i write to you from my kitchen counter with my red light therapy mask and terrible posture. if anyone could tell me how to fix that up without me feeling like i have a stick up my ass, that would be great.

today we’re gonna talk about a trend prediction i find veryyyy interesting.

drum roll plzzzz … !!!

“intellectual influencers”

you see, the other day i was scrolling on tiktok and saw this cutie pie make a vid about their favorite “intellectual influencers” they follow to avoid brain rot which piqued my curiosity.

that’s when i found mad’s 3 part series breaking down what political performance looks like through the nfl, using moments like the selection of artists such as bad bunny to argue that the league often adopts the aesthetics of resistance without making real structural change internally, which she reads as a kind of woke washing.

@madeleinehiuwhat does political performance look like w/ the nfl? THIS IS PT THREE AND ALL OTHER PARTS HAVE ALR BEEN POSTED #fyp #superbowl #badbunny #nfl #politicalperformance

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the video was smart, creative, clearly researched, and she herself was thoughtful, well spoken, and easy to follow.

still, though i agreed with some of her points and the broader idea that the nfl’s relationship to power is complicated, i found myself pushing back on part 3 with the way some of the conclusions were built.

i did leave the vid feeling inspired because it’s a super great conversation to have, but a bit uneasy about how easy it is to treat someone’s interpretation, especially when it’s articulate and compelling, as the conclusion instead of the starting point.

to me, the value in content like that is using ideas as a springboard, like something that pushes you to think deeper about how a situation actually shows up in your own life and the world around you, not as fact.

the older i get, the more i realize how important it is to think for yourself and treat curiosity like a muscle. confirmation bias is everywhere and we naturally gravitate toward ideas that feel familiar or validating (because yasss #selflove), and the algorithm is more than happy to keep feeding us exactly that.

after a while things start to feel like consensus, like this must just be what everyone thinks, when really it’s often just a very curated echo of our own preferences being reflected back to us.

we’re living in a world of hot takes, deep fakes, and overly confident opinions, so it feels more important than ever to stay a bit skeptical and notice our own assumptions + question that bias, not just everyone else’s.

i know this because i used to be very comfortable in my own mental patterns until i started dating billy, whose brain works totally differently than mine. it was the first time i really noticed how much i wasn’t challenging my own thinking.

and that feels like a muchhhh more interesting place to roll up mi sleeves…

because it shows how two people can land in a similar place, but the path we take to get there is worth examining. the reasoning matters just as much as the conclusion.

personally, when i look at the nfl, i don’t think woke washing explains their behavior. i see something much more predictable.

dolla $igns, baby.

to me, the nfl is not primarily an ideological figure nor was it ever built to be. it’s a global entertainment business whose main objective is to grow their audience and make money, particularly through international markets at the current moment. and though i agree the nfl certainly has some systemic issues, as every multibillion dollar business does, booking an artist with massive global appeal and key demographic interest aka latino viewership isn’t necessarily a political statement. it’s a clear market strategy.

kendrick’s performance the year before doesn’t necessarily suggest ideological intent so much as cultural timing. he’s consistently one of the most streamed artists in the world, and the drake controversy only amplified his cultural dominance. the nfl and roc nation aren’t chasing wokeness, they’re chasing relevance, which ultimately keeps the big bad billionaires sitting in their luxury boxes very, very well fed. chicken tenders off silver platters and all.

or turning point’s ridiculous whatever the fuck that was is literal chump change to a halftime show that reached over a hundred million viewers and billions of social impressions with bad bunny.

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i’d argue that the nfl would endorse any halftime artist that maximizes their revenue. corporate messaging has always mirrored what’s up in culture. they’ll ride the cultural tide all day, but the core goal isn’t moral signaling, it’s the bottom line.

i think a lot of people assume visibility = endorsement = ideology, but if a company isn’t explicitly claiming moral values i personally believe that is cultural opportunism. whereas promoting values without internal systemic change is super woke washing.

in the video mads smartly points to colin kaepernick as an example of where the nfl clearly failed, and i agree completely… there is no disputing how the nfl handled that situation was super bad and his american right to peaceful protest is fundamental.

fast forward years later during the blm movement, the league admitted they were wrong not to take his message seriously, allowed slogans on helmets and end zones, and pledged $250 million toward social justice initiatives.

now that sounds pretty, but is it? when we talk about something like an institution’s multi million dollar social justice pledge, my first instinct is to immediately say it’s a write off, as if that is the only option from a big corporation cause i’m an ass like that.

but are financial gain and doing something socially beneficial mutually exclusive? in my heart, i don’t believe so. large institutions almost always act from a mix of incentives, and when social impact aligns with business strategy, that doesn’t automatically cancel out the potential good, right?

the more interesting question is if the action produces real positive outcomes does the motive matter less?

if every financial incentive completely erased moral value, that would be very unproductive. but it should invite scrutiny, because progress inside big systems is usually negotiated (super f*ing twisted), not pure.

another example from mad’s video was the dancer who unrolled a gaza and sudan flag and got tackled by security during kendrick lamar’s highly political halftime show in 2025.

she uses that example to imply a sense of moral tension, but I’m not convinced it actually proves any sort of suppression as much as it shows the predictable limits of a tightly controlled broadcast.

here’s the reality regardless of where you fall politically, situations like that are less about the content of the message and super about unauthorized disruption. at the end of the day, one of the biggest world’s stage is a tight assed managed production, not an open mic night for personal politics.

at any private performance, an interruption like jumping on a car then launching off the stage and running across the field with a flag would lead to an aggressive removal regardless of what it said. it could be israeli or maga or free the nipple or i ♡ taco bell... you’re still getting removed buddy.

the dancer is not a targeted scenario, think about the many streaking incidents. ex: the one that happened in the last 12 minutes of the 2026 game… he was tackled by 8 security guards.

consequences for interruptions like this usually exist on a sliding scale depending on severity, and while that can be subjective, things like removal and fines and bans are standard outcomes. in this case, i think the ban makes sense given that he was an official cast member carrying out a premeditated disruption rather than a spontaneous fan incident.

simplifying complex situations to support a thesis can make a stronger narrative, but it doesn’t necessarily make a more accurate one.

a big point of tension in today’s cultural script is that a majority of all popular (actually profitable) art exists inside capitalism. that’s how it reaches us. through brands and institutions and media platforms… all the thingys built to make money.

if resistance only counts when it exists completely outside those systems, then almost no mass cultural expression would qualify?? it’s just the reality of the world we live in.

and so, i’d like to believe that there can be evolution inside the most unreasonable infrastructures.

if the infrastructure amplifies ideas it doesn’t fully embody because those ideas resonate with audiences, does that automatically reduce the art to corporate manipulation orrrrrr are we sometimes just a little too eager to be a poopy pants and roll our eyes at everything?

idk man. culture and commerce, it’s complicated.

but anywayz, zooming out, we are living through a moment where smart commentary is everywhere and that can be so fun. thoughtful people are analyzing things in public, and that’s a good thing because it can expand our way of thinking, even if they’re literally so full of shit sometimes.

the point is that it’s our responsibility to notice and challenge it. if we start mistaking being good on camera for authority and interpretation for conclusion, we lose the individuality that makes things like even talking to the most annoying person interesting.

the goal of engaging with these conversations isn’t to adopt someone else’s conclusion or opinions. it’s to observe how they think and research and become curious about our own perspective.

learning isn’t copy and paste. being “disgustingly educated” (as the tiktok kids say) means nothing if the only reason you’re learning is to hear yourself speak…

it’s listening, thinking, probing, reflecting, letting multiple truths exist as once, and forming your own thoughts actually makes the pudding.

saying smart sounding things can certainly open the door, but it’s your beautiful stunning gorg curiosity that lets you walk through it.

so, all in all… i actually couldn’t give two shits about the nfl and my sports expertise probably begins and ends with buff chicken dip, so take this for what it is.

still, there’s something lovely about a random girl named mads making videos on the internet compelling enough to pull me out of my usual orbit and make me use my brainy brain brain for something other than dogs or summer house or chocolate or wine and more wine.

so yeah, bitches!! … a win’s a win!

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It’s 76 degrees in hawai‘i and I’m sitting on my lanai in a hoodie eating a popsicle because I’m sick like that 🤪

Nicole (my husband’s first cousin/now adopted as my own & by inescapable force my new bff) just left after visiting us for 10 days. Which, in hindsight, feels like exactly enough time to either fall in love on vacation or permanently destabilize the idea of it all in favor of a soul searching adventure + a super excessive amount of bikini bachunga booty cheeks.

So, as 3 grown adults determined to stay fruitfully young 4eva, we decided to use the time to test the fantasy of love in paradise. What we didn’t anticipate though was how quickly fantasy unravels under the spell of reality in modern dating.

10 days in Hawai‘i…

And instead of chemistry, there were questions. Instead of whimsical confidence, a chemical spill of emotional whiplash.

Watching it all unfold in real time reminded me that while freedom is fun, being single can still be a real bitch sometimes (even when you’re hot and on island time).

Naturally, nic’s trip began the way all good single hot girl vacations do… salty hair, low stakes, and deleting everything off her (old as shit) iphone in effort to clear enough storage to download the holy grail: Hinge. * and at the modest cost of $9.99 - a steal!*

Let me introduce you to nicole.

She’s not some angel dropped from the heavens. She’s a weirdo in her own right, dramatic when the moment calls for it (as am I... prob arguably more according to my husband lol).

But she is, without question, the kind of woman most people would be lucky to land.

She’s a real life mermaid. Beautiful, one with the ocean, and if you checked her pockets at any given moment there would likely be a pound of sea glass inside.

She’s kinder than most. More forgiving and loyal too. She’s smart, adventurous, genuinely hilarious, and has been through things most people wouldn’t survive without letting it harden her. Mean that.

BUT, most importantly, she can put down a cheesy gordita crunch like it’s nothing and still maintain a tiny waist, great boobies, and a yummy booty cheeks (which, in theory, should be working in her favor).

Turns out that combination doesn’t carry the weight it used to. After this little experiment, I can say with confidence that online dating doesn’t reward the “good girls” anymore… it rewards the shock factor.

