Tag: expectations

She loves me, she loves me not

She loves me, she loves me not

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.

Does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop?

Does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop?

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I wanted to know whether these young men feel like they need to act/look/talk/think a certain way when they like someone, and whether they think there’s a generally accepted version of ‘attractive’ for the male sex.

My favourite response was: ‘I’m not saying I go around crushing beers against my forehead but I do maybe try and avoid slutdropping for hashtag bant’. I mean, that first part is just a really funny mental-image.

But overall, the answers were interesting because they were all pretty 50/50 on ‘yes’ and ‘no’, with equally passionate viewpoints on both sides. However, the ‘no’ answers had quite a lot of contradictions, with boys saying ‘no, not really’ or ‘definitely not’, but following it with ‘I try to be the most appealing version of myself’. Noting that it’s ‘pointless’ to be something they’re not in the first stages of getting to know a person, but still wanting to make themselves ‘more likeable’ to ‘not put girls off’.

I did completely understand what they meant: we all try to temper or alter ourselves when we first meet someone because we want them to like us. But, I can’t help feeling sad at how much pressure we put on ourselves just because we want the approval of a stranger…

Regardless of how many of these lads said ‘I just kinda do me’, there were a lot of mentions of the ‘tall, dark and handsome’ trope. The ‘v-line’ and the ‘older look’; the ‘jawline’ and the ‘muscular look’; the ‘confidence’ that always almost crosses over into ‘arrogance’. Oh, and ‘that typical white boy look’: I’m learning that for both men and women, other races have a lot more trouble with fetishisation than us Caucasians. But that’s a whole other blog.

Overall, the boys were saying a lot of things which equate to the experiences girls have our age. We all overthink how we should be when we’re trying to impress someone. We try not to change in front of strangers we fancy, but often we do it anyway. We have social standards we kind of want to live up to – no matter how impossible they might be. Our upbringing and our social class influence what version of ourselves we think is preferable to whoever we’re talking to. We’re all just kind of insecure and unsure at this age.

However these boys made a point that deserves a specific mention: not enough time is given to how much these pressures to look a certain way damage the mental health of young men. My friends were so right to tell me that ‘body image amongst men isn’t taken as seriously’ as it should be, because according to the National Centre for Eating Disorders in the UK, men are thought to make up around 50% of all cases. And I don’t know about you, but that statistic came as a surprise to me…

I think we’re doing pretty well in diversifying what it means to be ‘masculine’ in the modern world. But we’re moving so slowly. We still need to fully recognise that sexism is a huge problem for both men and women now: in 2020. If we sorted it out for women, then men would definitely feel the benefits too. Maybe we’d even realise that if someone likes us, then they probably couldn’t give less of a sh** about our hair colour or our height. Imagine it! A world without gender rules.

So, does being masculine mean you shouldn’t slut-drop? Well I certainly hope not. And FYI lads, if you want to play with gender expectations, then a little bit of eyeliner can go a long way too…I’m just saying.

Yes, I actually sound like that

Yes, I actually sound like that

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

I’ve had many people tell me that social class is really not a thing that’s relevant to Britain anymore. But then the people who say this tend to be from middle to upper class households. Thus their opinion isn’t going to be so appropriate when applied to those lower down in the pecking order…

I’m pretty solidly middle class: I was born in Durham and grew up in a very pretty part of Bradford. Both of my parents are English teachers, I went to a normal West Yorkshire state school and I’m not the first member of my family to go to University. But I’m also not rich: there have been many things in my life which I couldn’t afford, and I’ve had jobs since I was 16. In fact, I worked 3 of them to pay for my entire gap year and then spent most of my time abroad working anyway.

Whereas, both of my parents are working class through and through: my mum is from Bradford, West Yorkshire and my dad is from Blyth, a small ex-mining town north-east of Newcastle. They were the first of both of their immediate families to attend University and are very proud of coming from these parts of England.

This means that whilst I’m a comfortable middle class citizen, a significant portion of my values, experiences and personality come from being raised by my parents. Therefore part of me will always be kind of working class.

When I moved to University, my parents were so specific in making sure I knew that I was going to be surrounded by people who came from different, wealthier upbringings than I. They didn’t want me to harbour any prejudices but most of all they didn’t want me to feel intimidated. Luckily, I’m pretty non-judgemental as it is, so social class and where people come from or what they sound like matter very little to me. And if you asked most people, it’s likely that they’d say the same. However, just because someone says that they don’t actively care about things such as this, it doesn’t mean that the differences don’t exist.

So at University I’ve found myself in a bit of a sticky spot. This is because whilst I’m middle class like many of my friends, I’m also Northern English. And the north of England is an entirely different world to the south. I’m not working class enough to fit with the working class students, but a middle class life in London is very very very different to one in Bradford.

But how exactly do I not fit?

