But it wasn’t on my doorstep. Sure, it was online. Sure, it felt like I couldn't open my phone without being greeted by women who had once looked like me, now half my size. But they were celebrities. Celebrity is as celebrity does. I’ve never really been one to keep up with celebs, and I’ve certainly never been one to idolise them. I derided those who formed obsessive, parasocial relationships with them, and figured this Ozempedemic (kudos to whoever coined that phrase) was just another sad cost of fame.

And then my mates started taking it.

The first one has one of the best bodies I know. Or (if I’m being horrifically vulnerable here) she has the version of my body I could have had, if mine had just played ball. We’re both bottom heavy, but whilst my arse resembles if you squeezed porridge into a sock, hers is — in a word — spectacular. I’m sure she once told me she won Rear of the Year in school, and believe me, it was well earned.

Friend two technically hasn’t told me. She told one of our other friends, who then told me. She hadn’t told more people because she was ashamed.

“Good”, I thought. “You should be ashamed”.

Hadn’t we fought hard as women to free ourselves from beauty ideals? Scorned Kate Moss when she said “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”? Called out Meghan Trainor when she quite clearly stopped being all about that bass? Shared genuine worries over Ariana Grande?

Hadn’t we blasted body positive anthems, called our stretch marks tiger stripes, reclaimed thunder thighs?

Weren’t we better than this?

But “you should be ashamed” is strange and uncomfortable thing to think about someone you love.

My friend reminded me she had gained the weight when she was deeply unwell. She had essentially fallen asleep in one body, and come to in another.

“But that’s not fair!”, my brain cried. I’d spent years trying to unlearn that thinness = desirable. And now you could get it with no consequence? I thought you had to suffer for it. It wasn’t supposed to be easy.

She was still cheating. Right?

Where do you draw the line? Who decides where the line is drawn? Who is the governing authority on when it is or isn’t acceptable to take a drug to aid weight loss? Surely we’re all going to justify it as making sure we’re “healthy”? But what is healthy? And who decides that?

It’s not about health. It’s not even about reason.

It’s not even really about my mates.

Because if I’m honest with myself, I would take it too. Part of me still wants to be skinny, and I would love an easy out — a shortcut that didn’t ask anything of me. But I won’t. I know myself well enough to know I’d never separate the result from how I got there. I’d know it wasn’t really mine. It would be the fast track to hating myself, permanently, with nothing left to catch me on the way down — and it would go against everything I’ve spent years trying to stand for.

Fundamentally, I guess I do believe I have the moral high ground by not taking it, and feeling robbed that no one else seems to think the same. I feel disgusted at a world that’s made this so easy, so encouraged, so close to the default. I feel disgusted at myself. I’m disappointed in my friends. I’m disappointed I can’t do it too. I'm angry there's no clean side to be on. I feel like I’m getting fatter whilst everyone else is getting thinner, and I know how that sentence looks, and I’m leaving it in anyway.

I’m sad that after everything, it is still so easy to make women hate themselves. I’m sad I’m thinking about bodies at all.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

And before you get worried I’ve had some kind of edgy-Tumblr-circa-2013-Effy-from-Skins personality transplant, I haven't.

I’m just too fucking hot and sweaty to give a shit about anything, and I have been for months.

Everything is a struggle.

I changed my bedding last night, and had to take a break in the middle. I stripped it, left the house for several hours, and put the new sheets on when I got back. If I was wearing a heart rate monitor, I think it would have reached heights previously only reserved for the 100m sprint and Love Island challenges.

I am constantly overwhelmed and overstimulated. My hair is simultaneously greasy and strawlike. I can’t leave it to dry naturally, because it doesn’t (curly hair problems), but every time I pick up the hairdryer and direct the hot air toward me, the date on my gravestone moves closer and closer. My legs are rashy from shaving so often. Everything is sticky from suncream. The smell haunts me. Instead of fond memories of family holidays, it has now become synonymous with fighting for my life on the Central line, after a desperate day out to “make the most of it”.

I am sweating more than I’ve maybe ever sweated in my life. I reckon 28 accumulative years still couldn’t compete for how much sweating I’ve done in the past 3 months. My sweat mixes with my suncream, and creates a sheen that I’m not convinced will ever leave me, despite exfoliating daily. I take cold showers, and I am still warm when I get out.

The fan is on constantly.

I genuinely went to stay at a man’s house because he had AC.

I wake up in the morning, throat raw as if I’ve been screaming all night (I bloody wish), and eyes dangerously dry.

I feel like I’m taking my life in my hands trying to get my contacts in each morning.

I can’t write. I can’t clean. The hairballs building up in the corners of my bedroom are seconds away from becoming sentient lifeforms. I haven’t eaten a balanced meal in weeks. I Google whether people still get scurvy.

I have reached levels of apathy unseen before by humanity.

I’ve started making a list of things I want to do. I look at it with the fervid enthusiasm once reserved solely for Gollum and the ring. “I’ll be able to start running again”, I mutter to myself. “I’ll go back to writing regularly, and I won’t have to take a spare pair of pants everywhere I go, and I’ll maybe even wear a cardigan”.

My idea of success has shifted. My schedule hasn’t. The things I once did seamlessly are now a chore. I feel burnt out. Then I feel dramatic. Then I resent how there’s definitely a joke in there somewhere about the heat/sun/burn wordplay, but my brain is too liquid to get to it.

It feels like Groundhog Day. Every morning we wake up tired, another night of tossing and turning and throwing the covers to the floor. Greeting colleagues with “hot, isn’t it?” as if the heat has rendered us unable to observe the bleeding obvious. Procrastinating anything that involves any kind of brain power, then feeling guilty about it. Only about 30% guilty though, because it’s too hot to feel any kind of emotion more strongly than that. We’re all acting like it’s normal, when it really, really isn’t.

