She loves me, she loves me not

25th Jan 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Recently, I’ve noticed a change in myself when it comes to how I approach friendships with other young women. As some of you may know, I grew up alongside three older brothers, and have always had a close relationship with my dad. This isn’t to say that my mum and I aren’t close, because she’s undoubtedly one of my best friends, still, I’ve always felt more comfortable in the company of men.

All four of us were raised as feminists and were encouraged to show appreciation and love for the successes of individuals regardless of their gender. Yet, my parents could only do so much when it came to raising children in a society built on thousands of years’ worth of patriarchal ideas. So the fact is, that when I went to school and I socialised with kids outside of my home environment, I found myself experiencing way more grief when it came to my friendships with girls compared to those I experienced with boys. For instance, I could type page after page of stories of when I’d been friends with a girl for a long time then all of a sudden she had decided she didn’t like me for some reason or another, and boom: the bitching starts, everyone’s crying, friendship over.

Hence, I find myself walking into rooms full of all types of people, and the ones I feel the most intimidated by – without a shadow of a doubt – are the cis heterosexual women. Especially ones in a big group. But a lot of the time, I’m not intimidated because I don’t think that I would like them, it’s because I figure that the second I open my mouth and show myself as confident, self-assured, articulate, or (god forbid) comfortable around cis heterosexual men, these women won’t like me. I just can’t be arsed with the judgemental stares.

Only, I fucking LOVE women. I am one ffs. But society and its patriarchy are so unbelievably divisive that the second we’re away from those we love, and even occasionally whilst we’re with those we love, women are taught to rip each other to absolute shreds. We’re taught to judge, and distrust, and hate each other so much that sometimes we can’t help but subconsciously give in to the misogyny. As much as we raise our friends up for being confident and loving themselves, it’s not always easy to carry that approach into every situation. Plus, women can and are really awful to each other sometimes, so it’s not always easy to like every one.

However, the main point I want to make in this week’s blog, is that all women should stop being so distrusting of one another just because of the fact that we’re female; doing so doesn’t help anyone. My friendships with the women in my life now are some of the closest, most colourful, joyful relationships I will ever have, and I think it a shame that sometimes I might have accidentally stopped others from developing because I’ve assumed things before I’ve asked any questions.

So, the moral of this story is: you’re not going to like everyone, but don’t let the reason you don’t like someone be because of their gender.

Netflix and..?

18th Jan 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So guess what I tried out last week then.

*guesses*

Tinder. I tried Tinder. lol.

Now, there will be quite a few people who know me very well who’ll be thinking ‘what is she on about, she’s had that app plenty of times before’. And yes, I downloaded it at points when I was a bored teenager, looking for some validation from strangers, as well as something which felt slightly risky to do. I know, I was a wild child: hold me back. Then when I started at university, the pulling scene was tragically dire because nobody here seems to be able to do anything without a drama ensuing, or, it turning out that that random person you got with the other night knows every person in your friendship group. (You might think that I’m overexaggerating, but I’m deadly serious: everyone’s connected in Durham in some way or another).

So yes, I’ve HAD Tinder on my phone before. But have I kept it for more than 3 days? No, I have not. And have I expended much energy texting anyone before? No, I have not. So this time, with the New Years’ Resolution of no drama in mind, I took to the internet and I committed to having Tinder on my phone for a week. Which doesn’t sound like very long, but it was quite substantial for me.

The reason I’ve always been so quick to delete Tinder is simply because I don’t like how soulless the whole thing is. I’m not on board with the fact that you’re judging people in a matter of milliseconds based on the photos they’ve chosen to represent them; it takes away all of the fun of being surprised by someone having good chat, or being really funny, or clever, or charming, or any other aspect of what actually makes a person a person. Also, the pressure of writing a bio to describe exactly what I’m like is far too much. I can’t be funny on command. Plus there’s the whole thing of, do I explain my disability straight away, or do I wait until we meet, do I want to have those conversations on Tinder with a stranger? blah blah blah

More than anything though, I’ve always had a level of anxiety around the idea that I’d spend time texting a stranger and then have to actually MEET UP with them. And I know that that sounds stupid, since I’m not shy in social situations, but maybe the fact that I’ve never been on a ‘first date’ before makes me freak out at the idea of what it would actually be like, so then the concept of seeing someone I’ve met from TINDER (!) goes against every instinct I have. Nevertheless, a few of my friends have had successes when it comes to the app, so I thought in this romantically hectic university environment, I’d give it a go.

