Boys suck, girls are hard to understand and relationships are just effort, we all know it. Whether we’re ashamed, proud or couldn’t care less, the majority of us have experienced the highs and lows of the dating world. The anticipation of the Tinder match. The stress of a read and ignored message. The smile at the first emoji heart and the heartbreak of deleting that renowned Facebook relationship status. Romantic, right? Yet I’m sat here, at midnight, with my electric blanket warming my tooshie, wondering when dating got so…so …blurgh. There’s not really a word for it.
I don’t know about you guys but I’m a sucker for clichés. Whether it was the famously hated yet secretly loved story of Bella and Edward, the classic, and perhaps less commonly-known to my generation, tale of Breakfast at Tiffany’s or the struggles to fight for the wizarding world and each other that Harry and Ginny faced. Perhaps these tales are a bit formulaic, boy meets girl, they fall in love, they fall out, they get back together again.
Imagine if they were more accurate to our time. Boy and girl meet wasted on night out. Numbers are exchanged and drop called (of course). Facebook profiles are stalked. Boy’s mates give the girl that all-important rating. Before you know it, you’ve been texting for a few days, maybe weeks and a notification pops up on your phone. A request to be seen as ‘in a relationship’. Commitment. The arguments ensue after the girl ‘read the message and forgot to reply’ whilst the boy denies knowledge of a photo with a girl on Instagram. There’s love, there’s hate, there are friends interestedly sick to death of hearing about it. The relationship is brought to a climax when the FBI (Female Best-friend Intelligence) is brought in and the boy is framed for a number of crimes he didn’t commit. Game over. All friending and following and liking is ceased and they melt into the backgrounds of each other’s lives. Until one party gets drunk and sends that infamous text. Don’t do it, kids.
If I had to describe my type, personality-wise, it would be somewhere between emotionally unavailable and emotionally in touch. Someone brave enough to admit to their feelings but perhaps not in the form of a daily sonnet scented with perfume and sealed with a kiss. Understandably the world of dating has moved on with the advances in technology but where’s the spontaneity now? Every text is rewritten at least twice and checked by an editorial team. You can’t speak your mind without the knowledge that the text is going to be laughed at by ‘the lads’ and gestures of affection and general human care are now the signs of a ‘whipped’ boy.
I am not the generation of mixed tapes and awkward first dates in a café with the girl you know from school. I live in the time of public Spotify albums and knowing all about someone’s gap year and even the contents of their stomach if they’re the kind of person who likes to share their avocado and eggs on a seeded bagel with all their friends. That’s before I’ve even met them.
On top of new-found expressions of love, we’ve reached a new level of rejection and offence. The message left unseen, the photo left unliked, the tag in a meme that is ‘so us’ left un-commented-upon. All these actions that people take as signs of dismissal or a lack of appreciation. People can’t now say ‘no’ or ‘it’s over’ to your face, they say it in a message carefully constructed with an air of cool detachment, eerily polite and leaving no feeling of real care or empathy.
If you sit in your local town and watch couples walking up and down the street a) don’t stare too much because it looks weird and b) notice how most people are staring at their phones. I’m starting to sound like those life coaches that make a living out of telling people this. There’s a link at the bottom of my page…I joke. The only reason they can make that living is because people won’t stop doing it. It’s the way the world is, we can’t go back to courting and etiquette. In a way, we shouldn’t have to. We are the way we are but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t add to it. Have your argument over text but then go turn up on his doorstep and fix it. Be caught in that dodgy photo, if you must, but make it up to her by showing that you can make time to put her first. Do an Easy-A and show up on a lawnmower with portable speakers in your hands as you update an old 80’s rom-com. That last one is occasion appropriate though. If you live in a city, don’t roll up on a lawnmower. That’d be weird.
Just be different and show you care in a way that isn’t a little yellow face adorned with the appropriate expression.
Over and out.
x
AS WHITE GIRL AS IT GETS 