Lemme Cook:

The first guy she matched with met her on the beach. Billy and I followed at a distance under the pretense of “watching the surf with our dogs,” which is what married people do when they crave drama but require plausible deniability.

Also, we needed to make sure he wasn’t a murderer.

I watched him arrive like a blonde buff ken doll that immediately began malfunctioning out the box. Shirt off. Back on. Off again. On. Off. A man negotiating with his own chest in real time, how cute... Eventually, he settled with on. Thank god. Idc how many abs are attached to your fur sir, a hairy nipple on the first date is, like, wildly aggressive. I don’t even understand how I’m writing this rn… but here we are.

Anywayz, she had to call him to explain where she was while he stood frozen, scanning the shoreline in that specific male panic that sets in when a woman isn’t exactly where/doing what he’d already assigned her in his head.

He was fine. Tall. Fit. Less cute in person, but within the acceptable margin of disappointment. Intelligent on paper, though not enough in person to notice he spent most of the date talking about himself. She was upbeat, funny per usual, and stayed sweetly curious (a reflex in women that has now proven to be strategically useless).

They parted after an hour or two so she could meet us for a hike. The same hike he’d claimed took him 6 hours and required calling 911 because he got lost in the dark. It took us 40 minutes, but I digress.

He didn’t text her after. Not to ask about the hike or to check if she made it home, knowing she had a 1.5 hr drive back in the dark.

She wondered if it was because she’d left her Invisalign in.

*no comment*

So, we did what any rational family unit would do... became assholes and reduced him to a baby back balding bitch. Otherwise known as… dead to us.

But we’re not here to talk about my asshole. Mostly his.

Because, you see, my pretties, we all know silence feels like rejection, but I’m no longer convinced it is.

When there’s always another option in your pocket, no moment feels final enough to act on. Infinite choice breeds zero conviction.

Unless you have a shock factor that cuts their haze, you kinda just evaporate.

The problem with that is the thing people assume is a “turn on” in this sort of arrangement isn’t doing much in actuality. For women or men.

It’s not as simple as a sexy photo or compatible interests or a tango of chill but not too chill, smart but (god forbid) intimidating. That’s all kinda baseline behavior by now.

Everyone’s hot. Everyone’s interesting. Everyone’s cool.

So if everyone clears the bar, who’s left to raise it? If everything is accessible, what becomes memorable?

Today’s media landscape trains your brain to wonder if there’s still someone better a swipe away. So when you’re trying to make plans or are even face2face sippin’ lychee martini’s, you’re competing with the idea of another woman he hasn’t even met yet but could at any given swipe.

The truth is, the concept of possibility is way more seductive than reality. And historically, that doesn’t exactly bode well for behaved women…

I know this to be true because of the extremely legitimate research we conducted shitfaced at Wang Chungs’s karaoke bar later that week.

The Super Legit Research:

The night started wholesome enough. An espresso martini for me and billy and a full titty halter top w. a flower in the hair for nicoley girl (aka the female universal sign for »open to love but will settle for a make out«) ᵕ̈

However, the bar was pulseless. Like dead AF. I did a lap and finalized nothing was going to happen here, so we left.

On principle, we refused to let the night fail and so to Wang Chung’s we went.

Wang Chung’s is precisely how it sounds. Iconic.

It’s a waikīkī gay karaoke bar with aggressive neon lighting, a full draft line of kicked beer, and honolulu’s most eligible bachelors hidden inside an absolutely random hotel off a road with minimal street lighting that briefly reminds you you’re too young to die.

Needless to say billy and I got litty titty. At one point he lifted me over his head and sang “beggin’” by måneskin so beautifully that every girl and gay in the room got a little more fertile just standing in his echo. I tried to sing “not ready to make nice” by the chicks, but they played “livin’ on a prayer” by bon jovi instead and some burly bunker boy stole my mic… welcome to my life.

Anyway, it was in this state drunken, feral state we were feening to stir the pot. Billy took nic’s phone and started blasting outrageous messages to men off her Hinge.

By morning, her phone was on fire. It was insane. Men were actually responding earnestly to the mayhem. Like lots of them and asking to meet. The same kind of men who had previously contributed nothing suddenly alive.

LET’S UNPACK:

Billy literally said: “muscles for days. that back shred reminds me of making tissue paper collages in south africa during the 2012 tissue paper shortage.”

AND HE RESPONDED WITH “Lmao thanks. Let’s hang out while you’re here. What are you doing wednesday?”

Beyond the fact that I’m both impressed and deeply unsettled by the man I married’s ability to generate such a sentence, I was more confused at the fact that every single one responded with a chuckle, a thank you, or a let’s get together instead of running for the hills.

But then I got it… the shock factor.

The messages worked because they didn’t sound like someone waiting on attention or hoping to be liked. They were careless. Like as if the sender was already entertained with or without a reply.

The problem with that though is, most people can’t just decide to be marginally unhinged in a charming (but not concerning) way. It only works if you actually mean it, which most people don’t. And I get that. We all want to be chosen… have feelings be mutual. Playing it safe on the first text makes total sense.

So I don’t think the answer is pretending not to care in order to hold the power. That wasn’t intention behind Billy’s lets call it “blast off” (lol). I think it’s more about engaging in something serious without taking yourself so seriously.

Like, I wonder if those guys questioned if she had handed the phone to her friend? I know I would. But even then, why would they still want to meet her?

The best answer I can come up with is relief.

Which, TBH, feels in short supply these days.

It’s amazing how quickly the pressure is lifted the second someone gets a little weird (and i don’t mean it like that u perv!!). There’s no obligation to say the right thing, no fear of being judged.

And even if the message is coming from a friend, maybe that almost makes it better??

Like, a subconscious nod that she has a life with humor and people who feel comfortable grabbing her phone... she’s not alone, spiraling on the couch watching “he’s just not that into you” whilst eating a fistful of sour candy and chocolate.

(which, to be clear, I mention purely as a hypothetical and absolutely super not from me + nic’s personal experience like whatsoever…)

By taking the pressure off another, you disarm their hesitations. The energy stops circling that inevitable and slightly nauseating Q of “do you like me?” and shoots it straight with a “buckle up buttercup if you want in”.

Which is why I think these men moved faster than usual. Because things that are fun offer relief and to quote the icon herself… that’s hot.

God, imagine how much easier life would be if we offered each other a little more relief and a little less scrutiny.

Isn’t that the point of all this anyway?

On her last night, 2 men emerged from the pile… one hot 5’9” jiu jitsu coach and surfer, one 6’7” beefcake. She chose beefy (which I think had less to do with height correlating to heart being that jiu jitsu man was willing to drive 2 hrs to meet her… and more to do with a deep human fantasy to be temporarily *respectfully* objectified like little porcelain doll by a man with hands the size of boulders).

*hey, we don’t kink shame here at pretty in person*

So anyway, nic and beefy went on a coffee date. He showed her the indie book app he works for. Even installed it on her phone. She made him laugh. And they walked the beach while she (most likely obsessively) picked up (a shit ton of) shells, which I think instead of charming he might of clocked it as mildly… um… quirky?? But in like an alarming-ish way???

After they parted because he had a tatty appointment she received no text. Again.

Fucking hell… I just don’t get it. Like if anyone takes the time to try to get to know me I’m thanking them for their time. Closing the loop.

So, I did what any qualified researcher would do… ask Instagram.

82% voted YES they text after a date, even if it’s not a vibe. Here are some notable takeaways from the homies.

So this means nicole is either having truly abysmal luck or she’s terrifying men in some unknowable way lol. Both are possible BUT on the real, nicole is like actually a cool girl. Like she doesn’t suck. So I don’t know why she would be the exception?

SOOOOO… we asked him.

Here’s what I conclude… a post date text is how people want to think they behave. But wanting to be decent and behaving cordially inside a cultural script written to remind you of the endless possibilities you have just one swipe away are two different things.1

Nicole, like many other guys and girls I know, are not as unlucky or unwanted as they might walk away from a date feeling. I think she’s just stuck inside the gap between intention and action where options feel endless and silence is kinda just easier.

Like beefy and light bulb emoji mentioned, context is doing more work here than we like to admit. Different places produce different dating norms, but unfortunately the silence still lands the same everywhere. That’s just cost of being human.

In NYC, things move fast and are competitive. You’re often having a drink with someone who’s already mentally halfway out the door.

In Florida, of course, there’s always the risk they’re your cousin, which tends to speed things along… lol.

And in Hawai‘i, everything is transient. People show up fully, but lightly. The emphasis is on the moment rather than the outcome, so experience doesn’t automatically mean anything comes next.

That night, day 10, the sunset was a non-set. Not an orange hue in sight. And after being rejected by beefy and the sun, morale naturally shifted to Taco Bell.

Then god decided to thicken the plot.

The moment we stepped up to order, we were denied. Literally in person at the window because of too many online orders????

YUP. TBell actually looked us in the eyes and went “nah”… a level of humiliation I didn’t know existed… until she chipped her tooth putting her retainers in.

And that, my pretties, is how nicole’s very own unpaid season of People She Met On Vacation x Love Island came to an end… with no man but lookin’ hella tan. I think that’s a fair trade.

So that’s the tea! Idk what any of it was supposed to teach us really… about men or principle or this swipe happy hamster wheel everyone’s running on.

But I do know this… if someone takes the time to sit across from you and ask about your life, that’s not nothing. And anyone who treats it like it is can take a soggy cheesy gordita to the face.

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Because pretty in person is not just a blog but a relationship hotline, if you’d like take nicole out, you may send me a message!!! But you better freakin’ text her when you’re done. Or else I know a guy who gets weird in the DMs.

PAUSE.

This is how you know that Evie is a real one. Hinge paid her to sponsor an article about dating, and the date itself didn’t come from the app at all. But through a friend. And some DMs… get that bag gurlll.

Okay. Back to the tea!

As I sat half naked in bed reading Hinge’s data drop on my laptop like a god damn culture horoscope, I realized something incredibly profound…

I was bored.

Not shocked, nor utterly mystified.