I’m not going to go into crazy details about my experience but long story short, I texted someone for a few days, he was nice, I was feeling spontaneous and I went round to his to watch a film. (Before you start, we did actually watch the film, that wasn’t a euphemism.) As nice as the evening was however, it did solidify that the Tinder life is just not the one for me. It’s too orchestrated. I know that it depends on what you want from it, and I definitely wouldn’t want a relationship from Tinder, but even the prospect of just wanting sex out of it, I don’t know, I think I like the build-up too much.

As far as I’ve seen, the pandemic has made it so we’ve kind of forgotten how to flirt with each other. We’re so not used to being able to be in rooms with people we know, that we don’t always remember how much fun it can be to interact with total strangers. To me, flirting isn’t something you only do with a person you’re attracted to and I know that that approach has gotten me into trouble a bit sometimes because people have misinterpreted my intentions towards them. But speaking to someone in a flirtatious way can be subtle and nuanced, and merely a method for having a bit of a laugh: it really doesn’t have to be that deep.

So, there we go, the second week of January 2022 showed me that I like the dance of working someone out when I first meet them, and Tinder just sucks all of the fun out of human interactions for me. If it doesn’t do that for you then power to you – everyone’s different. But, I don’t think that that app will be making an appearance on my phone again any time soon and if you do spot me on there, then ask me if I’m okay please.

Why’d you text him again?

4th Jan 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Why’d you do it then, eh? Why bother texting him again when you know he’s a dick? When you know he’ll leave it a few hours (even though he’s always on his phone, and definitely knows that it’s there). When you know he’s not that interested – YOU’RE not even that interested. So if you don’t really like him that much then why bother with putting yourself through the annoyance of it? Why’d you text him, if all you’re going to do is avoid your social media, waiting for his name to disappear from your notifications screen? What’s the point? Just ignore him, and forget about it. Yes, good idea. Delete the message thread, forget about it, move it along. Until the next one that is…

Hands up if you felt personally attacked by that first paragraph!

Well, if it’s any consolation, I just read myself to absolute filth and those were all questions my friends have asked me plenty of times, though I’ve undoubtedly asked myself them more. So, why do we text him – or her ! – over and over, when we’re the first ones to admit how tedious it all is? Where’s the logic?

For me, I think it’s a combination of lots of things. For example, the being constantly exposed to media and culture where romantic relationships seem to be necessary for overall happiness, the desperately wanting to feel known by someone (and to know them), the hormones, and the heavy, heavy boredom. I think it’s defo the hormones and the boredom which override the logic on a consistent basis, though. Which is fun.

On a less personal note, however, I think that what’s keeping us shushing the logical parts of ourselves is that romantic relationships are all we ever seem to talk about. Whether it’s a discussion of someone you just walked past and found attractive, your favourite celebrity, someone you had sex with last week, someone you might ask out on a date, or even the more abstract discussion of ‘who, out of our mates, would you date if you HAD to?’, sex and relationships are just constantly on the mind. In fact, the only people I know who don’t discuss these topics as regularly, are the ones in relationships – but even they get excited by their single friends’ tales of romance.

I’ve no clue why all of us are so hung up on this aspect of life, and I’m well aware that I’m as bad as anyone for it. But it’s the New Year, and I hAvE a rEsOLuTion people !! I’d sincerely like to stop wasting my time just for the sake of it.

I love people, I love a flirt, and I love a bit of drama, so I’ve had my fair share of situations with boys since the age of about fifteen. Still, I could honestly only count on one hand the lads that I was genuinely interested in; everyone else, I either fancied but knew it’d never work, or didn’t even fancy them that much, I just liked the attention. Oh god that sounds awful, doesn’t it? But we’ve all done it! In fact, I’m 100% sure that there have been plenty of occasions when boys have been thinking this way about me; it’s not a reflection on you (though it can certainly feel like that sometimes), it’s just how it is.

A few months ago, I was sitting on my friend’s bed, having a bit of a it’s-winter-I’m-tired-I-don’t-want-to-write-any-more-essays-can-it-be-Christmas-now sob, and in the middle of it I said the words ‘I’m just so tired of feeling this lonely’. I know, tragic. And I’ve written many blogs about how I’ve not wanted to be single for years; how I’ve felt left out because the only romantic experiences I’ve had so far have been a headache. Though, other reasons have also exacerbated these thoughts, like how much easier dealing with shit like my feet would be if I just had someone there who’s interested enough to care. Or even the fact that doing things would be nicer if there was someone there to do them with. But as bored as I am of being lonely, I’m more bored of saying how bored and lonely I am. So I’m not going to do it anymore.