My least favourite people at the moment are the ones who — like a kid about to say a swear word — look around and go “I am really quite enjoying it though”. I nod. It’s too hot to do anything else.

But honestly, if someone told me I could skip straight to a damp Tuesday in November, I think I’d put my cardigan on.

Speak soon,

(a very hot) Cat <3

Despite being a very open and sexually confident woman, talking about sex — let alone criticising it — still feels frightening. I feel both overqualified and underqualified at the same time. I worry my mum will read it. I worry it will go viral and I’ll get called fat, ugly, and a slut by incels in the comments.

I guess I should get started.

I just scrolled past another Instagram infographic about female pleasure. I liked it. Saved it. Shared it.

Then stopped.

What was I doing?

Did I genuinely think this would change anything? Did I actually think my male followers would see it and suddenly become more attentive lovers?

Of course not.

Why would they?

I’ve had a lot of sex.

(Mum, seriously, don’t read further).

Like, a lot.

I have a higher sex drive than most people I know, and I'm more than happy to act on it. I view sex as pleasure, fun, hedonism, and I feel very little guilt about that most of the time.

And after enough sex with enough people, you start to notice patterns.

My “social cause I’m passionate about” prompt on Hinge wasn’t “closing the orgasm gap” for nothing.

You know how many men reply to that? Hundreds. You know how many can actually back it up? Three.

Sure, porn has a lot to answer for. So does sex education. But at some point, adults are responsible for their own curiosity.

We’ve built a strange mythology around female pleasure. It’s mysterious. Complicated. Impossible to generalise. Which is mostly true.

And convenient.

Because somewhere along the line, the narrative became “women are impossible to please.”

I’m so tired of average sex. It’s not bad. Most men have the penetrative bit down. Obviously. I'm talking about perfectly pleasant, perfectly forgettable sex where one person's pleasure is treated as inevitable and the other's as an optional bonus.

We’re constantly told to ask for what we want. Use our words. Be direct.

Fine.

But why is female pleasure treated as a communication issue, rather than an interest one?

Why is the burden on women to become clearer, rather than on men to become more curious?

This isn’t about mind-reading. It’s about caring enough to find out.

And it’s not like communication always works.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t teach it to finger.

I went for dinner with a friend recently, updating her on a guy I had slept with earlier in the week. A guy who I genuinely stopped halfway through, to say “everything that you’re doing needs to be 30% slower, and 30% softer”. She gasped, congratulating me on my boldness.

I appreciated the kudos, but it did little to ease my fatigue. Once again, I’d had to choose between disappointment or instruction. Between being a lover or a teacher. Even for someone sexually confident, that conversation still requires stepping outside your own ease to ask for something that should be baseline.

I’m tired of caring more about my pleasure than the person I’m sleeping with does.

If someone is genuinely curious, they don’t need instructions. They notice. They adjust. They remember.

Attention is paid to breath, sound, tension. It looks like actually waiting for the answer when they ask “like this?”. It means treating sex as something you discover together, not something she’ll eventually explain.

I know this exists, because I’ve had it.

It feels instantly different. Not because of anything dramatic, but because nothing is assumed. There’s no autopilot. No sense of someone running through the motions. Just a quiet ease of observation and attention.

Men who are good in bed aren’t born with golden appendages.

They didn’t come out the womb experts at oral sex.

They just cared enough to pay attention.

Right, I’m heading out. I’ve got a second date with one of the aforementioned Big Three.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

Sorry, sorry, to my three IRL friends who follow this account, and who were there through the (limited) highs and (frequent) lows. You can skip this one.

To be clear: I don’t necessarily miss him as a person. But God, do I miss it as a situation. Sometimes in the office I catch myself looking listlessly down at the bike racks, as if I’ll be transported back twelve months, and he’ll be there parking up, ready for a long hard day of flirting by the photocopier.

Before it was awful, it was great — as these things so often are. Having a workplace crush was electric. Dissecting the messages he sent on Teams (software designed with corporate flirting in mind). Deliberately bumping into each other outside the staff room. Not so subtly timing our lunch breaks so we’d just so happen to spend the entire hour together. Wearing my best outfits on WFO days, and coming up with excuses to work together. On one particularly electrifying day, he came and worked in my teeny, tiny office for the afternoon. Chairs pushed together, knees touching, door ajar but barely — I'm overcome just thinking about it.

He also taught me how to play chess during the 3pm afternoon slumps. (Unless my boss is reading this, then obviously he didn’t. And also this whole thing is a work of fiction.) Did I know an abstract strategy board game could be an aphrodisiac? No, but I quickly found out.

The thing about a workplace crush is that it very easily becomes all-encompassing. I barely cared about my emails on a good day; I certainly didn’t care when I had the opportunity to overanalyse our every interaction. I began to look forward to going into the office, obsessively checking the rota to see if we’d be in together. Every notification had the potential to set my mood for the day. Each trip to the kitchen felt clandestine.

It got worse when we actually started sleeping together. Now we had a shared secret, and to this day, I have no idea how good a job we did of keeping it. We’d leave the office for lunch separately but arrive back together, and go home within minutes of each other. I’d shout “have a good evening!” to my colleagues, knowing with utmost certainty I’d be making sure my favourite one did.

Unless you’re someone who is lucky enough to really love their job, working is pretty dull. For a bored girl who thrives on excitement and stimulation, this was about so much more than the man.

Desire and anticipation turned an ordinary place into an extraordinary one; a world of sex, secrecy and stolen looks, all from the comfort of my desk. Coming into the office was no longer annoying, it was a chance to see my crush. It’s so rare as an adult to have a secret, so one that seeped into the dullest part of my life was a significant improvement. Life when you get older can be so formulaic. If I want to see my friends, we all get our calendars up, and swipe at least two months in advance. Even after work drinks are planned in advance, because we’re never in the office on the same day. Surprise and spontaneity are all but dead. A workplace crush reintroduced uncertainty into a life that has become predictable. Every day contained the possibility of something happening. Maybe just a message. A look across the office. An excuse to spend ten minutes longer making a coffee. But the possibility itself was intoxicating.