Just bored.

I guess intuitively I knew the numbers were going to suggest un serio problema nel mercato del dating (okurr hey italian lessons paying off :o) so reading lines like “84% of Gen Z say they want deeper emotional intimacy, yet nearly half hesitate to initiate it” felt more affirming than revelatory.

Because of course they do. Who doesn’t want intimacy? And obviously it’s scary.

But I don’t even know that that’s not the real issue anymore.

It’s that reading about something fun like dating desire now feels more like sitting through a work panel. As if we were discussing quarterly earnings or merging companies instead of literal human chemistry.

The stuff you feel and can’t explain.

I’m not sure what “practice small disclosures in trusted spaces” is supposed to do for anyone at this point. That conversation mattered once. It just doesn’t meet the moment anymore.

Enough of the Puritan shit. We’ve learned. We’ve overcorrected. This is dating, not HR onboarding.

42% of heterosexual Gen Z women that feel like the men they date don’t want to have deep conversations on the first few dates.

That doesn’t tell me we need safer spaces.

Neither does 60% of younger Gen Z daters (18–22) say they’re open to using AI for dating help as a virtual second opinion.

Read together, that doesn’t tell me we need safer spaces or better prompts.

It tells me conversation has replaced chemistry. And instead of being present in our bodies and letting the plot build, we keep trying to talk our way into feeling something.

That’s why you leave dates feeling like shit.

Because talking points feel safer but chemistry can’t be scripted.

Think about the 70s or late 90s, people were falling in love left and right long before social media, frameworks, or the urge to plan and process everything. They just got close. Listened to Music. Smoked a cigarette. And let things happen…

Even my worst dates were fun because I treated them like a bit… I loved seeing how far I could take it, what I could learn. Everyone has their own juice. You just have to be curious enough to find it worth the squeeze.

I shut my laptop and sat up.

Threw on my (billy’s) sassy NSYNC big tee and headed to the kitchen.

I doubled the coffee grounds in my French press and watched them bloom in hot water for 5 full minutes, staring with precision because of course my concentration alone is powerful enough to accelerate the brew thus my entire life.

And so, the rumination begins.

I can’t believe this is what connection has come to. Has the mouth not been perfectly capable of doing its job for centuries?

I poured my coffee, added vanilla, and a pinch of coconut sugar and cream, then migrated outside to the lanai. The morning air in Hawaiʻi is always slightly dewy, heavy but in a way that feels nice. How could it not? I know I’m lucky to floating on a random chunk surrounded by a boundless pacific hug.

I looked out over the balcony and thought to myself, when billy wakes up, I’m going to make out with him so hard.

Like Heated Rivalry if they let straights in the clurb.

Yeah, that’s the stuff.

But like high school.

Damn I miss being so mindless.

I think that’s the thing my generation had right (and the piece to the puzzle Gen Z seems to be missing).

There is nothing better than a good old fashioned make out.

Casey Lewis wrote yesterday morning about the “Analog Awakening.”

You know what the most punk analog awakening thing in the world is?

Making. The fuck. Out

Emily Sundberg has coined 2026 the year of party reporting. Which, I’m totally here for. Less analysis + more bodies in rooms together = more mouth. Oh how I used to love a classic dance floor make out.

Feed Me

2026 will be the year of the party reporter.

Hello everyone. I woke up early this morning, partially because of jet lag but mostly because I was excited to write about my single media trend prediction for 2026. On the record. So far…

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6 months ago · 115 likes · 38 comments · Emily Sundberg

It’s like now we know too much and it’s fucking us up.

Camille Charrie had an interesting point when it comes to her hot take on Kareem Rahma’s Another New Thing Series which (spoiler alert) is that hot takes are ruining civilization and that we should be snogging more instead.

And I agree with that. The pressure of constant conversation… it’s killing desire.

If you pair Camille’s take with Jacob Elordi’s stuning quote on AI, I think what we can conclude is that often times the things that move us the most are slow…

A long novel pulling you in instead of a hot take spitting you out.

Being sunburnt and sandy.

The heat of body on body.

Hands in hair.

Counting freckles on skin.

A bite of the lip… not the quick drop of the pants.

I think that is more along the lines of the deep, passionate, romantic thing many of you are looking for. Not confusing emotional intimacy with oversharing on a barstool.

In high school and college, we may not have known what collagen peptides were or had TikTok but one thing we did have was the pulse to just make out.

On the bridge.

Against a wall.

In the basement laundry room.

Behind carts on the gold course.

And to be clear, that kiss didn’t necessarily mean sex. It was just fun.

When I was 24, I traveled alone to Budapest. On my last day, I got set up with a guy through my American friend living in Amsterdam’s Spanish friend I’d met once. Maybe twice. Whatever. Europe.

We met at a ruin bar, all crumbling walls and mismatched chairs, sticky floors, music bleeding out of blown speakers. We drank too much warm beer. We stood carelessly close. And didn’t talk about anything important.

I don’t remember his last name. I don’t remember what time it was. We didn’t have sex. I never saw him again.

It was wonderful.

I had never felt so confidently alive.

Walking home buzzing because your body knew what to do before your brain could ruin it is its own kind of high. Trust me on that.

PDA (public displays of affection) used to be how you practiced being human. How you remembered you have a body and spirit that belongs in the world and not just in your head or on an app looking hella filtered.

Obviously there are levels to PDA. Please don’t go and get fingered in the Walmart parking lot.

But wake up and let yourself live a little!!

Make 2026 the year of the make out.

Dare I say: PDA?

Look at Remi Bader and Isaac Greenbaum having the most fun out here, kissing strangers at midnight.

I’m so tired of walking into a sushi bar and seeing a row of faces lit up by blue light instead of flushed with the appetite for another.

Feed me tempura with your sticks, amore!! Let that wasabi get tangled in your hair.

You’re not a slut for kissing on the first date. And you’re a loser for deciding not to! But abstaining from desire out of fear isn’t the hard to get flex we think it is. (If they like you, they will stick around no matter how early you kiss.)

You are wasting your life outsourcing intimacy to AI therapy, safe spaces, and statistics when the only moments that have ever felt real are the ones where you shut the hell up, drop the analysis, and let chemistry come alive without expectations.

I refuse to believe you can intellectualize love or vulnerability. There is no data drop or secret pill to get it right. Letting a machine guide your love life when it has never felt lips, hands, or heat is a fools errand.

Love has never lived in language the way it lives in touch.

If your mouth is busy kissing someone, you’re not overthinking your text. You’re not asking AI how to flirt. If your body is engaged, fear doesn’t get the wheel.

Maybe the depth everyone is searching for isn’t actually that deep…

Maybe we don’t need better communication strategies. Just more physical places where it’s acceptable to your freak flag fly. More music that’s too loud. And nights that you forget to go home early. Even in the dead of winter…

I hear movement inside. A 6’2” American-Italian beast is emerging from hibernation.

I take this as my cue for our morning make out window.

Mug in hand, I flip my hair, stand tall, and strut inside all dewy and flirty and shiz.

Uh oh.

The coffee hits.

No.

My body has other plans…

Yeah.

Anywayz, That’s marriage!!!

G2G!!!!!

We’ll circle back to that make out later <333333

( & yes I am geeeeking out for the finale and need ppl to gossip about who’s gonna die so DM ME!!! )

But you don’t have to watch the show or even like it to understand what I’m trying to say.

In season 4, there’s this episode titled “Dear Billy.”

It’s my favorite.

Not necessarily because I fundamentally believe it’s named after my own very booger (Billy) but because it low key ruined me on an existential level.

Quite a bit, actually.

I was a wreck.

My cheeks were embarrassingly wet and my eyes are flooded in the most unstoppable (dramatic) way.

Billy, sobbing way harder than me.

I didn’t have the words to explain myself at this moment.

We grab hands and pathetically drag our emotionally wounded bodies to the fridge like the Stranger Things trauma survivors that we are.

Wine.

The only acceptable midnight remedy…

I look up at him as he pours and ask, “Billy, who’s in your montage? Where would you go?”

He laughed and said “when we got married of course!”

Lie.

Loser behavior answer, Billy!!!

I roll my eyes and he laughs.

We both know all too well that was a filler answer that silly boys give when the real one is far more vulnerable.

“No, really,” I say. “Where do you go?”

He thinks.

Back to bunk beds with his brothers and cousins wrestling until they got in trouble when they were young.

Back to gram’s for dinner.

Drinking at The Bridge with the boys.

The cafeteria when he first saw me and stumbled on his way to say hi.

I smile.

“Where do you go?” he asks.

I say I don’t know…

Maybe Funland at Rehoboth Beach.

Sleepovers with Lacey at camp, smuggling candy under the bed until we fully infested the bunk with bugs, and telling the boys who snuck out to kiss us to get lost because, frankly, they were not cute and our sleepover was way more fun.

Making a music video to Electro Pop with the girls.

The day Basil was adopted and she first fell asleep between my legs.

When I had an anxiety attack and you put ice on my head and I fell in love again for the second time.

Or no.

Better yet…

That time when we were in high school and I laid on top of you on the couch and you told me I had two smiles… the one small one before the big real one.

Turns out, I do know.

We clink our glasses and sip knowingly that some of our best montage moments have yet to come.

You know writing this in real time, I’m realizing how many minutes (stacked into hours, stacked into days) I lose to wondering if my stomach looks bloated in this shirt, if what I said sounded stupid, if people are unsubscribing because I’m unoriginal, or if my irritation with stupid shit is just because I don’t know my purpose and therefore will never be enough.

The list goes on.

Right?

And yet when it matters…

When my brain turns on me and my anxiety ridden sadness takes the wheel…

The memories that I fundamentally believe would save me when fighting for my last breath aren’t impressive or productive or even adult.

They’re simple.

They’re sleepovers.

And dancing.

And winning stuffed animals.

And snuggling up with people I love.

Billy’s voice.

My dog’s weight at my feet.

That song… the one that makes me think of that person every time.

I know Stranger Things is a just sci-fi and fantasy series and whatever, but the sentiment of Max’s montage I feel to be so real to me.

