Tag: youngpeople

See you later!

See you later!

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

As I write this, it’s 30th June 2021, and it’s the last day of mine and my housemate’s tenancy for our second year of University. When we first moved in, it came at the end of an intense 5 months for the entire world; we’d been robbed of our third term of first year by the coronavirus pandemic, and we were moving in not really knowing what our second year would look like. Some of us came straight away, but it took until September/October for us to have pretty much a full house. First term was absolutely riddled with lockdowns and being ill with coronavirus, though we still managed to have some hectic nights-out before everything shut and make our university house start to feel like our home. We even cooked a Christmas dinner and got all dressed up to feel some semblance of normality – shout out to Rish’s brief stint as a mixologist. Then second term came and we had to STUDY. There were countless library trips, hours spent staring at laptops, withering attention-spans, and a whole lot of delirious laughter in between some snowball fights and getting lost in the woods as we searched for some alpacas. Obviously, we also had plenty of seshes, but that’s standard Lavender House activity.

Finally, we got our first summer term at university together. The exam period was exhausting, but it came and went pretty quickly overall, and I must say that sitting next to each other as we all attempted completely different exams was surprisingly enjoyable…Though not as enjoyable as when we finished and were able to just relax and spend time with each other.

Completing a year of university during a pandemic has been a real struggle for my friends and I at points. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I’ve felt moments of intense physical and emotional exhaustion, boredom, despondency, and isolation. But through all of that, we managed to laugh together every single day.

I was speaking to one of my housemates the other day about it, and we were saying just how strange it is that we come to university and we meet all of these people, and make all of these memories, then we all go off into the world and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see each other again. Here, I probably sound super dramatic, and you’re probably wondering why I’m getting so sentimental when I haven’t even graduated, but next year is my year abroad so a lot of my friends will graduate before I come back, and also a little sentimentality wouldn’t hurt the English once in a while. After all, as much as we shy away from deep or intense emotion, it is true that we may never know what becomes of these people we’ve come to really care for in the past couple of years.

For me, if it weren’t for my university friends, then I don’t know how much I would’ve kept up with these blogs, or how confident I would’ve felt in making a podcast or being on the radio, and I most definitely would NOT have walked on a stage in front of everyone at our college fashion show. They’ve helped me to stop slut-shaming myself if I get drunk and feel like sleeping my with someone. They’ve let me cry to them about how difficult my degree is more times then they probably could’ve been bothered with, and they’ve forgiven my occasional tendencies towards passive aggression. But most of all, they’ve made me feel safe and loved, and they’ve made me laugh until my stomach hurt.

So whilst I know I will see many of you again, I wanted to take a second to give you some love as we all move out and go on to the next bit – whether that be a final year at university, a year abroad, a placement year, a masters degree, or the start to life as a university graduate. Regardless of how often we see each other again though, I’m going to steal the words of a friend I met and said goodbye to in Ukraine two years ago, and say that in the moments when I miss seeing you all the time, it’ll cheer me up to know that you exist somewhere.

See you later my loves x

It’s exciting being disabled, isn’t it?

It’s exciting being disabled, isn’t it?

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

As some of you may know, next year I’ll be studying in Japan for my third year at university. This is obviously very very exciting, and something I’m really looking forward to. However, the prospect of going to live on the other side of the world for a year when you have a physical disability isn’t ever going to be stress-free.

Now, you might think that my already having been on a gap year should make this a piece of piss, but the part I fail to mention when speaking about my year abroad, is that each trip was never that long, and I came home for respite and hospital appointments in between all of them. Thus, fully moving somewhere for months on end poses different issues to the ones I had to deal with when I was 19.

For example every few weeks, I go to visit one of my doctors and she treats my foot. It’s not complicated treatment, nor is it particularly specialised. So, you might assume that it’ll be pretty simple and easy for me to go to Japan and find a doctor there who can do the same thing…Well the problem with seeing a random doctor in a completely new country is that that medical professional isn’t familiar with my biology, and my ability to maintain a healthy condition of my feet does hinge a lot on my doctors knowing exactly how far they should go with the treatment. Therefore, trying to communicate that to a doctor who’s language I don’t know inside and out won’t be an impossible task, but it’s still pretty daunting.