When it ended — huge shocker, I know — work returned to its usual mundanity. He moved jobs (unrelated, but incredibly well timed). I made my coffees alone.

The office is objectively better now. Less complicated, less distracting. More professional.

It’s also much, much duller.

I think that’s what I miss most. Not him, exactly, but the feeling that something could happen at any moment.

Does anyone have a minute to look over my CV?

Speak soon,

Cat <3

Is there anybody there?

*taps mic*

Is this thing on?

There’s something vaguely humiliating about begging a faceless system to pretty please show your articles about snogging strangers and dancing to Jason Derulo to more people, but alas. Here we are.

I don’t know what I did to offend the Substack powers that be, but clearly, it was a significant slight. My subscribers are down, my views are under a third of what they used to be, and my likes have plateaued.

And it’s hurting my poor, fragile ego.

I know this isn’t just happening to me. I know because I posted slightly self-conscious notes into the aether, with all the desperation and earnestness of a WW2 wife waiting for news from the frontlines. Thank (the non-Substack) God, it landed. You said you were also experiencing this.

So it can’t be personal.

I’m reassured in theory.

In practise, I feel like I’ve been abandoned by a force greater than myself that once believed in me.

Have I got less funny? Less #relatable? Is Substack slut-shaming me for snogging so many strangers? Is it humbling me? Is this a growth opportunity?

We used to spend so much time together. I’d post funny Notes, write my little articles. We had a laugh. Now it’s thumbs upping my texts, and leaving me on read for two days, minimum.

And it’s come at an embarrassing time, frankly. I’ve just started sharing with more of my IRL friends. But the more the algorithm ignores me, the more I feel like my blog is a mediocre man, and their “no, it’s good!” is a similar tone as “no, he’s cute!”. And we all know what that really means.

I wish I was above it all, but I’m not.

I’ve started viewing articles with 50+ likes similarly to how I used to stalk the girl my ex cheated on me with.

What do they have that I don’t?

I know, I know.

But still.

Sometimes I wonder if a thirst trap would get things back on track. Then I remember: I want active readers, not passive perverts.

I’m worried I’ve stayed too late at the party. People are still pleased to see me. Nobody’s asking me to leave. But the room has moved on.

I guess this is Schrodinger’s Substack.

I’ll pencil it in to chat about in therapy next week. My rejection sensitivity has been under-discussed lately, and it seems appropriate.

Anyway. Can I interest you in an article?

[Cat: 1, Substack: 0.]

[Dignity: -1, but that’s beside the point.]

Speak soon,

Cat <3

What began as a throwaway comment about not being upstaged by her university friends turned into something far more serious. This started last year, when we performed a full three-minute routine to JLS’s Beat Again. We flew to France that summer and spent the days on the beach, the evenings in rehearsal. We recorded ourselves and watched it back, pausing every step that felt slightly off.

Once we got home, we still had two months to go. To ensure we didn’t forget, each week we sent compulsory time-lapsed videos of ourselves practising alone in our rooms. WhatsApp filled quickly with sped-up runs of the routine — one friend in athleisure before a yoga class, another at a remote hostel between hikes through the Scottish wilderness, and mine delivered at 7pm after commuting back from the office.

Our hard work paid off. The routine was a roaring success. We even performed an encore, then wheeled the whole thing back out at my birthday four months later. I was so proud I sent videos to my family, posted a snippet in an Instagram round-up, and talked about it so much that my ex infamously once asked for his birthday present to be the footage of the performance.

Naturally, expectations were high this year, despite the fact that we were the only people setting them. The discussions began early doors for the music, settling on the modern masterpiece that is Talk Dirty; the kind of lyrics you could really do something with. We’d arranged this weekend months in advance (as adult friendships tend to require), and though the primary purpose was to spend quality time together, we knew nailing this year’s routine wasn’t far behind.

Because this isn’t just a dance. It’s commitment. Accountability. Shared responsibility for something completely and utterly frivolous. This isn’t going to make us money, and we can’t log it on Strava. It won’t get us any brand deals, and I can’t add it to my CV. Arguably, it’s entirely pointless.

But it’s not.

Because the thing I love most about these routines isn’t the performance itself, although the raucous applause certainly helps. It’s the way we so quickly and eagerly regress to our childhood selves, with all the determination of preparing for a school talent show.

As children, we were obsessed with play. Silliness was an integral part of our day-to-day lives. We were encouraged to invent dances, put on performances and do things for the pleasure of simply enjoying them.

Somewhere along the way, though, silliness started to require justification. As teenagers, we were taught to fear being cringe above all else. As adults, we’re encouraged to optimise our time. Hobbies should make us fitter, smarter or more interesting. Social plans should fit neatly around work, errands and admin.

Fun becomes dinner and drinks. A theatre trip. A walk and coffee.

It’s not that these things aren’t fun. But they aren’t silly.

It was 29 degrees on Saturday. One friend had come straight from a shift in paediatric nursing. We all had other things we could have been doing, careers to dissect, properties to compare, relationships to analyse.

Instead, we spent hours creating, teaching and perfecting a dance routine. To Talk Dirty.

There was absolutely nothing practical about it. Which, increasingly, is the point.

It was done simply for the joy that came with committing wholeheartedly to something completely unnecessary, and how special it felt to share that with my friends.

Get jazzy on ‘em,

Cat <3

However, I’ll be honest. I really didn’t want to go. I’d had a major PMDD meltdown — the first bad one in months — and I was still processing breaking no contact with A four days earlier, so the idea of meeting new people and getting my flirt on wasn’t really top of the agenda.

But we’d already spent £20 on tickets. And I hate moping.

So right decision or not, I was going out.