Maybe the danger of our bad memories, I think, isn’t so much the sadness or grief like I first thought, but more so the loop.

Our fixation.

Evil, in this sense, isn’t Vecna as much as it is intrusive repetition.

2026 is almost here.

And the new year has a way of forcing the issue.

Of intrusive thoughts.

Of focusing on our regrettable pasts and how to become a shinier version of ourselves in the future.

Whether we like it or not, this is the time of year we turn inward.

We think.

Replay our internal footage from the past and script out stage direction for the new.

We all have a montage.

Whether we’re ready to sit with it or not, one day it plays.

And here’s the part I don’t know how to say without ruining it (whatever “it” actually is):

Because despite knowing all of this… despite knowing exactly what would save me against all odds… I still wake up and reach for the wrong footage first.

And I don’t know why.

I don’t think it’s a flaw in my values.

I think it’s something more ordinary than that.

The simple human error of confusing what feels urgent with what actually matters.

Of rehearsing for a future moment that will never actually make the montage.

I reach for things that glitter but don’t last.

Things that look impressive in theory but forgotten on replay.

Proof of effort, maybe.

Sure.

But not proof of a good life.

And so, when the year turns and time starts to speed up, when your own personal Vecna slips in and locks you into the loop…

Who’s in your montage?

What’s your Kate Bush?

Where do you run?

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A stranger, twice your age, 6ft something with frosty hair and a pot belly full of entitlement, speaking down into your 5’2” frame to announce that your husband’s career is the prize, and by proximity, you are now the lucky winner.

As if that were the endgame I’d been plotting all along.

The pinnacle of my ambitions.

The presumption.

The smallness of it.

We were at a wedding for one of Billy’s family friends.

His comment killed my aperol buzz on the spot, which only made me hate him more.

As if my gorgeous dress, my sleek black hair, my entire disposition weren’t already proof enough that I could run circles around this whole country club of lax bros!!!

If only I cared to burn the calories… asshole.

If you’ve felt it, you know the queasy dispossession of being told your life has been alchemized into gold not by your own hands, not by your own voice, but from someone else’s paycheck and prestige.

His words froze me in place, his version of truth momentarily louder than my own.

My instinct was to protect Billy, to inform this stranger he’s more than his work.

To ignore the way his words erased me.

Looking back now, I wonder if that instinct was love or just another form of hiding.

My loyalty insists on love. My female intuition recognizes both.

Lucky for me, my bonus mom (aka mothaaaa in law) jumped in with Italian steel in her voice, correcting him that it was actually her son who won the lottery.

(hell yeaaa ma, pop off queen!!!)

She didn’t mean it cheekily.

Her words armored and clear.

I was the prize.

She would not let my silence be mistaken for submission.

For her, I’m grateful.

Grateful to have married into a family like that.

But even behind her shield, comments like his expose you.

Walking into a wedding where you know no one, without a career title or salary to mask you, leaves you bare in ways people rarely understand.

I’ve never been the type of girl who aspired to “just” be someone’s wife or mother.

I did not dream of marrying a doctor, nor becoming a dependent.

Exhibit A: Video saved from my L.A. days circa 2022. Proof you can manifest healthcare and that the universe has a sense of humor !!!!

But on the real, those roles have very little to do with the entirety of who I am and the woman I am working to become.

And yet, he had already summed me up before I even opened my mouth.

In his eyes, my worth was reduced to the “luck” of a ring (a diamond passed down from my grandmother BTW).

I will never understand the arrogance that gives men permission to say shit like that.

Greasy compliments disguised as praise, slipping out of their mouths and onto me like pure spittle.

It’s fucking gross.

*** let’s get this guy a bib am i righttttt?! ***

When I married Billy, yes, I knew the math would be mathin’…

We both knew the situation at hand.

From the start it was clear, the career trajectory I envisioned for myself at that time would be complicated in tandem with his.

His job is entangled with commitments that could uproot us anywhere at anytime for the next 8 years.

I’m not a numbers girl but each time I tried to work this equation, the answer came out the same every time.

I simply didn’t want to do life without him.

(aw)

Plus, he promised that if I gave him the next few years, he would give me the rest of our life to call the shots…. and that sounds like a deal to me, baby!!!

So yeah, #math.

When I returned back to Florida after studying fashion in Milan, I grieved this new reality in very dramatic ways.

Many of which were over loads of red wine and pub subs (shout out Publix for being one of the last redeeming qualities of FL).

I was excited to be home with my family of course, but it was hard to see my friends continue on without me.

The catty interview drama.

The post work cobblestone aperitivos.

The design and fashion week pictures and parties.

UGHHH.

I had to accept that all the possibilities I built in my head before living abroad may never step out of my imagination.

So, that’s why comments like this guy’s really piss me off.

They shrink the weight of MY big life decisions.

The opportunities I walked away from and will continue to.

Not because I wanted to or because Billy’s job makes it easy (it doesn’t).

But because I love the shit out of that booger and the nuclear family that we plan to build.

Something Billy and I have chosen to do, TOGETHER.

His casual assumption that a woman’s value is something bestowed upon her feels like a plight I super thought we’d outgrown by now.

And I hate that on paper the current contrast between Billy and me reads like validation to his smug little stereotype.

Billy’s career is absolutely flourishing (and don’t get it twisted, we are so freakin’ proud of him), while mine low key looks like the back of a milk carton lol.

But off paper that’s not how I feel, you know?

That’s not how I live.

That’s not my grand plan for life.

And it’s certainly not how I measure my independence as a woman.

I think both men and women have their own ideas of what the “independent woman” should look like.

And unfortunately for me, I don’t seem to fit in either box.

Which has made me realize why the archetype of the “independent woman” has always been less about freedom than about policing who gets to claim it.

She is not flesh and blood but a cultural invention, a product of the media and capitalism’s version of empowerment.

She scrubs away the truth of human nature.

The sweetness, the longing, the dignity of needing others.

An instinct that predates hashtags and money itself.

For me, the truth is much messier and more complicated.

I believe independence has always been entangled with dependence to some degree.

Freedom lives in relationships. It’s also what keeps them alive.

Surrender is not weakness. It’s a choice. And sometimes it takes more strength, more independence, than resistance ever will.

I understand why the girl boss myth is seductive.

It promises agency, glamour, a clean break from the centuries of women tethered to someone else’s name.

But it’s also overplayed and can be destructive.

Too often, it’s weaponized against women like me who are kinda caught in the in-between.

Like a test of our authenticity or some shit.

The moment a woman admits she needs love, or money, or whatever, she risks feeling disqualified from the category of someone who can “hold her own.”

And I hate that so much.

Listen, I’ll defend the rights that the women before us fought for until the day I die, but let’s be honest here…

The miss independent myth we’ve written into today’s cultural script doesn’t actually free women, it keeps them under surveillance.

It turns softness into failure.

Dependence into shame.

As if the only alternative is being a bad feminist.

It’s absurd when you think about it.

Real life is messy, full of contradictions.

Like chore charts and passive aggressive post-it notes.

Shared paychecks and selfish splurges.

Sunday snuggles and Monday slammed doors.

Texting your friends in desperation because you can’t decide whether to cry or sack up and apologize.

To brand independence as nothing more than career, money, or aspirational content is to flatten it into a sterile false binary.

So what?? You’re telling me is that because my career isn’t where I want it, I’m suddenly not autonomous?

BULLSHIT BOIIII.

That logic breeds a lifestyle aesthetic that is completely boring and leaves no room for neediness or chaos or connection.

As if the second work doesn’t pan out, the next step is to start cranking out babies???

Like, excuse me? I’m sorry, no.

The more I think about it, the more I want to scream Kelly Clarkson’s Miss Independent until my lungs give out.

Such a banger.

I hate that I constantly feel on trial.

If it’s not me doing it to myself, it’s a man at a wedding.

Or a friend’s face when I take out my credit card.

Or a family member asking what my plan for work is when I arrive in Hawaii.

Independence isn’t fixed. It’s situational. And it demands context.

You know?

Sometimes it feels like freedom, other times like punishment.

Sometimes it is the satisfaction of paying your own rent, sometimes it is the loneliness of never having anyone to split the rent with.

Real independence exists when women reclaim authorship of their own stories and no I don’t mean Instagram stories.

Owning your life isn’t just about buying power or turning men into little minion errand boys. Though let's be real that is so much fun lol.

It’s about the freedom to choose interconnection without losing yourself.

That’s the lottery, bb.

Not your spousal status.

I remember who I was when I had a corporate title, the good salary, the cool big ass apartment, and weird cringe LinkedIn posts.

I was absolutely brutal to be around. My friends will tell you… I was literally off my rocker.

I wasn’t able to nurture the parts of me that actually make me feel like myself because I was too busy cosplaying some “bad bitch” version of me that never really existed.

Yeah, some days I miss the ease of appearing to have it all together. As if not measuring up financially means I’ve failed some invisible checklist I invented for myself.

But then I remember I like who I am now.

Like, for the first time in years, I actually really do.

I like how I spend my days

How I wake up early to write without the pressures of answering emails.

Cooking healthy buddha bowls for lunch.

Doing my Youtube yoga midday outside surrounded trees

Taking long walks with our dogs and no service.

Learning Italian so I can shock the shit out of my friends when I visit.

Reading more than I ever have.

I feel so damn lucky that I get to wake up each morning and decide for myself how I spend the entirety of my day. And none of it is in small part thanks to Billy.

Which, fine, makes me sound like a TikTok trad wife or like a stay at home mom without the chaos or credibility of literally birthing or raising children.

But fuck it.

I’m happy, man.

My life is not him working while I fold aprons.

I have aspirations I nurture in my own little world offline.

And he and I both know we share the weight of this relationships in ways you can’t measure or justify on paper.

Building a life together is about give and take.

Right now he gets to grind at a career he’s loved since long before we were together, and I get the space to shape the one I want to build for myself, on my own timeline.

That’s the freedom no stigma of “independent woman” could ever take from me.

Listen, I’m not naive.

As adorable as that arrangement may sound on paper, I’m under no illusions.