Another fun thing I have to sort out is my university accommodation for when I’m in Japan. Tediously, I can’t walk very far and considering the fact that I won’t be able to drive whilst there, I’m going to have to be hyper-aware of how far I have to walk to go anywhere. Therefore, I have to make sure that I find accommodation close enough to my lectures and public transport so that I don’t end up getting a blister/infection in the middle of my year abroad. This isn’t an easy task when you can’t visit the place beforehand to figure out whether the website’s version of ‘it’s a 5 minute walk’ is actually true or not…but we do our best.

The main activity for this week though, was travelling down to Leeds for a hospital appointment to discuss how the hell I’m going to have access to new pairs of shoes when I’m 5,833 miles away from Leeds General Infirmary. Thankfully though, my doctor is a bit of a legend and he’s already started the process to order 6 pairs of shoes, 3 pairs of insoles, and 2 pairs of callipers, so that I can go to Japan with enough footwear to (hopefully) see me through the full year. This will then mean that I shouldn’t have to worry about my shoes breaking when I’ve got absolutely no way of getting new ones. So that’s already one part of the puzzle solved – well, it will be when I’ve actually received all the shoes and have confirmed that there aren’t any problems with them…but baby steps people, baby steps.

I don’t often mention these parts of my life because I can’t imagine them being interesting for anyone else to hear about, when they’re definitely not very interesting to me. But then when I’m having a stress-rant to my housemates about the hundreds of things I need to sort, they make it clear to me that these are the parts of disability that the wider world rarely gets access to. I shroud what I find tedious in euphemisms like ‘oh, I just deal with it’, or, ‘I’m disabled, I have hospital appointments all the time’, and then I never actually give you comprehensive information about how Spina Bifida affects my life on a day-to-day basis. Obviously, I prefer the discussions relating to self-identity or societal perceptions because they’re more enjoyable for me. But clearly, if I’m asking the able-bodied to help make my life easier, then I should give you a helping hand by telling you what I’m actually dealing with.

I can’t promise the tales will always be exciting though…but hey, maybe if people know more about the tedious parts of being disabled, then someone will want to find ways to design or invent something to make that tedium go away. And that’d be pretty cool.

Discrimination is surprising

Discrimination is surprising

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

The response to last week’s blog has been amazing: people were completely outraged! And this was so weird (lovely !!, but weird) to me, because my getting blocked by students at my University didn’t even make me that angry: it wasn’t an unprecedented event. But you were all so shocked and furious! So, I realise, that you have no idea of just how poorly your disabled community is treated…

So let’s actually talk about disability and society, and let’s first take the idea of ‘looking’ disabled. Well, I don’t ‘look’ disabled. But the fact that I don’t has had serious consequences on the way society treats me.

There are two instances from Secondary School relating to this which particularly stand out for me. The first was when I was in Year 7: I was 11 years old and I’d recently developed a blister on my foot from walking too much, or having a fold in my sock, or something else tedious. (Yes, folds in socks can shove me in a wheelchair for months: it’s that stupid.) So in an attempt to avoid going into my wheelchair, I started to use the lift for disabled students to cut down my walking.

I was outside the lift one afternoon on the way to my next lesson with my best friend when my Deputy Headteacher came over and asked me what I was doing. I politely explained how I had a note from my parents, that I had a blister and that I had to use the lift. She didn’t look at my note, and she wasn’t interested when I started to lift my trousers so she could see my shoes. Instead, she yelled at me saying ‘a blister?! I’ve never heard such a thing! You’re stopping disabled students from using this lift!’. So I went to lesson in floods of tears: completely humiliated.

In this moment I didn’t ‘look disabled’ to my Deputy Headteacher: I didn’t have a noticeable body deformity, sound disabled, nor was I in a wheelchair. Flash-forward 2 weeks however, and I was in a wheelchair…no challenges as to why I was using the lift then…

The other memory I have is from being in Year 10 – the 3rd time I was in a wheelchair at Secondary School. My friends were pushing me through the halls to our lesson, and a student I didn’t know saw us. He shouted ‘piss off! I saw you walking last week, get out of that thing!’ at me across the hallway. I was stunned but my friends shouted back at him and we kept moving. Clearly, to this boy I was a liar; I was the person the media and government demonise as ‘abusing disability services and benefits’, and he took this moment to publicly expose my lie.