My friend and I entered feeling slightly nervous, but buoyed by the 2-for-1 cocktails and the miraculous confidence-enhancing properties of Simmons photobooth lighting

All I knew going into Soho’s House Party was that it sells itself as a “unique seven-storey bar concept modelled around an old-school house party”, co-founded by none other than Stormzy. I had high hopes, and the venue absolutely lived up to them.

From the second we entered the “kitchen”, I felt an exhilarated nervousness I hadn’t experienced since Gas Pedal thudded through the walls of my classmates’ parents’ houses. In fact, for someone who had a serious boyfriend from fifteen to nineteen, I felt the kind of anticipation I’d never actually got to experience during my teenage house parties. No shade to my ex, but it was all a lot less exciting when you already knew who you’d be getting off with.

We headed downstairs to the “basement”, and hadn’t even had time to exchange “ohGoddoesthisfeelawkward” before we were immediately approached by two guys. Now again, don’t get me wrong; you’ll never catch me slagging off Hinge. But you don’t get this from it. The eye contact across the room, the faux nonchalant pretending you can’t see the person approaching, a hand briefly brushing your waist, a sultry glance up into a face that you really fucking fancy. Sending a like is easy; easy to do, easy to forget. Scanning a room to decide who you fancy, if they fancy you, and if you’re going to approach them? Whole different ball game.

Now, I didn’t fancy the first guy that approached me. But we did have a bloody lovely chat. We talked about bird-watching (yeah yeah, I’m in my late 20s), and he was particularly impressed with my recent bat detecting walk (Google it, philistines). That connection, chemistry, spontaneity — the complete unknown of what might happen next. This was what I’d missed. Huge revelation coming from an aggressive extrovert here: talking to strangers is fun! Watching your friend flirt with someone is fun! Having a silly little chat without worrying about if they’re “The One” is a bloody good time.

Because break-ups have a funny way of narrowing your world. You orbit the same thoughts, the same chats, the same memories, until everything feels claustrophically self-referential. Then suddenly you’re in a basement in Soho chatting shit with a stranger and you remember there are so many people you haven’t met yet. So many versions of yourself, too.

Twelve hours earlier I’d been crying so hard I couldn’t ever envision feeling okay again. Now I was running around a fake house party playing Mario Kart with a man called Dennis (his face card made up for his pensioner name).

The rest of the night unfurled as we scampered about exploring the seven floors; karaoke in the “parents’ room”, table football in the “kids’ room”, Jenga on the roof, even a secret room behind a bookcase! Like Cluedo, these rooms came with their own characters — side quests to complete as I split off from my friend, then reuniting twenty minutes later to dissect who we’d met.

Eventually, we ended up upstairs: her and the man she met over Jenga getting off on beanbags, me and mine (acquired at beer pong) cuddled on the bottom bunk of a bunkbed. He asks what I do, and I explain. For the first time, I mention I’m a writer on the side. He leans in and kisses me hard enough I forget the PMDD spiral. He’s fine as hell, if slightly over-committed to the lip biting. He pulls back and says “so you’ll write about me, yeah?”.

Consider it done.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

She wrote about situationships, love, body image, identity — all the things I’d carried so much shame around for years. She made those subjects feel intelligent, funny and normal. I wanted in.

And thus, Cat’s Nine Lives was born.

It’s been a mere 100 days (how incredibly satisfying) since I started, and I already know this is going to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

When I got my first eight subscribers — I don’t know why eight, but that was the first number I remember — I was THRILLED. I couldn’t believe that eight strangers wanted to read my work. Now, somehow, I have multiple articles with over a hundred likes, nearly four hundred subscribers, and returning readers. I’ll never take that for granted.

In the spirit of honesty and accountability, it feels important to own that there are points where this is hard. Watching someone post “just joined yesterday!” only to click on their profile and see thousands of subscribers can bring out a competitiveness I don’t particularly like in myself. The same goes for watching people I started alongside suddenly race ahead. But I genuinely find Substack such a positive place that I’m quickly grounded again. You’ve probably seen it hundreds of times in slightly different wording via viral Notes, but it genuinely does feel like we’re rooting for each other here.

Here, I feel impossibly old, and impossibly young. Some of my favourite writers on here are significantly older than me. They write of lives I can’t even begin to conceptualise — marriage, children, the bravery and necessity of starting over after 20 years. On the flipside, some are so young — meant not in a condescending way, but in an awed one. I’m in awe of the wisdom, knowledge, and kindness they already have. Sometimes twenty-eight feels like the oldest age in the world, and sometimes I feel like I’ve barely begun. To exist in the middle of others’ wisdom feels like a huge privilege.

Like so many of us, I’m stuck in a job that I don’t feel hugely fulfilled or challenged in, but feel unable to leave, thanks to the dire job market. Writing has given me a place to channel my creativity, to learn from others, to expand my horizons and reawaken those braincells I genuinely feared were dying off.

Writing this reminds me of when I started running at the beginning of 2024. I was working from home a lot more, and I was worried I was becoming stagnant — both physically and mentally. When I go for a run now, I can feel it. It clears my mind in the immediate, but it also has a lasting effect. Running reminded me my body still worked for me; writing reminded me my mind did too.

I turn to here to process. I write about my heartbreak, friendships, sense of self and you say “me too!”. I spent years feeling like I was too much. Like I experienced everything at a slightly higher volume than everyone else around me. I was too emotional, too analytical, too sensitive, too intense. Then I came on here and realised maybe the problem wasn’t feeling too much — it was feeling alone in it. Because here, nothing is too much. Sex, relationships, break-ups, identity — all of it is up for debate, openly shared, and examined honestly.

When I told my therapist I’d started a Substack, his face lit up. He knew what that meant before I’d even got here.

And now so do I.

I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you. Whether this is the first thing of mine you’ve read, or you’ve been here since the beginning — thank you. This means more to me than you will ever know.