Famous last words…

I’m seriously going to give it a go this time though!! I know I’ll probably stumble, because it’s surprisingly difficult to avoid all drama at a university where that seems to be all anyone talks about; not to mention the fact that I’m a total sucker for the will-they-won’t-they first stages. But I’m unbelievably picky, and stuff doesn’t work out; I end up getting upset, feeling like a failure, and we’re back to square one. SO, I’m going to start asking myself if I really will benefit from texting him again, when I know that we wouldn’t work and I don’t like him as much as I like the attention. I’m going to wait and see if he’s got the balls to show me that he likes me, before I try to control everything. And last on the list of New Years’ Resolutions: I’m going to acknowledge that there’s no time for pointless drama when there’s a degree to get, and a life after university to figure out. No more drunk-texting: only fun, easy, stress-free situations.

Come on 2022, you can give me that, can’t you?

I don’t wanna hear it anymore

1st Nov 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Sometimes when I’m at a house party, people come up to me and ask me about my blog, often interested in how I decide what to write about. The only way I can describe the process is that a topic will pop into my head, and I’ll feel a compulsion to type something about it: I guess it’s like a diary in that sense. Unlike a diary though, I know that these words will be read by others so I edit them and I rationalise them in an attempt to not sound like a prat. I can’t promise that I manage it every time, but we do our best. Although today, I’m not going to edit and I’m not going to rationalise: we’re just gunna go with it.

To make an extremely long, and tumultuous story short, in the past couple of weeks I’ve come to realise that I’ve never really been in a romantic situation with a lad where he’s tried as hard to get to know and understand me as much as I have him. I’ve consistently been the one who’s been actively interested in a bigger way than the physical sense; asking all of the questions, noticing the small things, and making an effort to work out what’s important to the person I’m interested in. And this realisation came to me when I was cleaning my room, sorting my shoes out, listening to music. I was feeling so relaxed and so honestly myself, and it made me think that there are so many parts of who I am that I’ve never shared with someone because I’ve been too busy trying to get to know them, and they’ve never asked.

That feeling was of course, kind of sad, but at the same time, it made me realise just how stressful ‘dating’ can be. How people have spent so much time and energy messing with my head, telling me yes then telling me no then telling me they would if they could but they can’t so they won’t; making it seem like I’m involved in the situation when really it’s just about them. I’m involved by name, but I’m never particularly relevant. Yawn.

So I went upstairs to my housemate the other day when I was feeling a little low, and I mentioned all of these feelings to her, and after listening to me she thought over all of the romantic relationships she’s had with boys and she completely empathised with me. Then without even bringing up how I’ve been feeling, multiple girls just this week have told me how they’re tired of being wanted physically; being told they’re hot by a drooling drunken boy at 2am, but never being given the time of day once the sun comes up.

Fortunately, I’m pretty emotionally robust so I can deal with the rejection. However, just because a person’s self-esteem is in decent condition, that doesn’t make it indestructible. And being told by someone that they’re really into you, or they really fancy you, is lovely for 2 seconds but it very quickly becomes hurtful if all it is is words. What I mean by that, is that the words become less believable if you don’t do anything about them. I’m flattered in the moment, but I’ve been in so many situations like this where boys have put my hopes up so far, then at best ignored me, that at this point I don’t trust words.

I don’t really understand why this is a thing, and I don’t know why I seem to attract it, but god almighty it’s a headache. Not least does messing with someone’s head like this fuck with their feelings, but it made me feel completely objectified at points. After the excitement of the moment had faded, I’d wake up and wonder if what’d actually happened there was a young lad only saying what he’d thought I wanted to hear because he wanted to sleep with me. Making that dramatic confession untrue, and all the emotional turmoil completely unnecessary.

All of this isn’t to say that I hate every lad I’ve had a situationship with; I’m still quite fond of a few of them, but I have to say my piece because I’m tired. Not to mention the fact that a healthy level of self-esteem doesn’t just happen; it’s incredibly fragile and takes a lot of work to maintain. So I refuse to allow the yeah-but-no-but treatment I’ve had from lads this year, to morph into self-criticism and thus take a toll on my self-esteem. Naturally, this is always easier said than done but once again, we do our best.