…

The world is constantly fed this finite version of what it is to be disabled: what it looks like, what it sounds like and what it feels like. But nobody ever takes the time to work out whether this stereotype is true. So just think about how many people you know without a disability: are they all the same? Do they all have the same bodies and personalities and emotions and ideas? Now think about applying that to disabled people. Do we all have the same disabilities? Do people who even fall under the same type of disability, have the same variation of that disability? Do we all look the same? Sound the same? Feel the same?

The answer is clearly ‘no’. Still, we’re grouped into one blob and are treated poorly by people and institutions who take very little time to try and actually understand us.

I’ve never been bullied directly because I’ve always had people standing up for me, and I’ve always had the confidence to stand up for myself. But I’ll always be vulnerable to discrimination by institutions and the general public because of an unwillingness of people to sit down and actually learn about things they know nothing about.

If you’re outraged by my experiences then start learning about other people’s, because I’m such a privileged white girl and my exposure to discrimination is nowhere near as bad as it gets. Trust me, you know more disabled people than you think, and you have more preconceptions about disability than you recognise.

Lol, I got blocked

Lol, I got blocked

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

When I first started this blog, I didn’t really think that anyone would read it. Then after a few months I realised that hundreds of people every week were clicking on my links. (!) And I thought that if I promoted it on social media, then maybe even more strangers would take the time to read what I write.

One of the ways I did this was by occasionally sharing posts to my University’s ‘overheard’ page. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s basically a Facebook page run by students of universities where the members share all kinds of things: information about houses, people trying to find things they lost on nights out, promotion of student events or student projects, all sorts. And when I shared blogs to this page, I received hundreds of reads on each article (one time, the views even reached over 1000 in 24 hours), with strangers sending me messages saying how much they’d appreciated my writing. Some even said ‘thank you’.

However, whilst many were grateful to me for talking about subjects such as social class at Durham University, others reported me as promoting a scam…This then caused me to get blocked from the page – a fact I only realised when I checked and saw that I could no longer access the student community.

Bit harsh, but never-mind, whatever.

When I asked the administrator of the page to unblock me, they did it straight away. Then last Wednesday I shared a blog about disability representation. I did so because disability is really not something I ever hear mentioned at Durham, and I thought that reading a blog about it might be a safe and easy way to get students in on the discussion. Plus, I thought, if you don’t want to read it, then just scroll, it’s not exactly an offending topic???

I received hundreds of reads and around 50 likes on that post. But once again, some found it so insulting that they chose to report it, and got me blocked. Only this time when I asked the administrator if they could undo it, they said they couldn’t because at least 50 students reported the post. At least 50 !!! The administrator didn’t remove or report it, my fellow students did.

Why am I even writing about this, you ask? Well, I’m writing about it because when I shared blogs about dating or relationships, they stayed up on the page for weeks – no problem. But then when I discussed social class or disability, at least 100 people took the time and effort to report me. So this isn’t about my ego, it’s about how objectively insane it is that at least 100 students at my university have reported articles about social class and disability as having no place on a Facebook page devoted to a student community. These people may make up a minority, but they exist, and they’re actively rejecting conversations about disability and social class, and I’m not okay with it.

Durham is one of the best universities in the country and many of those attending it will reach powerful positions in their lives; some will even become the people who make the rules in this country. So if later down the line these people are going to control my rights as a disabled person, then why can’t I ask them to try and understand what it’s actually like to be the disabled person?

If you don’t like my writing then it’s calm, just keep scrolling. But don’t tell me to sit down and shut up, or get me blocked because I’m not talking about something you want to hear: it’ll only make me more persistent.

I want to go for a walk

I want to go for a walk

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

For me, disability causes a constant conflict between personality and body. Ever since I was small I’ve struggled to mesh the two together because I’ve never wanted to accept that there are things that I’ll never be able to do. From the age of about 8 until 14 I was awful for it: I’d just do everything that my friends were doing because I wanted to, and I’d rarely give a second thought to my feet. But then I’d end up with infections, and in a wheelchair. So living that way didn’t get me very far.