Merging finances will always be complicated.

Money holds power, and sometimes that power tips the scale in partnerships.

It’s inevitable.

We’ve certainly fought about it, and I’m sure we’ll fight about it again.

I do believe women having their own money is crucial for many reasons.

This is not my manifesto for shelving careers, nor the plan I have for myself.

If building a powerhouse career is your version of independence, I fully celebrate that (AND I envy you, because TBH who doesn’t dream of turning their passions into a full blown empire?!)

My turn will come in time. That I’m certain of.

But, in the meantime, the more I ground myself in independence of voice, curiosity, joy, and creativity… the less there is to fight for.

The more I love who I am, unbothered by societal standards, the more I see what I actually want.

To soak up the love, work as a team, and just let life do its thing.

I know that at the end of the day, my situation is a deep privilege.

To have someone who works his ass off and supports me in simply being me (with nothing to show for it) is something I’m profoundly grateful for, and something I truly wish for everyone (who doesn’t suck).

Because of that, because of him, I can better grow into the kind of woman that rooted in who I actually am.

So what is an “independent woman,” really?

To that man at the wedding, it meant winning a doctor. (Spoiler alert he was also a doctor… go figure lol)

To me, it means claiming authorship of my days and my life, even if it bruises my ego to lean on someone I love from time to time.

It means refusing the myth’s brittle binaries.

It means choosing freedom in an interdependent way.

And if that disqualifies me from the cultural ideal…

Good.

I’m not here to win the lotto by playing inside someone else’s box anyway.

Xoxo …

-Bx

If you want a lil laugh at the most absurd commercial…

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Every photo dump she posts gives me a new strain of FOMO I didn’t even know was possible with strangers.

It’s starting to feel a lil parasocial, but not in a creepy way (yet) SO I think I’m still safe fam.

Anywayz, the thing that bothers me about this allure is that I can’t even tell you why exactly I vibe with it.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now (aka all week).

It’s not because she’s gorgeous (though, duh).

It’s not the hot accent or the “reads a million books in tiny bikinis laying on her adorable vanilla fiancé’s abs” thing.

It’s not her activist x philanthropic heart or service95 newsletter that, against all pop star odds, actually super doesn’t suck.

Or her ability to hold a headstand for hours on a paddle board while sipping volcanic wine in the Mediterranean.

Even her music talent, which should be the obvious answer. But I don’t particularly love pop, so it can’t just be that.

I don’t know.

It’s a certain something that’s hard to pinpoint.

Something like vivacity.

Yaaassss. That.

Her effortless vivacity.

Natural.

Unforced.

Like kinda the art of being alive.

Even though she’s obviously rich and famous and doing all these lavish things, it doesn’t read that way.

Sure, money buys her an elevated experience, but the spark itself feels accessible… the kind we can shapeshift into our own lives in the fun things we do.

For example, if I were to guess, most of you reading this probably don’t fly private like Dua does. But when she does, she’s curled up with a book I’d also pick up.

And that small detail is what makes her human.

It opens her an orbit to us.

I suspect moving alone to London at 15, finishing high school on her own, deciding to take a gap year before uni, working bars, no plan B if music didn’t work out all of that has something to do with it.

It’s the kind of life that forces you to pick a lane and pour everything into it. And because she had the trust and backing of her parents to even try, it feels less harsh and more wholesome.

She knew what she wanted and went after it without judgment or fear from the people she loves.

There’s a grit in that.

But also a sweetness, too.

And so I think about the pull she has on me whenever I indulge in her perpetual holiday content.

It doesn’t feel like a flex.

It feels like a force.

Like she’s actually drinking in all the global goodness life has to offer with friends she genuinely enjoys.

That’s not just magnetism.

It’s gravity, baby.

★

Magnetism is what gets fetishized online (usually holding hands with its bestie, authenticity).

And yes, I get the appeal. Of course.

I’ve taken the bait.

Being a magnet feels like a sugar rush! And I can’t deny my sweet tooth…

But zooming out, the way it’s often packaged (at least online) feels off.

A self centered glow trying to outshine everyone else.

The pinterest board law of attraction that promises you friends, lovers, followers, money, influence, yaddyada.

@chloeegaynorI can make a more detailed post of what this actually means and looks like !! Lmk if you want that 💛✨ #mindset #magnet #energy #magnetic #manifest

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I don’t want to blow up this girl’s spot. Because she’s absolutely not wrong, magnetism works, sure.

Obviously, it does pull people in.

Getting compliments is super nice.

And having the sparkly thing that makes strangers turn their heads in a room is powerful.

But as I get older, I’ve come to learn spark of being attractive doesn’t last without fuel.

To better pick up what I’m putting down let’s defer to the homie Bill Nye.1

*** Disclaimer: I am not, in fact, Bill Nye. Any inaccuracies are between me, the internet, and now you. So be nice to me. ***

Gravity applies to all matter with mass.

It’s the universe’s greatest equalizer. No discrimination, no playing favorites. Every speck of dust and inflated planet gets the same deal. If you have mass, you’re in the game brother.

Gravity is the reason hydrogen clouds collapse into stars, the reason galaxies swirl instead of scatter.

Like, BRO. That makes me emotional.

It’s the beautiful glue that holds everything in this world together.

Magnetism on the other hand is more diva. Very demure, selective.

(btw are ppl still saying demure???)

It only works on charged particles if the charges or spins line up #clicky.

Most of the universe is electrically neutral, so magnetic forces don’t play a role everywhere. Magnetism shields earth from getting hella scrambled by the sun, but still, it’s situational.

Not universal.

That’s why gravity is mutually beneficial in a way magnetism could never be. Everyone participates, everyone contributes, everyone is held in orbit by the same invisible arms.

Magnetism is personal.

Gravity is universal.

Magnetism draws the eyes.

Gravity steadies the ground.

One makes you unforgettable.

The other makes you indispensable.

I believe the trick of life is not to choose one, but to know how to carry both and to do it with humility.

I’d like to be more like that.

★

That’s what I like about Dua Lipa.

She doesn’t just attract.

She shows me where I’ve been dead.

And that fucks me up in the best way.

Her vivacity, the all encompassing aliveness is a mirror held to my own mortality.

It makes me want to live harder.

She reminds me I won’t live forever.

When I am pulled into the Dua orbit, I am circling something bigger than her.

Bigger than myself.

And whether I like it or not (which luckily I do), it’s impossible not to shift when you step into that kind of orbit.

Under her orbit, I don’t want to look like her…

I want to feel like her.

I want to be in my body.

Read the book I keep ignoring.

Say yes to the night out.

Advocate for what I believe in.

Live fully.

Love harder.

Magnetism inspires imitation.

Gravity keeps you alive.

★

Here’s my girl math on it…

Gravity is:

• 80% consistency

• 20% poise in chaos.

Consistency creates gravity from reliability, steadiness, showing up the same way again and again.

It’s a confident stillness in your body, the calm in your voice, the fact that you don’t tweak when others do.

People trust what doesn’t wobble.

BUT consistency alone is boring.

That’s where poise in chaos comes in.

The gravitational pull shows itself most when the air thickens. Think: online tension, boyfriend drama, full on crash outs… you get ze gist.

If you can stay graceful, collected, dare I say unbothered while everyone else is spiraling, the whole damn room tilts around you.

And I think that’s the “destabilizing” part of gravity.

Strength in chaos.

That’s the click everyone feels it but never defines.

Think about when Dua Lipa got absolutely shit on by the internet for being a terrible dancer. Instead of panicking or going ghost, she leaned into the work, and intentionally hired people to help her grow into herself. Like a hairstylist who understood her facial features, a choreographer who taught her how to move in ways that actually embrace her specific femininity and energy.

@futurehadidthe most iconic dance #dualipa #fyp

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Now she’s a freakin’ siren up there.

Same woman, different axis.

@alex_bowdennThe Dua effect is strongggg. #austincitylimits2024 #acl2024 #dualipa #boyfriendsatdualipa #dualipaeffect #dualipaacl #dualipaaustincitylimits #austincitylimitsmusicfestival @Adam Lopez

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That’s the pull. That’s the hold.

I find it so impressive.

Contrastingly, watching someone like Alix Earl excites me. She’s magnetic in the most algorithmic sense… flash, spin, dopamine.

Watching her feels like I’m playing an elevated slot machine with great boobs.

@texasadpi@Alix Earle says GO TEXAS ADPI!!❤️❤️ #utaustin #texasrush #sorority #recruitment #alixearle

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You’re hooked until you’re not.

Contextually, though I admire what I believe is her genuine kindness to others, I don’t feel open to her orbit. If I had to guess why, it’s because her world doesn’t spark adventure in mine.

Watching her online feels like looking up. A life above mine, not alongside it.

@bydee_ausBydee babe @Alix Earle spotted on vacay in Hermosa ✨ #alixearle

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Maybe that’s her wealthy background shifting the frequency?

Maybe it’s that her TikToks have changed since the early days, when she was just another college girl at frat parties.

Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ve just grown out of that orbit.

But you get what I mean, right?

Magnetism excites on the surface.

Gravity destabilizes at the core.

So, my question to you is how much gravity do you pull?

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Myself included.

Within the past 4 days my feed has been consumed of Maalvika’s plagiarism exposé, the Sydney Sweeney x American Eagle stupid jeans campaign nightmare, and the Tea app’s data breach.

These things in isolation are incredibly straightforward to discuss:

1. Plagiarism and profiting off of it nonetheless is dead wrong and embarrassing. (although I do have to say the cyber bullying towards her is getting a bit out of hand)

2. Sydney Sweeney’s white washed, double entendre campaign is just weird, plays into eugenics, and is a ripoff from Brook Shields’ Calvin campaign (which was inappropriate then too). But no I don’t believe this is Natzi propaganda.

3. A man designing a women’s only dating safety app that ends up cause more harm than good will never not be ironic as fuck

But with that said, what I need people to actually realize is that the internet is not and never was designed to be a place of safety or connection…

It was a machine built to harvest your data and monetize your every move.