Thus, I want to finish with a request for all my readers (no matter your gender): please think before you speak. Decide whether what you’re about to tell a person is beneficial to them, or do you just want to say it to help yourself? Go into things with the correct intentions, and try not to fuck with someone’s head in the process. You might not always manage it, but it’s always worth a try. Because personally, I don’t need or want to hear it anymore, if you’re not going to do anything about it.

Is physical disability really that much of a turn-off?

24th Sep 202126th Sep 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I remember in my first year of university, I was asked by one of my friends whether I thought that my physical disability had ever meant that people found me less physically attractive. (He had perfectly sound intentions by the way, and knew that that type of questioning wouldn’t offend me, so we’re good.) My short answer was yes; not because of any insecurities, or because I was fishing for pity-filled compliments, but yes because I’d seen it happen right before my eyes. I’ve seen lads begin to chat me up, then at the mention of a disability, turn the other way, and I’ve consistently had more success on a night out when I wear trousers to cover my shoes, or when the place is too full and too dark for anyone to see.

As real as they seemed, these were still always just suspicions derived from body language and facial expressions. So I’d wonder. Could it really be true that the sight of some metal bars on a young woman’s shoes is enough to intimidate? Is physical disability that much of a turn-off?

This week I read an article where George Robinson (the actor who plays Isaac in Sex Education) spoke to the BBC about sex and disability: two words you rarely see mentioned in the same sentence. I won’t summarise the article here as I’d prefer you read it yourself, but one part which really hit a nerve for me was when the reporter wrote that in 2014, 44% of the British people asked said that they wouldn’t consider having sex with someone who was physically disabled. And I emphasise ‘consider’ here because that wording is particularly cutting.

I could go on and on unpacking this statistic, but what I’d like to first draw your attention to is the fact that the term ‘physically disabled’ describes a hugely diverse group of people, and yet it seems that society associates it exclusively with paraplegic wheelchair-users. That in itself is mad and highlights so many issues in society’s narrow understanding of disability, however, my main concern today is the suggestion that physical disability strips a person of their sexuality. If you’re disabled then you have no sex drive, you’re unable to have sex, or whatever type of sex you can have isn’t normal and is shrouded in stress and embarrassment, and you’re not sexy.

Frankly, I never thought I was sexy. And I attributed that to the layers of misogyny which group young girls and women into the boxes of cute, pretty, sporty, or sexy. (We can unpack those toxic elements of the patriarchy another day). But now I realise that it was my being disabled which contributed to the surprise and disbelief I felt if someone called me sexy. I’d just never known that I had access to that word because no one who looked like me had ever been described as it. At least, I’d never seen it.

Thus in my late-teens, when talking to boys and developing crushes on them, I’d always envisioned that my disability would be peripheral in our relationship and it’d be something that I’d prefer him to ignore as much as possible. I’d want support when I really needed it, but if I had ever gotten a boyfriend then I’d wanted him to treat me like a ‘normal’ girl. Depressingly, hindsight makes me realise that 17-year-old me was equating ‘normal’ with able-bodied. Then when I went to university I started speaking to a lad who never once asked about my disability, after months and months of talking. I found myself conflicted because it was sort of what younger me had always wanted, but older me didn’t see how we could ever start a relationship if such a big part of my life was going to be ignored: it didn’t seem practical.

So now I’ve decided that I want something truly radical: I don’t only want a romantic partner to be interested in and tolerate my physical disability, I want him to find it attractive. I want him to look at my surgical scars and find them as beautiful as he does any other part of me. I don’t want to have to reject my disability in order to feel sexy. But as any reader of my blog will know, I’m yet to experience much more than a casual relationship with a lad so I can’t end this on a Disney note where I say I’ve found everything I’ve ever wanted and here he is *ta-dah*. Nonetheless, there’s one specific experience I’ve already had where I got a glimpse of what it might be like.

One morning I woke up next to a young lad I’d slept with a few times before. I cared for him, and enjoyed his company, but I didn’t have any romantic feelings towards him. I was used to him being affectionate by moving my hair out of my face as I slept, or kissing my shoulder, but on this particular occasion he took it further, as I woke up to feel him carefully tracing the curves, indentations, and lines of the lump on my lower back. That lump is the root of my disability, and it’s been something I’ve tried my hardest to look at as little as possible, let alone touch. So as I woke up, I realised what he was doing, and I lay there as he gave the most emotionally and physically vulnerable part of my body more love and attention than even I had ever given it. It was nice: I felt safe.