After about the age of 16 I’d managed to (sort of) make my peace with it. I accepted that I couldn’t ever live my life the way most people could, and I mourned it, but ultimately I realised that those are just the cards I’ve been dealt. I mean, my disability could be so much worse, and what do I gain from fighting it?

Then I was 19 and I had my gap year. I proved to myself that I could travel the world on my own: I went to seriously remote places, away from medical institutions, and showed myself that doing what I want to do doesn’t always have to end in infection and debilitation. It might sound trivial to you, but it was breaking news to me, my family and my doctors.

This year, quarantine happened and after a while the government started allowing people out for walks and exercise. This change to the lockdown brought so much relief to most people, but not to me because I can’t just go out for a run. I can’t just walk down loads of steps to the beach and then back up them, because if I do, I have to accept that I might injure myself. I might put myself in a wheelchair.

This is where we get back to how complicated disability is, because many of my readers have seen me in person and have seen me walk plenty of times. I can walk short distances, and I’ve been known to dance for hours on a night out, but sometimes it’s just luck that I don’t end up with a blister after doing these things. I’m a seasoned professional when it comes to internalising my worries and pushing my disability as far as it can go. I’m stubborn and I’m young, and I don’t see why all my friends can but I can’t. Like I said, it’s a constant conflict.

But I don’t write these blogs to be all ‘woe is me’. Loads of people have it so much worse than I do, and everyone does the best with what they’ve got. It’s just that if I’m going to write blogs about when I feel empowered by being a young disabled woman, then I have to show you the side of my condition which gives me no joy whatsoever.

Some days I just don’t want to be this disabled person. It makes me feel weak and suffocated. I don’t want to have to think about whether I can go somewhere, I want to be able to just go. Sometimes I look at my feet and wonder how it’s fair that I have to be the only person I know who can’t just wear normal shoes and have normal legs. I wonder how it’s fair that I’ll have this for the rest of my life, and how I’m supposed to get over it when there’s nothing I, or anyone else can do to ever improve it.

There are no solutions to these problems. Life doesn’t work in ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ – especially when I don’t believe in any type of God. As far as I can see, random people get random sacks of sh** to deal with, and we move. I have a really good time even with the headache of my Spina Bifida, and it’s shaped me in so many positive ways. To be honest, if someone told me that I could flick a switch to get rid of it I’m not even sure that I would. Disability can enrich a person’s perspective on the world and life in many ways, but I’d never, ever, wish it on anyone.

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: ‘Iā€™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…Iā€™m just saying.

Say what you mean, mean what you say

Say what you mean, mean what you say

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Everyone knows that when you start new friendships at University, one of the most interesting parts of getting to know everyone is seeing how they operate when they’re on the pull. Or at least, I’ve always found it pretty fascinating…

By second term my friends and I were fully getting to grips with this part of each other’s personalities (and LOVING it). We’d all started to notice who had terrible taste in boys/girls, who attracts a certain type of person, who’s picky, who’s not that bothered, who’s shy about it, who’s really not, and so on.

But one mealtime when my female friend and I were talking to a couple of our boys about this, the discussion got pretty spicy.

Basically, the boys said that they find confident girls really attractive, and that they’d love it if a girl was just straight-up with them about what she wanted. They also said that they think that that’s a pretty universal opinion for boys our age. At which point my female friend and I, both very confident and honest with our feelings, told them that boys our age say that but they don’t actually mean it.

Now we live in a pretty PC world, where some people probably read what I just said and thought it outrageous that we tried to dictate an opinion to those boys. šŸ˜® !!! However, what’s important to consider is why we said what we said. And, before someone gets all keyboard-warrior on me, please remember that things like this are always about personal experience.

Most people my age have no notion of who they are at this point in time: a totally normal and healthy position to be in. So when an individual is confronted with someone who appears to be really confident in themselves, incredibly self-sufficient, and very forthcoming with what they want from a romantic partner, that’s not always going to be super attractive. Sometimes it’s the opposite: it’s kind of intimidating, and makes some people feel a lot of pressure to match the other person’s level of self-awareness.