Ironically, I don’t think I can find the words.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

Even for a Thirsty Thursday, that’s a lot before 9am.

It’s the middle of May and I’ve already Hot Girl Summered too close to the sun.

After a few months of almost-relationshipping with A, I returned to Hinge determined to make sensible (yet fun) decisions. The sun was shining, and I was over feeling sad. Yes, A was kind, emotionally intelligent, and cared about me very deeply. But he also didn’t have the capacity for a relationship.

Which is annoyingly much harder to get over than somebody simply being awful.

But I was determined to try.

Enter Mr. Mature (MM™).

I’m deeply anti-penpal territory, so when he suggested meeting after only a few messages, I was immediately in. He told me we were going to his favourite spot, but in the interests of anticipation, he’d meet me at the station.

Organised and authoritative.

Hot.

He walked me into an intimate little cocktail bar where a jazz band was already playing and informed the waitress he had a reservation (he had a reservation!).

He was complimentary, sharp, and found me hilarious, which was both attractive and correct.

At the end of the night, he picked up the tab. I offered to split, but he dismissed me with an easy, “I invited you out, I’ve got this.”

Sorry to the suffragettes, but there is something deeply attractive about a man casually dropping £100+ on negronis and small plates.

He told me he was a good kisser (slightly icky, but acceptable 3 drinks in), and I told him to prove it.

He did.

Fair play.

He walked me to the station, told me to text when I got home safe, and replied thanking me for a “10/10 evening”.

Objectively, this is where things should have taken a responsible turn.

Instead, three days later, I found myself back in A’s bedroom.

I know why. You know why.

There is something uniquely difficult about trying to move on from someone who genuinely cares about you, even if they ultimately can’t give you what you need.

MM is new, exciting, light. Everything I wish I wanted.

A is… heavier. Familiar. It took us a mere three texts to break no contact.

Plus, he did earn the nickname Mr. Orgasm Gap™ for a reason.

And it’s not like things are any simpler outside the main event.

My old situationship has resurfaced, though some minor divine intervention means he’s somehow missed both my drunk calls and has therefore become significantly less appealing.

My Tesco crush has also quickly disappointed me, with texts that feel less like flirting and more like something you’d receive from an anonymous paypig on Instagram.

Hot Girl Summer was supposed to be clean, intentional and fun. The kinda thing where if I leant fully into it, I’d somehow release myself from all emotional holds.

Instead I just feel a bit overwhelmed, and am running out of Whatsapp storage faster than I’m running out of emotional bandwith.

Anyway, gotta dash.

I’ve got a dating event to go to.

Look, it may not be healing in the traditional sense, but it’s what Megan would have wanted.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

He said he had space. He always does.

I’d dabbled in therapy from childhood. I went to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) as a kid, the school therapist in my early teens, and tried the free university counselling in my second year of university. I hated them all, and none of them stuck.

The first time I went private, I didn’t know what to expect. I had emailed on a whim, because it felt better than sending the guy I was seeing another “why don’t you want me???” text. By the time my first session came around, we’d got back together. The whole thing seemed kinda pointless. I was fine, and I spent the majority of my initial sessions insisting on this. It was all a misunderstanding, he was a really nice guy and I wanted to give it another shot.

It’s hard to remember those first weeks, without all the benefit of hindsight. I remember thinking we weren’t really getting anywhere, and kept waiting for a Big Breakthrough Moment™. But somewhere, something resonated. I kept going back.

The closest I’ve come to describing therapy is that you are walking around with your organs spilling out. You have 50 minutes to unspool your small intestine, cough up a lung, pull out a kidney, and then you have to spend the rest of the week holding them. No one else can see them, but you are extremely conscious they’re there. You’re hyperaware of anyone getting too close. You’re in a vulnerable position, and exposed in a way that’s hard to fully explain.

My situationship ended (shocker). I continued with therapy. We talked about my childhood. My relationship with my dad. My mum. My sister. Patterns began to emerge. Patterns that had less to do with the guy, and more to do with me. Turns out, emotionally avoidant men weren’t simply drawn to me. I was seeking them out.

What the fuck?

I had studied Psychology at university. I worked in mental health. I knew my stuff. I knew all about attachment styles, and learned behaviours, and intermittent reinforcement! But I had a normal upbringing. My parents loved me. That stuff didn’t happen to me. That stuff happened in the classroom!

Sadly, just because I could recognise it intellectually, didn’t mean I could personally. There is something particularly humiliating about watching yourself repeat a pattern you could identify in a textbook in thirty seconds.

I don’t recognise the 23 year old who — I’d like to say walked into that room, because it sounds more poetic, but more accurately — logged onto that Google Meet, and she wouldn’t recognise me. My therapist is a man, which has been an important undercurrent for healing my relationship with, well, men. Concluding our sessions over the years has given me a solid foundation for what a healthy ending can look like. Similar situations have arisen, but a different me has dealt with them. I am proud of myself, and I have a dedicated space to be. Most recently, I walked away from a relationship that wasn’t serving me — incomprehensible for someone who once took any sign of withdrawal as an invitation to cling on tighter, and any rejection as proof she would always be abandoned.

Maybe what therapy has done for me (and all the versions before) is too grand to fit in a 600 word Substack article.

Or maybe 600 words is too many.

Because who I am today would not exist without therapy — bloodied organs and all.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

In films, they get a whole scene. The phone falls from a hand in slo-mo. Someone drops to their knees in silence. They scream in excitement, grab their loved ones. A party is thrown. It’s last minute, and yet all their friends attend, bottles of champagne in hand.

A break-up, a job interview, a new house. Earth-shattering news. How could all of this happen in the same fortnight?

And yet, it did.

How exciting!

How overwhelming.

I’ve struggled to write this week. Practically, I haven’t had the time — but emotionally, I am whacked. I’m at total, utter capacity. Some of the things that have happened this month are so unbelievably wonderful, but I don’t have the space to celebrate them in the way they deserve yet, because others have been so bleak.