That young lad, even though he probably had no idea what he was doing, emphasised just how important it is that when I find someone I want to be with, they have to understand and love my disability as much as they love every other part of me. It’s not something to be ignored, and it’s not something which strips me of my sexuality: people and prejudices do that. But I don’t believe that the 44% statistic is rooted in malice; rather, it’s rooted in ignorance and a misunderstanding of disability. We all want love and to feel wanted, but I don’t see why my physical condition should decide whether I qualify for that or not.

I’m physically disabled, I have a sex drive, I enjoy sex, and just like everyone else, the details of how I like to have sex are only your business if I decide that you can make it that far.

You free later?

18th Jul 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve written many a blog about romantic relationships, men, flirting, sex: all those topics which easily draw a crowd. But often my writing shows, as I’ve said before, the more logical part of my personality. I conveniently omit moments when I’ve failed to follow my own advice because everyone likes to present the neatest version of themselves to the internet and honestly, I can’t see myself regurgitating every detail of my life on this blog or my social media pages any time soon. This isn’t because I’m trying to mislead anyone, it’s because I’ve no obligation to and it’s nice (healthy, even) to keep some things private.

Obviously I’m going to tell you about something today though…

For over a year, I was subconsciously slut-shaming myself every time I slept with someone and I didn’t even acknowledge it. The logical, feminist, part of my brain always knew that it was a misogynistic and nonsensical thing to do, given that every time I’ve had sex with someone it’s been consensual and feeling guilty about it afterwards was never necessary. I never cried about it or said really hurtful things to myself; my method of slut-shaming was way more insidious than that. In the days after having sex I’d low-key pretend that it didn’t happen, give in to embarrassment, and avoid any contact with the boy ever again. But doing that started to feel silly after a while.

I’d realised what I was doing through the conversations I was having about sex with the young women around me, and decided it was time to stop partaking in this form of psychological self-harm. I know why I was doing it though; it was because I’d really rather not sleep with different people, so every time I did, I felt guilty straight afterwards. I’d have this stressful internal monologue of not regretting the sex, but wishing it’d been something more interesting than just that, with someone I knew better. However, I don’t know anyone I’d want to date yet, so does that mean that I should numb all urges I feel for physical interaction until prince charming comes along? No, that doesn’t seem right either.

The ideal situation for me earlier on this year was to engage in a good, old, friends with benefits relationship. Yet, there are so many unspoken rules when having sex with a person that the idea of sending the ‘you free later?’ text just made me cringe. Frankly, I thought I didn’t have the personality to ‘pull that off’ – an idea no doubt derived from the patriarchy suggesting that it’s abnormal for a woman to want to have sex simply because she’s horny – something I recognise as complete bullshit, of course. But we’ve got a lot of internalised patriarchy to undo here on the daily, so yes, when I texted a lad I trusted asking if he was free later for the first time, it felt weird. No regrets after doing it though heyooo.

I know that I’m fortunate to have so many sex-positive people in my life and that it’s a luxury not everyone has. There continues to be countless women out there who spend a stupid amount of energy telling themselves to stop feeling what they’re feeling. But you’re not only horny when you’re in a relationship and you should never make yourself feel guilty about when or who you want to have sex with. It’s a toxic way to waste your time, and even though stopping doing it hasn’t made me want a relationship less, it’s made sex a lot less associated with guilt and embarrassment in my head. Which is definitely a win. So go get your kicks with whoever you want, whenever you want, and start taking better care of yourself by taking control of your sexuality.

Oh, and if you and a couple of your friends order vibrators at the same time and split delivery, it’ll be cheaper.

Let’s talk about sex, bby

15th Nov 202015th Nov 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Talking about sex in a super honest way is rarely done, because if you bring it up, a lot of the time people start to feel nervous, uncomfortable, anxious, self-conscious, etc, etc. And these reactions make perfect sense: sex is one of the most intimate things you can do with another person. However, it’s also nothing to be afraid of, so we should probably start getting more aware of how sex-positive we really are.

Sex-positivity, in the way I understand it, is the recognition and acceptance that sex is a totally normal part of a person’s life. It’s something most of us do, and society should normalise talking about it; especially in the sense that it should be enjoyable for everyone involved.