At this point the boys were seeing what we meant, but weren’t quite with us. So we went on to use some anecdotes for context because everybody lOves an aNeCdOte.

My friend explained how she’s very confident in her sexuality, and isn’t afraid to tell her romantic partners what she wants: exactly what many boys have described as vEry attractive. But in her life this confidence has often been misconstrued by boys as her being ‘too keen’, or ‘down for anything’ and ultimately, a bit of a slut.

And in my own case, I said how I’m really not afraid to be myself even in the early days of getting to know a boy – and I’m not afraid of giving a boy a compliment. However, in the times when I’ve offered to do something for someone I kind of like, or said that they look good, or have replied pretty promptly because I can’t be bothered to play the how-long-do-I-wait-until-I-reply game, I’ve also been seen as ‘too keen’ or ‘too much’ and ultimately, a bit too easy (the PC term for slut).

Our boys were totally with us now.

It also started to become a little clearer why some young women prefer slighter, or quite significantly, older men. Our explanation being that when we’ve spoken to men even just a couple years older than us, we’ve both felt a lot less judgement.

We’re all aware that men are more freely allowed to show their confidence: in fact, there’s intense societal pressure encouraging them to do so. It’s also well known that confident women are not as widely celebrated as confident men. Instead, they’re often feared and belittled. It’s just easier and more acceptable to be perceived as sexy if you’re male and confident.

So yes, my friends may well have meant it when they said that they like a confident girl. As your’s also might. But all my female friend and I were trying to say, is that we wish boys were more honest in saying what they like. If you don’t fancy us, then we’ll survive, people have preferences after all. Just don’t mislead us into thinking you’re attracted to our personalities, and then think us slutty when we stay true to them.

No matter any of our opinions and preferences it’s always better to be honest with people, and to show some R.E.S.P.E.C.T! Whether you fancy the person or not.

Just an idea

Just an idea

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Let’s talk about why we live in a society where we’re made to feel like if we ask someone out, and they’re not keen, that that is the worst humiliation that anyone could ever suffer. Because as I’m growing up, I’m beginning to realise that it’s really not that deep, and that we need to stop causing ourselves so much grief about it.

Obviously, getting rejected never makes you feel great, and sometimes it can really hurt. But does that short-lived disappointment really warrant never asking anyone out? Especially since if you do it early on in your infatuation for someone, and they shut you down, then you haven’t involved your feelings as much as you would’ve weeks/months/years down the line. It then follows (in my eyes) that everyone should maybe just get it off of their chests pretty quickly, before it escalates and feelings get super carried away…

Saying that, I’ve always been really timid when it comes to telling boys that I find them attractive or like them in a romantic way. In most parts of my personality, I’m pretty confident and fearless but for some reason – whether that be due to my own insecurities, or those triggered by popular culture- I’m shy with expressing how I feel to boys.

But then why should it always be the boys’ duty to make the first move? It’s common sense that they’ll feel just as shy or scared as girls in this context, so why continue the sexist trope of waiting for them to kick things off?

It’s literally only been in the last year that I’ve started to have moments of exasperation where I think: ‘why am I sitting around, dropping hints, being shy and wasting my time waiting for him to say something? Why don’t I just put what I’m thinking out there, and he can either take it or leave it?’

Yes, it’s not easy and yes it takes a lot of courage to say how you feel when you have no idea whether the other person feels the same way. But let’s be honest: is there really any point in making yourself suffer the stress of not knowing, when you could just rip the plaster off and ask?

So what if they say no? At least you know and can stop sitting there wondering…

I’m a total sucker for playing the flirting game, and I’m really not experienced in romantic relationships at all – so my word on these subjects is definitely not gospel. However, my conclusion from observing those around me is that the whole tip-toeing around the subject is pretty tedious and causes more grief than its worth.

So whatever your gender, if you like someone, just let them know. The worst case is that they reject you and you’re upset for a bit, but now you know that there’s no point pursuing it anymore. A vital comment to make here, is that the rejection shouldn’t and doesn’t take anything away from you! If they don’t like you like that, or if they’re messing you about, then forget about it: you don’t need the headache.

But then the best case scenario is that they say yes and when that outcome happens, you’ll be so glad you had the courage to be honest about how you feel.