This was something mentioned on most recent podcast and it gave me the click I needed. After you read this listen to this ear candy:

Diabolical Lies

The Internet Has a Porn Problem—Just Not the One You Think

In this conversation…

Listen now

a year ago · 81 likes · 47 comments · caro claire burke and Katie Gatti Tassin

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Internet in Review:

For the sake of brevity…

The internet was born from military infrastructure as a communication network designed to survive a nuclear attack.

Which then morphed into an academic network for nerds to email data to each other.

Which then the government lifted restrictions on commercial use in 1995 (the year of me being born) and from that point forward was hijacked by capitalist markets and refined into behavioral prediction engine…

Enter: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. Platforms disguised as “connection” that are really data extraction farms.

That data is then collected, repackaged, and used to manipulate you via content, ads, political polarization, Sydney Sweeney’s tits, etc.

**** TL;DR: Hi bitch, you’re the product not the customer. ****

Shoshana Zuboff calls this surveillance capitalism and I fucking love that title. I wish I had come up with it myself.

So, when I see online that there was a giant data breech of 70,000+ user photos including selfies, government IDs, and private chats being leaked off of some bullshit app that was never built to protect heterosexual women from predators or domestic violence all I have to say is: fucking duh.

It is infuriating to watch women being sold the illusion of control through gamified red flags, rating exes like Yelp reviews, and still be shocked when it backfires. Did we really not think those men wouldn’t retaliate with revenge porn or learn to code and hack the system???

And while I understand the impulse to “warn the next girl” about his STDs, I also believe that if someone is an actual predator or violent offender, report him to the police. Not the algorithm.

Because no matter how intoxicating it is to spill the tea, the internet will almost always fail you. Not because you’re impulsive but because it was never designed to protect you.

Let’s not forget, we live in a country where the president of the United States is charged with sexual misconduct allegations and tag line’s “grab her by the pussy” and still got elected. Then re-platformed. Pardoned and praised.

So you’re telling me a mint green app stamped with a cartoon teacup and AI generated trauma tags is going to protect women from systemic misogyny?

@admontaytea app data breach #teaapp #teaappexposed #teaappforwomen

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Hahahaha. No. Be fucking for real.

I’m sorry if this comes across harsh, but I promise this perspective was built on a foundation of experience and empathy. I, too, have my own fair share of “tea”…

I’m just so tired of perpetuating rhetoric that women are victims and men are misogynists. It’s flat. And helps no one.

You know?

The danger isn’t just men. It’s the system’s inability to hold complexity.

What we need more than ever is vigilance and literacy.

It’s not to say we don’t have things that need fixing…

✓ Yes, women still don’t have equal pay.

✓ Yes, women in Texas have less bodily autonomy than their guns lol.

✓ Yes, sexism is alive and well.

✓ Yes, there will always be creepy men saying incredibly creepy things.

→ But men are also more suicidal than ever. And that matters too.

My point here is that escaping today’s internet and media feedback loop can’t simply be to unplug.

It’s to wise up.

And I don’t mean by quoting Dostoevsky online like an alt-lit baddie. Being well-read is good, but surely won’t save you when the app tracking your period starts marketing Domino’s and breakup playlists the moment you ovulate.

We need to understand the circuitry.

Internet literacy is no longer optional.

It’s low key (high key) self-defense.

Know how the system works. Know what it feeds on.

Ask not just what you’re seeing, but who benefits from you seeing it.

Because if we don’t learn the system, the system will outlearn us. And it will use our own stories to build something that allows someone to profit off our pain.

That’s why Maalvika was able to become a bestseller and make bank off of thoughts that were never hers. Because Substack’s algorithm literally doesn’t give a shit what brain they came from as long as it’s profiting from its engagement.

And American Eagle’s stock jumped up to 25% after the Sydney Sweeney campaign launched. Because the algorithm doesn’t care if your ad reeks of eugenics or your identity politics.

It cares about your engagement rate. And bitches be engaging…

@brett_neusty @brett_neusty ♬ Feel Good - Tundra Beats

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When women aren't literate in these systems… when we don't understand how data is collected, where it's stored, what gets trained on it, and how it's sold or mirrored back to us, etc… those systems win not just by manipulation but by pure negligence—on our part.

We can’t continue to use the algorithm as an excuse.

Because it’s not going anywhere.

You…

Me…

We…

Need to know that if an app is free, you're still not the customer.

You're the inventory.

Your face.

Your chat logs.

Your location.

Your heartbreak.

Your patterns.

Your boundaries.

Your vulnerabilities.

All of it gets fed into a machine that builds a personalized algorithm designed to show you what you already believe, over and over again, until your sense of reality is less about truth and more about pattern recognition.

Kinda like Plato’s allegory of the Cave where prisoners saw shadows on the wall and believed those shadows were reality and then when the one prisoner escaped the cave he realized that the entire time he had been watching a projection, but the people inside the cage are still strapped in their own illusion.

[AKA… Silo lol]

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Here Me Out…

We live in a world where AI therapists (aka Chat GPT) are trained on the emotional residue, also known as your own personal vulnerability, to help you formulate late night breakup texts.

Where Meta could buy the Tea app not to endorse that women date safely, but to build better emotional simulators, hyper-targeted ads, and behavioral prediction engines.

Where digital safety has become surveillance capitalism.

I don’t know an answer to this issue. I think the magnitude of money and power at play will dead end any reasonable attempt at political regulation.

I think the best we can do is become literate in our own exploitation.

Self-regulate.

Especially as a woman.

Because the same lazy pattern recognition that blames women for being assaulted is the one that paints immigrants as violent threats.

For example, if Fox tells you all immigrants are criminals, we need to train our brains to question what that “all” percentage actually looks like?

We might find that as of June 2025, 71.7% of the ~58,000 people detained by ICE had no criminal convictions at all. Among those with convictions, fewer than 10% were for violent crimes like murder, assault, or rape. Over 75% of detainees had only minor infractions.

Fighting back with protest and rage posts and podcasts won’t cut it if you’re getting outcoded.

Do you want to learn the game, or be the content?

@hayusocialQuote me on this. #KUWTK #KimKardashian #KrisJenner #Quote #TV #hayu

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Get curious.

Be suspicious.

Google counter-arguments to every opinion you hold.

Ask what a platform is really doing when it says it's “for women.”

Understand the difference between user experience and user extraction.

Learn the machine: The internet, the government, our economy (sill working on that one lol)

Play it before it plays you.

Because this shit isn’t going anywhere.

It’s time to get our heads out our asses and get back to basics before our lovers turn into robots with 100% intelligence and kill us all…

OKAY that’s all I got!!!

XOXO

- Bx

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That number sent me.

Partly because how the hell did I age out of that bracket over 6 years ago??? But, mostly because, holy shit, that’s a massive drop.

Thompson dives into the history of partying, ATUS data, and potential reasons screens absorbed the party like fatigue, financial pressure, and ambient anxiety killing us all like carbon monoxide, etc. My fav stat he listed was that the average American woman now spends more time actively engaged with her pet than with human friends.

UMMM… Alright, DAMN. No need to drag me by name, sir.

I wish I could say I’m immune to the trend, but fuck, I’m not.

When I was 15 - 24, most of my free time revolved around flip cup, sneaking onto tennis courts to kiss boys at midnight, and hungover Chipotle deliveries at 9 a.m.

Idk what changed, but now it takes everything in me to reply to a group text.

Am I paying some karmic tax from years of frat party keg stands and Lower East Side sleepless nights? Maybe.

Post-pandemic whiplash? Probably.

But honestly, I think the real collapse happened when I blurred the lines between work and life. When one sucked, the other drowned with it.

Work stress bled into weekends. Friendships turned into marketing calls. Social media became a funhouse mirror of everything I wasn’t. Adderall for burnout. And suddenly, being social felt like something to earn, not enjoy.

When I moved to NYC and later LA, I got obsessed with work. I liked feeling sharp and busy and “on the rise” (whatever that means). The more I worked, the more I wanted to talk about it. So I chose people who “got it” over people who got me. Old friends faded. Coworkers became confidants. Things got transactional, though I didn’t realize it at the time.

A mentor once told me, “Your network is your net worth.” And I ate that line up. I liked feeling powerful and opinionated and business oriented.

I felt seen. Strategic. Like I was finally part of something…

Something that had realized potential in me that I had only just begun to see.

Then I lost my job.

And just like that, everything became a dumpster fire.

I didn’t just lose a paycheck. I lost my network. My corporate card. Special event invitations. Office beers. Client benefits.

Worse, I couldn’t let go of the version of me that job had built. So I kept showing up. Ordering the natural wine, buying vintage clothes from Melrose, paying for dinners I couldn’t afford, doing anything to stay relevant.

I tried to keep up the illusion of a “thriving social life” without the scaffolding to hold it.

But it all came crashing down.

Financially.

Emotionally

Mentally.

I went into a fuckload of debt, gained like 15lbs, and started antidepressants just to find the will to do the dishes.

Now plz enjoy a 92 second viddy of me being drama and my dog, Basil, physically dragging me back to sanity. Circa 2023.

When my job died, so did I.

Which, yes, is an absurd level of victimhood… but at the time, it felt like rock bottom. The party wasn’t just over. It had moved on without me. And I could not fathom the reality of being on the outside looking in.

Fast forward 2 years, I moved to Milan for a master’s in Fashion, Experience & Design. Out of all the culture shocks, the biggest wasn’t the language barrier or the fact that AC is nonexistent. It was an instant reset to my social baseline and even an excitement in mundane small talk.

My social battery completely recharged without me having to think about plugging it in. Which was weird. Being with people didn’t feel like constant effort. Just more like a rhythm of human nature doing what it does when the environment isn’t actively draining it.

Yes, you could attribute that shift it on the new romantic city, contrast between backgrounds when meeting new people, the gelato, fashion, art, or wine that’s cheaper than my toothpaste, etc. But what I felt was a shift on a visceral level. A familiarity to something primal. The basic constructs of human nature that I hadn’t felt in years.

It was easy to go out. Not because everything was perfect, but because perfection wasn’t the entry fee to being fucking human. You know?

I could feel glamorous and sexy while still being a bit of a mess.