That sounds pretty simple, right? If you’re sexually active, then you should be enjoying it, and comfortable enough around your friends/family/sexual partner/s to talk about it. But unfortunately, sex-positivity isn’t practised by society as much as it should be.

For women, the idea of sex is both empowering and oppressive. We can take our sexuality into our own hands and decide who we want to sleep with and when, but whilst we’re empowering ourselves and our female friends, there always comes a point when you wonder whether doing this is making you seem like a bit of a slut to the wider world. And nobody wants to be a slut: that kind of reputation rarely ends well.

So we use the word with each other. And by trying to reclaim the term, women are somewhat able to fight against society telling us how much sex we should be having, because after all, my sex life is nobody’s business but my own.

This attitude, however, doesn’t mean that sex-positive women aren’t self-conscious, nervous or conflicted when it comes to sex. You might be totally fine with the concept of a one night stand, but then when you have one, thousands of years of female sexual oppression might start creeping into your head to tell you that you’re a slut and you’re making a fool of yourself. It happens; sexism’s a bitch.

Generally speaking though, sex should never be a thing that’s only appropriate for each gender to speak about amongst themselves. At school, I never saw how it made sense to separate the boys and the girls for the sex education talks. I obviously need to know the details of what’s going to happen with my body, but there’s a whole other half of the population that I’m actively not being told about. So when I develop relationships with that gender, there’s this huge barrier between us already, and I don’t see how that’s helpful.

Sex encompasses so many ideas and emotions that are vital to our relationships with ourselves and each other – regardless of gender. Politics, history, science, philosophy, psychology, anthropology: you name it, talking about sex would probably make parts of it make more sense. But aside from all that nerdy stuff, sex is fun, so why not talk about it in the same way you talk about all the other things you enjoy? That way, when it isn’t fun, you’ll feel comfortable enough around someone to tell them why.

Safety in numbers

25th Oct 202025th Oct 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Recently I’ve been thinking about how when we move to University, there’s this weird societal assumption that we’re all going to fit right in and find ‘our people’ as soon as we walk through the door. And whilst that can sometimes be true, it rarely is.

I was super fortunate to meet most of my friendship group within the first week. But I can’t say that we were all nearly as close last year as we are now, nor can I say that I felt 100% myself whenever I was around them. Clearly, this is because it takes time for people to relax enough to properly get to know one another away from the excitement of having just met.

So now I really appreciate how stable I feel in the friendships I started last year. Obviously, we still don’t know everything about each other, but I’m definitely expending a lot less energy trying to explain why I am the way I am to everyone this year. And that’s a huge relief.

But an even more liberating part of this term has been the stability of the relationships I have with the young women around me. Especially seeing as finding friendships with girls where you feel completely safe to speak about anything – without judgement – isn’t that easy. From my experience, some of the cruellest effects of our patriarchal society show themselves in women attacking each other.

As unfortunate as it is, feeling safe and free from judgement when around your female peers can sometimes become a matter of safety. I don’t like to catastrophise or to assume the worst, but it’s a dark reality that at least one of my female friends and I are likely to experience sexual abuse or harassment at some point in our lives – if someone hasn’t already. Not to mention the general discrimination we’re all going to experience pretty much every day. Therefore feeling secure in our relationships with each other often determines whether we’ll ever have the confidence to talk about this abuse or not.

On a more positive note, these close female friendships also afford young women the space to be completely themselves. They create room for us to discover and experiment with who we want to be; making mistakes without having to fear that those mistakes will be used against us in the future.

So if it’s taken you a year (or longer) to feel settled into the University/adult life, then know that there’s no shame in being a part of this club. And if you’re female, remember that women aren’t your enemies. Don’t support this f*cked-up patriarchy we live in by tearing each other down when society gives us enough grief already. As this week’s title states: there’s safety in numbers.

Please don’t waste my time

11th Oct 202030th Nov 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Lord knows that I’m appreciative of men. Some of my favourite people on the planet are men, and most of the time I’d probably prefer the company of a man rather than a woman. But I’m sorry lads, sometimes you can be absolute trash.

This past year I’ve experienced a (sometimes) overwhelming feeling of loneliness when it comes to romance. I’m 21 years old now and I think it’s safe to say that I’ve not been all that lucky when it comes to love for reasons I can’t really control. Naturally, this has gotten me in my feelings at points but this past year has made me lose all patience with the game of it.