I was talking to my housemate, caveating every negative emotion with a “but of course, I am excited!”, until she softly said “you don’t have to be”.

And she’s right. As usual. (Shoutout Maggs).

This essay is giving me permission to cut myself some slack.

So inspired somewhat by , and her gorgeous little sparkles, I’m dedicating this essay to the little things that are getting me through.

Flowers

You’ve probably noticed me posting flowers a lot, be it bouquets decorating my room or out in the wild (or as wild as London gets). Recently, I’ve been particularly loving the £8 bunches of tulips from Tesco. They’re seriously good quality for supermarket flowers., and they’ve got some gorgeous, vibrant colours.

Plus, there’s something quite romantic about carrying a bouquet on the tube home from work. Quietly and proudly announcing that I’m a woman who loves herself enough to buy her own flowers. On a Tuesday.

Running

I started running two years ago, and sadly, it did change my life. Turns out, the experts knew what they were talking about when they said exercise helps. Since my half marathon at the beginning of March, I’ve struggled to get back to a routine, but I’ve been trying to get out and about when I can. I actually managed to run my fastest ever 5km this week, which I’m pretty bloody chuffed with! It’s a nice reminder that even in the immediate aftermath of something shite, good things can happen.

Plus nothing says peace and quiet like the single thought of “why doesn’t this ever get any fucking easier” going round your head for thirty odd minutes.

Rest

I am pretty poor at resting. I’ve got better, over recent years, but then it just morphed into resting more, and feeling guilty about it. Recently, I’ve been really trying to prioritise rest, and do it guilt-free. Long mornings in bed, quiet evenings on the sofa watching Girls (I honestly could have given Girls its own category lol), easy, comfort meals. Easier said than done, but I’m getting there. And I recognise it. Which is a win in and of itself.

Also, it’s hard to feel that bad about your own life when you’re watching Marnie Michaels sing Stronger.

Reaching out for support

Honestly, therapy is too important to me to be summarised in one tiny, paragraph, but I’ve been around the block a few times now to know that when this feeling kicks in, it’s time to head back. I also couldn’t mention support without a shoutout to my wonderful friends, who are there for me every step of the way. I know they’ll be there when I’m ready to celebrate the happy stuff, but I also know they’re there to commiserate the sad, and all the bits in between. “Oh God, he’s winning me back” is all I need to not feel insane in my wavering emotions.

(Don’t worry, he hasn’t won me back).

Writing

Duh! When I started this mid February, I had no idea the impact it would have on me. To commit myself to something creative each week, curating a bank of work that I can look back on and be so proud of, and connecting with all you lovely people — these are pockets of happiness I don’t take for granted. I confess, the idea of writing this week was the most daunting yet. And then I realised the very nature of doing this calms me, and encourages me to look on the bright side.

Despite everything, I showed up for myself.

Maybe it’s that simple. Maybe the big things keep coming (and they don’t stop coming), and the little things sustain you through.

And for now, that's enough.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

At 28, the truth is less romantic and more logistical.

I just ended things with the guy I’ve been seeing (and managed a whole week without writing about it! Irrelevant, I think, that I only publish once a week). It ended nicely. Or as nicely as endings go. We finished on the Tuesday, and had a final phone call on the Thursday. We said quietly vulnerable things to each other, and stayed on the line far longer than we should have. We laughed at in-jokes and heard each other’s voices break, just a little. We couldn’t quite say goodbye, so we hung up with “see you later” instead.

In previous years, if a man had said he didn’t have capacity for a relationship, I’d have eagerly condemned him to the ‘emotionally unavailable’ graveyard — a cemetery nearly always full. Why were they all still so fucked up from their exes/childhoods/failed football careers — and why hadn’t they done anything about it? If someone cared enough, they’d make it work. If they wanted to, they would.

Just as I was beginning to appreciate that this may be slightly reductive, I got into a relationship. A proper, healthy, grown up one. We had 2 brilliant years together, and a beautiful ending (until he edited one of my Excel documents, which does rather ruin the poignancy). I hadn’t really had the chance to put my new, more mature way of thinking into action.

Until I met A.

We matched on Hinge, faffed around for a couple of months (my bad), then picked easily back up in the new year. Our first date lasted twenty four hours. Our second lasted twenty seven. By date three, it was obvious this was something.

There was no pretending we didn’t care, or worrying about who made the first move. We just slipped comfortably from maybe to yes.

Personal essayist I may be, but I’m not utterly immune to boundaries. I’m not going to haul our skeletons out the closet for an article on Substack (internet gratification has to have a limit, right?). But little cracks began to show, and as they often do, they pointed to something bigger. I’d share something vulnerable, and he wouldn’t meet me there. He later said it wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but that he wasn’t ready.

He didn’t have the capacity for a relationship.

So I believed him.

Instead of assuming it meant he didn’t like me enough to try, I took him at his word. Care was never the problem; capacity was. For the first time, I could believe both things at once.

He could care deeply, and it still not be enough.

So I ended it.

It felt unfair, even though it felt right. We were just beginning to blur into something more, in that hazy, rose-tinted way almost-relationships do. Day dates turned into weekend-long sleepovers, and we never quite made it out of bed long enough to visit the museums we kept saying we’d go to. We ranked each meal he cooked me, and laughed at every song on our seriously mismatched Spotify blend. How could two people who laughed that much not be something more?

As someone with big emotions, there were tears. Phone calls (plural) to friends (plural). A solo trip to an exhibition “showcasing 500 years of devotion, longing, sacrifice and passion” (subtlety has never been my strong suit).

He asked if we could be friends. I responded with appropriate derision. He asked if he could reach out once he had “sorted his shit out”. I said yes, but not before. We left the door open. I know.

