how interesting; we are given a code of femininity and are mocked for following it girls and their 600 shoes, girls and their shopping
how interesting; we are mocked for our tastes so we sample extra - girls like you are unhygienic, unprofessional, girls don’t do that sweetie
how interesting; we spit out, come with our claws out, suffer eye-roll and sneer: girls and their feminism, girls with their life-ruining, girls with their mean
what society needs to understand is that friendship and romance are not ranks, tiers, or levels. they are not above or below each other. romance is not a promotion. friendship is not a demotion. romance is not “more than” being friends with someone. friendship and romance are concepts that exist on equal terms, side by side. sometimes they happen to coincide. other times they never intersect at all. how relationships are classified is up to the individuals involved but like?? neither is inherently more or less valuable is the thing
it’s bad when it isn’t your fault. you don’t become a dancer because your body grows in the wrong size (ballerinas don’t have hips, dear), so even though your heart loves it, you shuffle by without it, only doing salsa in the store, taking easy-peasy classes and closing your eyes.
or you love the idea of math, of simplicity, of a language all can speak. but you sit down and they swim in front of your nose, taunting you. you spend hours hunched over a book reading the same two sentences over and over. walk yourself through kumon videos and wikihow and wolfram alpha. but it comes back with a “D” and you gotta just. know you tried and it didn’t work out, did it. this isn’t something you can manage.
there are worse dreams to lose, of course, than the what-ifs. but then you’re lying there half-drunk and saying “yeah, i loved ice skating but my knees gave out” “i wanted to run a bakery but with what startup money” “after he died it didn’t make sense to go to school anymore”. like you know that you never even had a door, that you only had a window to peek in and see a better land. like, you had a glimpse, and even while looking, you knew - this one wasn’t for you.
there’s worse things to lose, you tell yourself. there’s worse things to lose.
modern day romance is being considerate enough to tell me that you won’t be able to respond to my texts/calls because you’re busy with your own shit. and in return i appreciate that consideration and leave you to your own personal affairs because we’re two people in a relationship with our own seperate lives. cute.