It was hot to be polished and still undone.

My career wasn’t locked in.

My personal finances were shaky.

But, still, I showed up in whatever made me feel expensive and creative and indulged.

I ate, drank, smoked, laughed.

Rinse.

Repeat.

I didn’t need to be thriving to take up space. I just need to not be in leggings lol.

Because that’s the European way.

“Going out” isn’t an event but more so a routine in Italy. A way of life. You don’t go out because you’re in a good mood. You go out because the city is alive and not partaking in the energy of it feels fucking weird. Like you’re dead.

No one had money in grad school. Everyone was operating on a tight budget, whether it was their own savings or generous family support. But no one missed a weekly aperitivo. No one skipped grabbing a shot of espresso.

You just showed up.

Broke, tired, horny, whatever, and existed.

I remember seeing people talk about this in the chat people commented how hard it is to justify going out when drinks are expensive, your therapist says boundaries matter, and your ClassPass credits are already maxed out.

And thought I get that, I really do. I’ve grown prone to it in fact.

But what Italy reminded me of is that even when you’re broke, you still take place in society.

You just do.

Because the joy of being out isn’t some luxury, it’s a baseline. A survival of the spirit.

Think: New York in the ‘70s with Susan Sontag at the Chelsea hotel. Or Eve Babitz across the coast lighting one up at with her flavor of the week at Barney’s Beanery. Artists weren’t optimizing their schedules for peak productivity. They went out because staying in wasn’t an option for them. You needed the dinner party, the drag, the sex, the wreck of a wine induced argument about nothing just to feel human.

It’s that exact zeitgeist that feels more in sync with European life than whatever assembly-line social existence we’ve currently rigged up here in America. The setup’s just better. The infrastructure itself feels designed for living, not escaping.

Italian bars aren’t “bars” the way we think of them like a separate establishment. They feel like a living rooms with espresso and Aperol. You start your day there with an cappuccino, maybe slide back at lunch for a panino, then wind down with a spritz. Before you head out or go home for dinner.

Same place, same faces. The bar doesn’t change, you do. And if you’re actually trying to partaaaay? That’s what the disco’s for.

Even the spirit of aperitivo isn’t the same as American happy hour. Sure, both involve pre-dinner drinks, but that’s about where the overlap ends.

Happy hour is rooted in Navy recreation and Prohibition workarounds. It’s built for efficiency: grab a discounted buzz before heading home (or not). It’s fast, functional, and fueled by deals: $4 wells, buckets of Bud Light, half-off nachos.

Aperitivo isn’t a deal. It’s tradition. Born from the Latin aperire (“to open”), it was always meant to “awaken” your appetite, not drown the day in tequila doubles.

In Italy, you lingerrrr (cue the cranberries lol). Which was hard for me at first. I’m a where’s-the-check-let’s-bounce-what’s-next kind of girl. But once I leaned into it, I realized how freakin’ delicious it is to give yourself the luxury of a little linger. You sip something light, maybe bitter. You bite on olives or prosciutto for free. You gossip.

It’s not a pregame. It’s a palate stretch. A slow roll into dinner and yummy, sarcastic conversation. Usually with a low ABV drink like a Aperol Spritz or Negroni. No rush, no bargains, no scolding if someone slips up and says something politically incorrect.

Happy hour on the other hand, shoves you into a booth with discounted sliders and cancels you real fast if your small talk doesn’t include a trigger warning.

So, when you line those two up next to each other, I totally get why people are over investing in happy hour altogether. Because it’s not designed to make you feel good, it’s designed to make you spend and walk on eggshells. It’s a monetized placeholder for connection.

When it comes to all things wellness, I just felt healthier on a daily basis in Italy. Internally cleaner. I actually didn’t gain weight in Milan. I lost 10 pounds. I worked out less. Walked more. Ate locally. Not because I was trying, but because I stopped obsessing.

There was no Goop-coded wellness hysteria. No chemical creamer sugar spikes.
I stopped punishing my body and started living in it. I just felt healthy because I felt satisfied. And I felt satisfied because I was present instead of fucking negotiating with a plastic menu all the time.

One feels like connection, the other feels like distraction. And once you feel the difference, you can’t unfeel it.

In America, wellness is a $26 smoothie, laser your face off industry.

In Italy, it’s “la dolce vita," finding joy and happiness in the simple things. Like late night cigarettes and slow mornings.

The value of leisure, art, connection, celebration, and daily humanity outweighed the price of a cocktail or the pressure of a pilates class.

In the U.S., we disappear when we feel behind.

In Italy, you show up. Stew over shit salaries with friends. Have a glass of wine. And carry on.

Now that I’m back in the States full time, I feel both the rust and the wisdom of social life.

My social battery dies quicker.

Everything takes more effort.

I think part of it is social media, burning you out before you even get dressed. The outfit, the plan, the post, the check-in, the pretending it’s all casual. We’re fried before we even leave the house.

The truth is, American socialization often feels less spontaneous more individualistic, placing a strong emphasis on planning, personal success, and purpose.

You’re judged by what you bring to the table: status, looks, charm, a story worth retelling. Or you’re stuck in your existing circle, too tired or too wary to let new people in. Blame it on burnout, politics, insecurity, whatever. It’s just true.

There’s a pressure to deliver something in exchange for human connection, and if you don’t have it or if your life feels messy or transitional, you stay in.

You opt out.

You scroll.

You convince yourself it’s better this way. Because socializing… partying… isn’t simply “connection.” It’s capital.

That’s where my version of dopamine economics comes in. Not the kind about attention markets or consumer addiction, but more so about finding a social baseline that centers joy as routine over instant gratification.

It's about building a life that’s worth living on a Tuesday. Not one that hinges on payday or post-vacation highs. (Though those are nice too.)

In the American joy feels conditional. You earn it after the grind. You swipe up. You buy it in 30 minute increments between tasks.

It’s not that the grind doesn’t exist in other countries, it does. But there’s a different instinct at play. Joy isn’t reserved for the weekend, or saved up for someone’s birthday dinner. It’s folded into the day.

That’s the difference. It’s not about hacking your brain. It’s about designing a daily life that feels like a birthright, not a reward.

Dopamine economics, to me, is about weighing the emotional cost of feeling good. Leaning on your humanness like a routine instead of an excuse.

So I’ve started opting out of that whole setup thing. No sexy job title, no 5 year plan, nothing to impress Uncle Jeff with at Thanksgiving…

I’m figuring out how to make money without selling my soul, how to be motivated without needing to be manic. And it’s not easy, but I’m lucky. I’ve had the time and the support from my family to try. I know that’s privilege I don’t take for granted.

And with a move to Hawaii on the horizon, I want to build something that feels routinely human.

For me, socializing can’t be the cherry on top of some LinkedIn-approved life. It has to be an actual priority.

The older I get, the clearer it is: my social baseline is my lifeline. My vitality. I feel ugly and old when I’m not being silly and free.

I don’t need a perfect life, I just want good bread, decent wine, and people to share it with when life feels like shit. Which, it inevitably will.

And in a country that’s forgotten how to do it without overthinking it to death, maybe the real work is just rebuilding the muscle. Risking the awkward pause and the “should we cancel?” texts.

Maybe the party revival isn’t about stats at all.

Maybe it’s simpler than we thought:

Start showing up for the people still worth throwing a party for.

I take many of these conversations in and outside the bar to heart because they make me think and tempt me to judge. I judge people a lot. Chances are, if you’re reading this, I’ve most likely made a judgment about you at some point. I don’t mean to; it just happens. Like a reflex. Really fast and all at once. Don’t worry. I usually keep them to myself. (And my dog.) Gossip isn’t my drug of choice. Probably because I secretly don’t want people to know how much of an egotistical asshole I can be. I hate that about myself. I judge that about myself. And, with the same gusto that I judge you. Brilliant, no? No.

I’m learning to live with it, though. So I can better let go of it, that is. Somehow, starting to own my lowest self rather than pretend I’m some sugar-coated sweetheart devoid of venom has not only humbled me but is positioning me to become more self-aware and reflective, which, in turn, is helping me become less of a judgmental asshole and maybe, just maybe, even a slightly better human.

Here’s my bootleg equation: I’ll take in your flaws, think some mean shit that I instantly regret, call myself a bitch for thinking whatever that mean shit was, then feel incredibly guilty and ask myself where the hell it all came from, and then use those thoughts as a catalyst for introspection. Nine out of ten times, I’ll come to find that I had been projecting my own baggage on you, and you’re not so terrible after all. As for the lone one out of ten, well, I probably just don’t like you. I’m sorry, but if you suck, you suck, and that’s on you babe. Sometimes, it just is what it is.

This all makes me sound much worse than I think I actually am most of the time. But when I write, I like to play with the truth, and my truth isn’t always pretty. The truth is I don’t always take the high road. And even when I do, my mind naturally wanders down a few back roads first. I don’t think that makes me a bad person, but idk. I guess I feel the need to get this off my chest because now that I’ve decided to share my thoughts online, I have this fear that people will look at me differently (even though deep down I know that truly no one gives a shit, lol). I suppose this fear will fade in time. Thanks for letting me vent for a hot sec. To the juice!ᵕ̈

Now that we’ve got my ugly tendencies and current insecurity out of the way, I want to unpack my most recent intrigue… The Three G’s: God, Guns, and Ghosting, a dynamic trio I’ve been tangoing with for the past week. This falls under the more giant umbrella of Purity vs. Sin, a concept I am still grappling with but am absolutely jazzed to get into at another time. For now, I may only scratch the surface of it briefly through the topics of sex, church, and cocaine through a satirical lens for my own comic relief, so if that makes you feel weird, I’d stop here, lol.

(Reminder: Judgmental Tendencies)

Still, I want to be clear that I understand these concepts are serious, incredibly personal, complex, and vary among different belief systems and cultural contexts.

With that said, here is the roadmap for this unconscious, nonlinear thought piece (My friend said I sound like a huge douche when I say the word ‘piece,’ so I’m throwing it in and making it sounds extra douchey just for him, lol. Moving forward, we shall name her ‘Blog’).