I don’t know about you ladies, but I’ve wasted far too much time and energy on boys who have no clue what or who they want…and I am SICK OF IT. Whether it be talking to the straight-up f**k boys who chat a lot of romance until they’re around their mates, or the ‘nice’ lads who like you but not as much as they think you like them – not that they ever actually ask you how interested you are – I’m exhausted from the soap opera of it all.

This accommodation of men and their feelings we spend so much of our time doing, has got to end. If you’re texting a boy and he’s being sketchy, just cut it off. If you feel like you’re convincing someone to spend time with you, stop it. If when you talk about him to your mates you’re constantly making excuses to make him seem like less of a pr*ck, realise what you’re doing and how little sense that makes.

Many lads say that they want ‘simple’ and complain about how complicated girls are all of the time, but I’m sorry, from my experience the male species are riddles wrapped in enigmas that I’m expected to unravel. Why? Why should I do that? I don’t want to have to do that. I’m not making you do the same with me…

This isn’t an angry rant, because I feel calmer about my love life than I have for a really long time. I’m not saying that I don’t still want a boyfriend – that’d be ideal to be honest – I’m just at the point where I can’t face the game of it anymore. It’s really unrewarding. I’m also not trying to imply that I’m perfect when it comes to romance; nobody is. But I do know that I try to always treat people with respect, and I never waste anyone’s time on purpose.

After all, if someone values and respects you enough, then they’ll make an effort to spend time with you. If they don’t – regardless of what they say – then they’ll mess you about. Unfortunately however, it does seem like the age we’re at is a time when most people just want to mess about a bit. And that’s fair enough: you’re young, have some fun. But I want to have a fun, exciting, adult relationship with someone who cares about me as much as I do them, and I don’t see why that should have to start with some pointless game of ‘who’s going to text first?’.

So I’m not gunna do it anymore, and neither should you.

Sex education

12th Sep 202012th Sep 2020 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This week I’m on my period. So for the past few days, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing painful cramps, mood sWINgs, and a whole lot of bleeding. Too much information? Well tough.

Even though I have my period once a month, and it’s an entirely healthy part of my life, society encourages me to never talk about it. Then a direct consequence of this, is that women generally know very little about how their bodies work, and how to take care of them. And the men around them know even less. So no one knows anything, and half of the population’s physical and mental health is put at risk.

Not ideal.

But I’m not talking about everyone being able to regurgitate the facts they learnt in science – although you should be able to do that. This is about acknowledging the hormones and the pain women feel whilst on their periods as legitimate. We’re not overreacting: it f**king hurts. And as funny as it might be to see a girl cry over her bobble snapping, those hormones do genuinely mESS you up for a couple of days. I mean, sometimes we literally wake up in a pool of our own blood.

So, periods are intense and tedious enough: I don’t need society telling me that I should be embarrassed by them too. Nor do I need people to tell me how/what I should feel/wear/say/think when no one is taking an interest in my body or me anyway.

At the same time, I don’t know much about what male bodies go through. I know they don’t have such a dramatic time of it every month, but that doesn’t mean it’s always smooth-sailing. Like puberty, that doesn’t sound like a walk in the park for a boy – physically, or psychologically.

The point is that we never ask detailed, comprehensive questions about our bodies. But we go further than not asking: we stigmatise the topics so much so that it becomes ‘gross’ or ‘uncomfortable’ to even think about going there at all.

For women especially, getting to know yourself intimately isn’t normalised, so a lot of us just don’t do it – by ‘intimately’, I mean both sexually and biologically. A lot of my female friends have never even taken a mirror to have a look at themselves, let alone experiment with masturbation. Whereas a huge proportion of my male friends know their genitals as well as any other part of their body – maybe even better.

So if we’re saying that women barely know anything about their own bodies, and we then take that to talk about health and safety, how could we ever know that something is wrong, if we don’t know what we look like when we’re healthy? Then on a psychological level, how is it right that we’re so disgusted by our own bodies? We won’t touch or get to know ourselves but we’ll let some random lad who might ditch us next week do whatever he wants? I dOn’T tHiNk sO.

Conversations about our bodies shouldn’t be separated according to whatever genitals you were born with, because we don’t exclusively socialise with people of the same sex. We need to ditch the euphemisms and the pressure, so we can learn to look after each other and ourselves more effectively. After all, knowing this information will definitely save someone’s life one day – maybe even your own.

An Indelible Friend

Category: Love and relationships