So just do what I did when I was searching for my first job aged 16, and tell yourself: ‘well someone has to say yes at some point’. (Granted, that comment was laced with sarcasm and annoyance at the time, but it’s still a relevant point to make).

When I write these entries sometimes I inadvertently end up giving advice, but it’s important to note that what I say isn’t always reflective of how I act. That isn’t to say that I’m being a hypocrite, it’s just that whilst I like to show my vulnerabilities and flaws, occasionally my aim is to speak how I want to be and how I think I should be into existence. It doesn’t always work, but then sometimes it does.

Regardless of whether I’m saying how I am or how I want to be, I hope that after you read whatever thoughts I have, that we can both take something positive from it.

As always, thanks for reading this far.

Xx

Like a virgin

Like a virgin

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This week I want to talk about the one thing that FILLS the minds of people of all ages, especially those around my age and younger: sex – more specifically, losing your virginity.

It’s a big topic since everyone’s sex life is such a huge deal in today’s society. People put so much pressure on when and how they should lose their virginity, that the act itself is made out to be this big, momentous, personality-shaping, potentially life-ruining moment. To a large extent, I agree that the details of when and how you have sex for the first time are massively important, but not for the same reasons society forces us to believe.

First of all, I don’t believe that there’s a ‘right’ age to do it (except past the legal age obviously). Whenever you choose to have sex, as long as you’re both safe, able to change your minds and feel ready, then so what if you’ve known each other for years or for hours? There’s no need to build it up to be this moment where you need to have been in a relationship for years, on some romantic weekend away, with rose petals on the bed. Let’s be frank, for most people it’s kind of messy and uncomfortable and anticlimactic. Oh, and for most girls, it hurts like a B**** (!) for the first time: yeah, they don’t mention that bit in the movies, do they?

Also boys/girls (but mainly boys): if the girl bleeds, then just be a nice guy and don’t freak out about it. You may not have known that sometimes that happens (and that it’s tOtally normal) but equally, the girl might have had no idea either and your reaction will be a big deal in how she feels about it and herself – both at the time and afterwards. Speaking from experience, the boy I lost my virginity to wasn’t a saint in how he treated me overall, but when I bled he didn’t care one bit so neither did I – if you’re reading this buddy, thanks for that. Xx

Having worked at a girls’ school and just generally being surrounded by people, it’s clear to me that popular culture’s airbrushed narrative of sex and the loss of a person’s virginity is toxic for the individual. You have girls and boys with these unrealistic notions of what sex is going to be like, ultimately ending with disappointment when their reality doesn’t match what they expected. I have so many friends who’ve felt like they nEEded to lose their virginity before University, or in the first week, just so they didn’t have to carry the shame of not being experienced in that area. Sex is a super intimate thing to do with someone, and like everything, you get better with practice.

Personally, I don’t have anything against one-night stands – hey, if you’ve got an itch to scratch, then do you (!safely!) – but I very strongly believe that they should NOT happen through someone being ashamed of being a virgin. That shouldn’t even come into play.

So, if you’re reading this as a virgin, then please don’t force yourself to rush into it just because you think you need to, and don’t expect it to be perfect! I mean, I lost my virginity at 17, but at 20 I’m still yet to thoroughly enJOY sex because, fun fact: it takes a lot of females years of being sexually active and a few sexual partners to get the full experience we all hear so much about. So if you’re in that position too, then it’s cool man, you’re not the only one. Plus, just because you don’t have an orgasm doesn’t mean that it’s not fun.

If you’re over the legal age, feel ready, and are safe (in every way), then you’re good to go. But if you aren’t ALL 3 of those things- even if just 1 of them isn’t right- then like I told my Year 11 girls who asked me about this when I was a Teaching Assistant, the braver and more worthwhile thing to do is just wait until you can tick all 3 of those boxes. Looking after yourself is a l w a y s a good idea, especially when it comes to sex – and that goes for e v e r y o n e.

Losing your virginity might be a bit of a flop orgasm-wise, but as far as I’m concerned sex should always just be fun. So do it with someone that you like and feel good around – that way, it’d be hard not to enjoy it.

A n d u s e p r o t e c t i o n k i d s !

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.