I like tulips because they start off so orderly and prim and fall apart so clownishly, like an overflowing basket of crayons in a kindergarten classroom. There is a desperation in their descent. A welcome relatability in contrast with the elegant erectness of their prime. We are stumbling towards spring. I’m stifling a shiver. Ordering my coffee with ice, but invariably sitting inside.
Like many who write, I walk. To walk is to witness, without exerting too much of your will on the world. Walking is not pounding the pavement. It’s a gentle way to have revelations. When I can bear it, I walk without headphones, without sunglasses, without my phone. It can be hard to see and hear all that, but I suspect that it’s good to be open to whatever you are supposed to encounter.
In writing and growing up, my boat seems to be beating ceaselessly against a recurring theme—my tendency to fall into states of tunnel vision. I often call it the hamster wheel. Running nowhere, quickly and with determination. An aimless, dissatisfying sprint. Addicted to all my little tasks. Everything is a to-do. Working, partying, writing. Stacking dirty dishes to precarious heights until they become a problem, an event, a talking point. Running, running, running. Busy, busy, busy. I become obsessed with what I do, which leaves little room to consider what I am. For me, tunnel vision characterizes what it means to be young and dumb and struggling to hold onto presence and perspective.
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Once, some months ago, Kate called me boy crazy. It stung at the time, but not because it was untrue. I just thought I was hiding it better. Generally speaking, I don’t think my sexuality is the first thing that people notice about me. I want to come across as solid, peaceful and independent.
It’s embarrassing to be obsessed with men. Constantly scanning the perimeters. Choosing the hottest person in every enclosed space. Being a shameless flirt, and reveling in attention. Swiping, going on dates, hooking up. Hoping for chance encounters. Becoming enamored with people who are unavailable. Thinking about boys before I fall asleep, and when I wake up in the morning. Getting bored because even when I have three and a half situations, there will always be another boy.
On Saturday, over steamed mussels and martinis, I told Kate I’ve been attempting to de-center men. I don’t want to be the person who will leave a friend in the dust, in constant pursuit of romance or sex. Because, I suspect that my behavior might have less to do with being a quote-unquote romantic, and more to do with fixating on a point in the distance. Ignoring the full picture. Filling some void.
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It wasn’t always this way. As a kid, I was a tiny feminist in the Girls Rule, Boys Drool type of way. It didn’t go deeper than my confident observation that girls were simply better. By middle school, I adopted the mode of flirting known well by the unkissed: pure hostility. I once called one of my crushes “Gaysian” because he was Asian and it was mean to call people gay. To his face. In high school, I was part of an Intersectional Feminist Club. I have little recollection of what we discussed during our lunchtime meetings. Our teacher chaperone was an epic dyke who taught English at our Catholic girls’ school. We hated the patriarchy and all that, but in truth, men played a pretty minor role in our lives. By the end of high school, I lived alone with my mom, spent my days surrounded by girls. I picked up my friend Laurel every morning in my 2001 Jeep Cherokee, which separated us from the rest of the world. Most of my impactful crushes were on photographs of British musicians from the 80s (they would have understood me!). I had a group of nine girlfriends at school, and I suspected that at least a few of their fathers had secret second families. I had a fraught relationship with my own father and his rapidly growing second family. I figured that a few of the male teachers at my school wanted to fuck me (the weird ones). There wasn’t a single adult man in my life that I respected as a role model.
In the early days of my college relationship, I remember that my boyfriend felt alienated by my casual dismissal of men. I was a man hater in the 2016 clickbait type of way: 10 Tweets That Prove That Men Are Literal Trash. Personally, socially, culturally, the idea that men were garbage was polished to a glistening, plasticky shine. It was factual, obvious. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Men are trash. As a decent person with a plethora of decent male role models, my boyfriend didn’t understand this aspect of my personality. How could I love him and hate men?
I didn’t give his concern much credence at the time, but over the years I became less vocal in my male disregard. I acknowledged that it was an oversimplification. And an obnoxious vibe. I saw my older brother—a burgeoning adult—become more and more of a role model to me. Many of my new closest friends were men. I still figured that a few of my male professors wanted to fuck me (the weird ones). As I developed more meaningful and positive relationships with men, my systemic feelings about capital-M Men simmered down.
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Evana and I often joke about how we are drawn to diagnose ourselves to our extremes, especially pertaining to matters of the heart. All or nothing. Asexual or SLA. Five boyfriends or not so much as a tumbleweed on the horizon. Magnetic to everyone or a wilting wallflower. Probably, we are just people.
There must be a middle ground between being boy crazy and a man hater. While I may have felt more at peace in my hateful era, it also precluded me from certain depths of feeling. I was evading vulnerability. In my current love life, I am often physically and spiritually bruised. It’s precarious to allow yourself to crash into other people. I don’t always know how to ask for what I want in bed. My horny texts often go awry. My hands are often sweaty and I don’t know how to tell people when I like them.
I am trying to take a beat. Walk for two hours with no secret motivations. Talk to my friends at the party. Respectfully decline a date that doesn’t interest me. Find someone attractive and do nothing about this fact, other than appreciate it. There is a breeze and it smells sweet. A pinprick of light in the distance.
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I’m awe-struck by the piece of pop magic that is Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan. I heard it for the first time this morning and was stopped in my tracks. Who is this? What is this? When did this come out? I don’t know how I missed this April 5th release, when I’ve been such a Chappell head lately. 🎶 You can kiss a hundred boys in bars, shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling. You can say it’s just the way you are, make a new excuse, another stupid reason. Good luck, babe! Well, good luck babe! You have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. 🎶 Are you kidding me? I’m not a person to listen to songs on repeat, but I can’t stop with this one. ✩ The B-52s make me feel out of sorts. A lot of their music makes me a little dizzy and I genuinely despise their most famous tracks. Yet, I admit that they have a few songs that capture something that literally nothing else does. Give Me Back My Man is definitely an obsessive, boy crazy tune. 🎶 Head's in a whirlpool, spinnin' round and round. If she don't get her man back, she's gonna drown. 🎶 ✩ Girls rule, boys drool, say the Growlers. Natural Affair is the titular track of their 2019 album, and it’s a cheeky hit. 🎶 Boys will be boys and get away with murder, girls should rule the world, it’s true. 🎶 ✩ Daddi by Cherry Glazerr is a song for the sub princesses of the world. It’s fun and snarky and pervy and unsettling. The way that she oscillates from the innocent babygirl verses to the tantrum of the chorus is pretty genius. 🎶 Where should I go, Daddy? What should I say? Where should I go? Is it okay with you? 🎶 ✩ And lastly, per Evana’s wonderful suggestion, I give you Boys by Sky Ferreira. It represents the boy redemption arc. I’ll leave it here: 🎶 You put my faith back in boys. 🎶
could not have read this at a better time! so wonderful!!