Maybe you think I’m naïve. Maybe you’re right. But I’m an optimist (albeit a snarky one). I want A to get everything he deserves in life, and I want the same for myself. I won’t cling to our potential, but I won’t squash it either. Not yet.

See you later,

Cat <3

[Editor’s note: If you were feeling intimidated by my emotional maturity, don’t worry. Since writing this, we’ve seen each other three times. My head understands care and capacity differently now. My heart hasn’t quite caught up yet.]

But I can’t keep quiet anymore.

I hate how we flagellate ourselves with that fucking fig tree metaphor, and if I see it again, I’m going to lose my mind.

For the unaware (oh, how I envy you), the fig tree metaphor is plucked from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. The metaphor describes protagonist Esther’s overwhelm and decision paralysis. She watches all the branches of her “could-be” lives sprout figs, and then she watches them all rot and die, due to her inaction.

Good times.

Look, I understand the appeal. It has plenty of modern day resonance, with pressures around missing out and comparison more rife than ever in our age of social media. It is a universally uncomfortable question — am I making the right choice? How will I know? In a world obsessed with results, which fig will maximise my happiness? Wealth? Success?

Linguistically too, I get the allure. It’s an evocative image. It’s hopeful then melancholic, optimistic then sorrowful. It stays with you.

But I hate the way it’s used.

I resent the resignation that comes with it.

And I really, really loathe how it gets interpreted as justification that choosing one life rightfully kills all others.

Permanence doesn’t equal perfection. Plath wasn’t trying to argue it did. The fig tree is a decent metaphor for those moments of indecision and overwhelm; not a lens through which to view our entire lives. Even Esther concludes with “my vision of the fig tree… might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach”.

It was never designed to be used as self-punishment.

She just nailed a more poetic version of those hangry thoughts we’ve all had.

Some figs were never intended to be ours.

I am so grateful for my figs — my lives — that “wrinkled and turned black”. The ones that withered and died. Those figs weren’t meant to live forever. They were meant to be held for seconds, then squashed. Or lobbed at a wall. Or laid gently to rest. Or stomped upon. There are plenty of impermanent choices I’ve made that I’ll never regret. Paths that I began to tread, then swiftly turned back from.

Some lives are meant to die.

Not in a macabre way, but in a hopeful one.

There is no life where all your potential survives.

I’m not going to fulfil my teenage dream of being an actress.

I’ll never be a social worker — the graduate scheme I quit a mere 6 months after starting.

I won’t live with my best friend forever.

It’s too late to grow old with my childhood sweetheart.

I no longer want to have children with the man I know would be a fantastic father.

I’ve left the city I once eagerly called home.

At the time, each of those decisions felt like something I might regret forever.

Yet I have never been happier.

Your figs will die. It’s inevitable. New ones will grow. You will eagerly take a bite out of some and spit them straight back out. Others you will ignore for years, then take a tentative nibble, wondering if they’ve mouldered yet. Your figs are infinite — and also not.

I’m not here to slag off Plath just to hit you with Instagram-style toxic positivity (though it would be kinda funny). But all that stuff about “rejection equals redirection”, “if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant for me” — take away the gently blurred floral background, and they still have a point.

Life isn’t about saving every fig. Sometimes it’s about letting them go, and appreciating those that remain. Some things aren’t meant to be kept, or revisited. Some things are meant to end.

Sometimes, it’s enough to know that certain figs are simply meant to be fucked.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

I know that sounds loaded.

But I’m struggling.

Getting diagnosed was complicated enough. It took years of therapy — and yes, the bloody TikTok algorithm — before I ever considered I might be neurodiverse.

Originally, the diagnosis was a relief. I’d spent decades experiencing the world more intensely than my peers, resigned to never really knowing why.

I even posted a series of Instagram stories about what getting diagnosed meant to me — little millennial/Gen Z cusp that I am. I was proud and open. The responses were overwhelmingly positive.

It felt good.

Until it didn’t.

See, I have no issue with the diagnosis. My problem is what came next.

It felt like every symptom got worse.

Patience, never my strong suit, evaporated. Five seconds in line, and I’m sighing, tapping my foot, rolling my eyes. Meetings drag as I struggle to listen, waiting for others to reach the point I already anticipate. I interrupt when it gets too unbearable, a trait every romantic partner has called me out for. I don’t even notice until the irritation creeps into their voice, the conversation has derailed, and it’s obvious I’ve done it again.

I haven’t watched a video or listened to a voice note on normal speed for months. At this point, 1x speed feels like slow motion. I’ve raised my baseline to be instantaneous, and I’m not sure I can lower it again.

A child rattles their cutlery near me at a restaurant, and I’m ready to hit the roof. Someone slurps their drink, and I’m apoplectic. Every noise hits harder than it ever used to. My head snaps round mid-conversation, eyes flicking sideways, face like thunder. I want to be in the moment, but that entirely innocent toddler is really ruining my vibe.

I tell my housemate: “I feel like crawling out of my skin.” Tight, itchy, uncomfortable — all my senses on high alert.

I feel less patient. Less understanding. Quicker to overreact. The kind of person whose baseline is constant annoyance — and whose first instinct is to blame everyone else.

Is this just what it feels like, after years of pushing these feelings down? Or do I now have a convenient out for bad behaviour, if I view it through the ‘ADHD lens’?

Being able to explain every reaction away makes it feel dangerously easy to justify them.

Am I unmasking? Or am I making excuses?

I remind myself frequently that this isn’t evidence I’m an awful person. My brain reacts differently, and that sometimes makes basic concepts like patience feel near impossible. These reactions are signals, not moral failings — but they’re still mine to manage.

The past two and a half years have been a trial-and-error of coping strategies. “Manage your emotions” is now a phrase intrinsic to my vocabulary. I mutter aggravatedly out loud to regulate myself. I make sure I don’t get too hot, or too hungry. I shower to ‘reset’. I cry, and I know it’s regulatory, not because I’m ‘overreacting’.

