decided to listen to the recommendation and I am high key obsessed with for the theatrics of it all. Oh, I’m also watching a lot of Athletics as there is a World Championships going on.
What I’m listening to - Lizzo released a truly no skips album in Special, last week and that has been on repeat a lot. It’s hard to pick a favourite so just have Everybody’s Gay.
Title Inspiration - It’s a Frozen song. Specifically a Frozen on Broadway/West End song. Just while we’re here it’s a crime how little Jonathan Groff sang in that first Frozen film. I know it isn’t actually, but it should be. It’s What Do You Know About Love?