N°1. I will not delve into politics or my personal and ever-evolving belief system about these contentious subjects.

[However, you will not catch me sporting a MAGA hat, I do believe in “God” (or a higher power/universe, whatever you want to call it), and guns scare the crap out of me. So, take that as you will.] 

N°2. I will delve into my late-night, drunken sermon with a sexy, devout Second Amendment aficionado who kinda ghosted me-

An experience that puzzled me just enough to finally dig into my curiosity about the Three G’s and their underlying connection that makes this present day trifecta such a hot topic nationwide. 

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THE STEAMY SERMON STANDOFF

A few weeks back, I was walking my foster dog, Malibu (ADOPT HERE), when a truck halted right in the middle of the street, and a deep voice from a rolled-down window eagerly inquired about her breed. His sudden stop brought me to a standstill. I glanced over, fully prepared to face a local downtown creep from the Tampa streets. However, the man behind the wheel caught me by surprise. His eyes were bright but crinkled at the sides, suggesting a history of smiles and possibly laughter. His smile was genuine. So was his curiosity. I trusted him instantly. Quickly, I smoothed my hair and adjusted my blue, slightly disheveled button-down shirt, with only one button tightly secured, hoping he couldn’t I was still in my pajamas. I smiled back softly. I had just woken up from a late night working at the bar. I hadn’t even looked at myself in the mirror yet or remembered if I had brushed my teeth, but I didn’t care. I was too excited about this early morning roadside meet. I signaled him to pull over so he wouldn’t aggravate the car behind him. He stepped out of the truck, and the morning sun seemed to embrace him in golden radiance as if he were the very embodiment of Zac Effron himself from a scene of “The Lucky One.” That mother fucker, casually blinding me with the sun’s spotlight in all his effortless, irresistible glory, and here I am, clueless as to what I even smell or look like right now. 

He said hi playfully to my dogs, instantly making him 10x more attractive, and mentioned that Malibu looked just like his dog when she was a little pup. I gave my little foster mom-ologue, and he took a few cute pics of her in case he found someone looking to adopt. I suggested he take my number to reach me if he finds Malibu a home (or maybe finds himself thirsty and wants to take me out for a drinky drink. Smooth AF.).

We texted a bit. Turns out he lives in my building. After that, we couldn’t stop running into one another. It was weird. Why must the Universe play with me like this? I asked if he wanted to run the dogs at the park later that night. He said yes, and so we did. It was nice and laid back. He is so attractive. 

We texted a little the next day, and I offered to watch his dog while he had a long day at work. I do this often for a lot of my friends because, selfishly, it keeps my dog busy and, in turn, elevates my guilt of being a distracted, “boring” dog mom. But with this guy, it was different. He was hot. And from the moment I saw him I just knew something was about to go down. Or end in an awkward exchange causing me end my lease early and move buildings so I never have to look him in the eyes again.

He was excited about the offer. So a few hours later, there I was, watching his dog and my two crazies go after each other’s heads for hours. When he texted to check in, I pretended everyone was behaving, made sarcastic, nonchalant jokes, and even sent a selfie (which I immediately regretted). 

Upon his arrival to pick up his dog that night, I offered him some food and a glass of wine, which he gladly accepted. Knew it.

One drink turned into five, and the next thing you know, we have bottles of red flowing, the heavenly tunes of his Christian worship music filling the air (not kidding), and we are sitting on my couch with red cheeks in deep conversation about God and his chilling experiences and love for guns. Woof.

Side Note: Why does worship music low-key slap???

While our perspectives and reality of both subjects couldn’t have been more different (alongside our taste in music), a shared experience bonded us for a brief moment. We both found ourselves navigating layers of inner turmoil that come with navigating whatever this thing called life is. Never mind our fundamental differences; for once, it felt nice not to be an existential mess alone on yet another Thursday night. 

As we polished off my last bottle, the hallowed hymns of this worship music began to echo louder and louder inside my head, hammering my brain like that God damn Travis Barker song “Let’s Go.” (You know, the one with Lil Jon and Busta Rhymes where no one takes a freaking breath for three minutes straight? Yeah, just like that.)

I couldn’t help but entrain the thoughts, “Wtf is going on right now? How did we get this deep” “Had Jesus himself surprised us with a lil cameo appearance to transform this shitty Publix bottle of red into holy water?” “Am I a little tipsy-wispy?” Nope, I was inebriated.

We chatted until 1 a.m. and took the dogs for one last walk. Spoiler alter: he did not baptize me with his lips. He, instead, parted ways with a side hug. Which I guess, after 5 hours of such drunken, sober conversation is fair. But, still.

Since then, we haven’t talked. GHOSTED. 

Let’s debrief. Was there ever an overt declaration of romantic interest? No. But I find radio silence like this to be super weird and unattractive. Had our connection lasted longer than a week? No. So, in theory, in this Ghosting? Eh… I’m gonna go with no, as much as I want to say yes for dramatic effect. BUT the night did feel intimate enough for such sudden silence to be both awkward and telling. So, let’s meet in the middle and call this Baby Back Bitch-passing. (Get it?! Like bypassing but bitch-passing because he’s being a B. lol.)(I should trademark that.)

Like no offense, but why would two people spend all night sipping wine and going balls-deep in conversation about faith and firearms for hours on end (like five red-light sauna sessions worth of hours, mind you) if there wasn’t a single ounce of interest floating in the air? They wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, and frankly, I think you’re crazy if you would.

On one side of the coin, I understand we barely know each other and really don’t owe each other anything, so come to think of it, an explanation of why you don’t like me after such little time spent together may actually make me feel worse, lol. But on the other side of the coin, silence is a wicked form of rejection, and regardless of how long you’ve known someone, it still stings like a wasp. Plus, we live in the same building, so it’s not like I won’t see him again… Was I that terrible to hang out with that you couldn’t even find the heart to lock me in the friend zone? Even if he did only baby-back-bitch-pass me rather than full-blown ghost me, the sentiment still lingers, and I can’t help but feel slightly embarrassed about our conversation and ever thinking that maybe he was interested in me. And shame. I feel shame. Shame to romanticize a guy that I’m clearly not compatible with yet still subconsciously desire him to give me attention. That’s so stupid. I’m so stupid. 

I can’t help but feel a bit edgy about the whole thing. Guns, God, Ghosted. The words repeat over and over again in my head. His quietness speaks volumes. What if we had only talked about movies or food that night? Would we still be strangers? My gut says no.  

Guns.

God. 

Ghosted… 

Guns. God. Ghosted. (oh my!)

The words wrack my brain like an enigmatic puzzle I can’t explain. (That’s a bar.) There’s a common denominator. A philosophical thread, perhaps. Or a psychological solution that I can’t discern.

And then the download begins… Power and Agency: The Interplay. 

Guns, God, and Ghosting- the holy trinity of power games where everyone is their own rule-maker, and most days, the only commandment is “Thou shalt play dirty.” 

So, still, why the shame? I’m still sitting with this, but right now, I believe it to be because power and agency make me feel uneasy and out of touch with my own sense of self, which is pretty shitty, considering that the world we live in thrives off of it. If I don’t know how to harness my power, do I even have any agency? What is my influence? The older I get, the more the egos multiply and the more pivotal I see this concept to be. 

If I don’t know how power truly works or how to harness it within myself and others, then am I forever royally fucked? Will I continue to let myself feel sad about boys that I know are no good for me?

I’m scared that If I don’t figure this out I’ll continue to make poor choices. Like, when Ben #1 dumped me so I started dating Ben #2 thinking that it would cancel out the break up experience in its entirety. Or even worse… go home with one of the regulars at my bar who puff their chest at night and proudly hit their knees at Sunday’s morning Mass as if they weren’t snorting lines of “holy powder” in the stall of a urinal the night before (and post it on the gram because if you don’t, how will the rest of the world know you’ve washed away your tequila stained sins). 

All politics aside, there are many ethical and moral considerations that we act on every damn day and define how we use our power to create agency and influence in the arms of an incredibly self-centric world. 

It’s like in Kendrick Lamar’s song, “How Much a Dollar Cost,” where he refuses to give a homeless man a dollar only to find that this encounter was actually a personal and spiritual failure of his compassion and empathy (or lack thereof). The lyrics to this song are a poignant reflection of how the complex interplay between power and agency plays out in our day-to-day lives and how our choices can profoundly impact not only others but also our own sense of self and the understanding of our power. What is the cost of a dollar in the face of humanity? I think when use our agency and power to judge and forget compassion (which, like Kendrick, unfortunately, I am also guilty of and am very much working on), the price of that dollar stretches far beyond its face value.

The uncomfortable truth is that I am still unraveling the intricacies of how the world truly operates, and doing that while also confronting the gravity of my choices and missed opportunities to wield my agency for the greater good feels super shitty and confusing. 

ALSO...

Side Note: I am genuinely baffled (and a bit resentful) about the fact that I have spent the majority of my academic years cramming my brain with useless trivia like how chlorophyll is a green pigmentation found in the chloroplast of plant cells, yet crucial life skills like managing dynamic interactions between power and personal choice have been tucked away like it’s the governments best-kept secret. I don’t understand. Why does our higher education system set us up to take on the world like we’re running blindfolded in a jungle with a wet noodle as protection instead of a machete? It’s insane.

We see it play out again and again like clockwork. From the workplace to the media, in the turning of family ties to battlegrounds, and even in matters of sex and drugs. Life works in favor of the conscious and the cunning. 

I guess this is me coming to terms with it all. The fact that my saintly, high-caliber, Baby-Back-Bitch-passing Hottie and I were never meant to be. And that power, agency, and ethics will be an ongoing journey for me-one that I’m starting to realize demands a deeper introspection of what’s actually at play. 

So fam, grab your holy water, and let’s raise a toast to the absurdity of it all. Here’s to making our own rules, embracing the judgments we can’t take back, and choosing as thoughtfully as we possibly can in the future. Oh, and an extra special cheers to the chivalrous boys (and girls) who have vanished into thin air! I was worried they might stick around long enough to actually read the end of this, lol.

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