Well let’s take my accent as an example. I love the West Yorkshire accent, and in all honesty I really don’t have a strong version of it. But it’s definitely there and I definitely made a point of keeping it when I moved for University. I’d expected some teasing of my accent, because I knew that most of the other students would probably be southerners. But what I didn’t expect was someone to just straight-up ask me ‘oh wow, do you actually speak like that?’, surprised that I could be clever and still miss out my ‘t’s.

Mad isn’t it? Clever people with Yorkshire accents exist?!

I also just don’t have access to so much of my friends’ experience of school. I mean, we sat around the table one time and they were talking about their time as prefects. Prefects?! That wasn’t a thing at my school hahahah, and it sounds like something straight out of an old Enid Blyton book to me.

I love Durham University and many of the people I’ve met. But I’d be lying if I said that I feel like I fit in. To be honest, I don’t really feel like I fit in at home either but home is easier, because everything is so familiar – and nobody comments on how I sound, since we all sound like that.

I don’t prefer one world to the other at all, in fact I love that I can live in more than one. Moving has just made me realise how much of a north-south divide there really is. Sometimes I feel like I’m from an entirely different country, but I’m really not and it shouldn’t be like that.

But all that these differences come down to is wealth, and the north needs more of it.

Third-wheeling

Third-wheeling

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

I never really wrote a diary when I was younger: I’d just write entries sporadically- and when I say sporadically, I’m talking a couple a year. Sometimes they’d be about pointless fall-outs with my friends, but more often than not the content would discuss what you’d expect a teenage girl to write about: boys. Girls lOve to talk about boys, and as pathetic as I might feel to voice my feelings on this subject, I’d be lying if this weren’t something that plays on my mind – and has done since puberty. So in an effort to continue to be uncomfortably honest in my writing, off we go.

Love and relationships are so weird to me. Society completely obsesses over them, making single people feel like they should stop being single at the first opportunity. There’s also this weird culture in my generation where people are always searching for the best: they could be talking to someone they really really like, but they can’t possibly commit to a relationship label because what if they meet someone better? But then you can’t end it completely because you haven’t found anyone better yet, so let’s just not have a label: I’ll tell you I love you but get with other people – sound good?

No. That literally just sounds stupid. Lol.

Then there’s the people who stay with someone they’re not really vibing anymore because they’re scared to try something new. This scenario also doesn’t make sense to me…but then I’ve never had a boyfriend, so how would I know?

I’ve gotten really good at living vicariously through others’ relationships. Honestly, at this point I think I could probably put ‘professional third-wheel’ on my CV – contact me for enquiries and bookings, I can be available any day of the week. But as much as I love third-wheeling, always doing it is getting a bit boring now.

With the boys I’ve ‘dated’ (not sure my experiences really qualify for that title but anyway) I’ve never felt the strong feelings music, literature and film tell me I should feel, so it’s clearly not been right. It’s common knowledge that humans learn by example, and the most influential romantic relationship I’ve observed has been my parents: they’re perfect for each other. Not only are they madly in love, but they’re also each other’s best friend and connect on every level. It’s an utterly beautiful thing to see when growing up and it’s meant that I’ve never (really) wasted my time with toxic or superficial relationships. However, the flip-side is that now my expectations are stupidly high. I don’t regret not having a boyfriend during school because I now know exactly what type of person I am/want to be – a luxury many girls my age don’t have. But I do also kind of feel like I’ve missed out on something, being 20 and having never properly dated anyone.

To be fair though, I think this feeling was exacerbated by my first term at University. I thought I’d meet new people and the trend I’ve experienced with boys so far would end, but I’ve just been confronted by the same old bull****. Since the age of about 15, I’ve consistently been told by boys that I’m intimidating, I’m ‘too much’ (a direct quotation) or that I’m amazing but they’d never go there. All of these comments were either offensive or just didn’t make much sense to me. But the killer of the recurring themes has been that boys already with girlfriends think I’m great. Can’t really do anything in that situation can I?

Thankfully, I’ve always refused to settle or to change myself according to what a boy said he wanted – although I did briefly try one time when I was younger. Bad idea. The fact is that if someone compliments you profusely but then follows that up with not wanting to get to know you or spend time with you, then they’re just not that into you (or worth your time). Annoying when that’s all that ever seems to happen though innit.

I know, I know, I know, I’m young, I’ve got plenty of time.

These reassurances are true, but people of all ages still get bored and annoyed by stuff like this all the time. Relationships are shoved in our faces so many times a day that of course when you can’t relate, you’re going to get jealous and impatient. Not wanting to be single can be the most depressing and tedious part of your day, but the important thing to do is to stick to your guns and not compromise for someone. Truth be told, eventually you (and I) will find someone: we’ll be the ones telling others to chill out about wanting a relationship, trying very hard to hide our smugness at already being in one. So keep ploughing on, and remind yourself that whoever you end up calling your boyfriend/girlfriend will have been worth the wait.

I mean, my lad will have enough balls to like the things about me that everyone else called ‘intimidating’ or ‘too much’- and that level of confidence sounds pretty hot to me.