Sometimes I even give myself grace to tell inanimate objects to fuck themselves (hanging up clothes is a supremely irritating task).

It’s not glamorous, but it’s honest.

Some days are exhausting.

Some days are electric.

Some days I’m incredibly grateful for my fast, creative, excitable brain, and others I’m insanely jealous of my neurotypical friends.

And some I lob a clothes hanger at my wardrobe.

And then I write a Substack about it.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

Unluckily for them, I’m also a writer — which means their post-breakup decisions are prime for content. Especially when they take ‘no contact’ less as a rule, and more as a creative challenge.

In escalating order of absurdity, here’s some of the spectacular ways my exes have chosen to ignore my boundaries:

Text

This is the classic. The Notebook of breaking no contact.

It’s happened more times than I care to admit, so here’s my favourite.

After a mere four years of silence, my ex texted me a single full stop. Not a sentence. Not a question. Not even “u up?”.

I texted him back a screenshot of the “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” movie poster.

He blocked me.

Good times.

Instagram

This one’s still basic.

It gets a separate mention only because of the additional opportunities to comment, like and follow.

Back in 2021, I got my first tattoo. After several months of no contact, my ex commented “God I love the Premier Inn”.

My new tattoo was a moon.

Points for creativity.

Dick.

Email

I thought this was far more common than it is, until I told my friends yet another ex had contacted me via email (putting the hot in Hotmail). They kindly informed me that this was not typical post break-up behaviour.

Highlights include:

• two separate exes sending me theatre tickets (as if a quick trip to the West End is going to fix our deep-rooted interpersonal issues)

• a spa trip I never took

• general proclamations of love

Can you add an out-of-office to a personal email?

Teams

Some may argue this is inevitable when you choose to shit where you eat. I, however, optimistically believed a workplace situationship could end with some boundaries intact.

We bounced between ‘together’ and ‘not’ at alarming speed, until I finally pulled the plug. A clean break. Mature. Professional.

Until I returned from a run, opened my work laptop, and found the following:

“Hey, I didn’t understand why we couldn’t talk before, but I do now. Btw, I bought you a birthday present.”

HR, feel free to use this as a case study in boundaries.

Vinted

This one gets points for ridiculousness.

We’d never even interacted on Vinted before. Why would we?!

And then suddenly, there it was in my notifications. “[GenericBoyName] has liked your item”.

I might’ve replied if he’d actually bought it.

An Excel document

My pièce de résistance.

I was going interrailing, and had shared my planned itinerary with my (then) boyfriend.

Post break-up, he wrote what I can only describe as a poem, in cell C27. He wished me the best, bereft he was going to miss my trip, my promotion, my half-marathon. He’d never forget me, and expressed his eternal gratitude.

I revoked his access.

Anyway, if any of you are reading this, I (mostly) hope you’re well.

Please don’t reach out again. I’d rather not add Substack to the list.

Speak soon (not to you),

Cat <3

Except that was a month ago. And now it’s two days before my allocated day of posting (new posts every Thursday #promo), and I’ve got nada.

Nothing.

I am totally and utterly blank.

Okay, that’s not strictly true. I’ve got two half-baked drafts. Which is not particularly reassuring.

I’m annoyed at myself. I told myself this was going to be different — and that kind of pre-emptive flagellation always works miracles, am I right? I wasn’t going to get bored, or focus on numbers, or compare myself to others. I was simply going to do this for me.

You know what they say about the best-laid plans.

I watched all my scheduled posts go out, excitedly refreshing and skipping round my tiny flat every time I got a like or a comment. It’s still — just to meta-break the fourth wall — totally crazy to me that you’re reading this, and enjoying it.

I watched my followers grow quickly, from 20 to 50 (50 individuals, interested in what I had to say!), 50 to 100 (100?!?!), and then… it kind of stagnated. I tried really, really hard not to care.

But I did, a bit.

And then my last scheduled post went live. And suddenly all I was left with were fifteen potential titles (not an exaggeration), two meh half-essays, and a growing sense of panic.

What if I couldn’t do this? What if the first few were a fluke? Worse, what if they were actually decent, but because I’ve got the attention span of a gnat, and a desire for immediate gratification that would rival an infant, I was going to let this join my ever-growing graveyard of hobbies?

What if I was letting something I really cared about pass me by?

Fuck.

So here I am, tapping away. Not in a cozy café with a picturesque matcha and an inspirational Carrie Bradshaw post-it note quote. But on my stained sofa, thirty minutes before the end of the work day.

Apparently that’s when inspiration strikes.

(Joking. I would never disrespect the workplace like that).

But if there’s anything I’ve learnt at 28, it’s that you have to work with your brain, not against it.

As has been my creative process my whole life, turns out I just need to wait until a scrappy burst of frantic energy hits. I don’t do slow and sensible.

Which, in hindsight, might have something to do with the ADHD diagnosis… but we’ll get to that next week.

Anyway, somehow, I’ve just banged this out in twenty minutes.

Fabulous.

See you next Thursday,

Cat <3

I answered yes both times. Which, honestly, after years of loathing myself for that very thing, feels like a small act of rebellion.

Let’s zoom out.

I spent most of my teens and early twenties feeling — not to beat around the bush — absolutely balls-to-the-wall insane when it came to relationships. I fell hard. I loved hard. Clung on with all my might, tearing bloodied strips out of something when it tried to leave me.

This felt forgivable at 19. At 22, less so. By the time I’d reached 25, I was genuinely worried.

No one else seemed to love like I did.

So off I toddled to therapy, where two words changed my life: anxious attachment. (ADHD got tossed in there too, but let’s not ruin the narrative flow).

Finally, it made sense. I wasn’t a freak, or unlovable. I had a style.

Coolio. End of essay.

I wish.

Because even though I’ve done research, therapy, and dragged myself to be more “secure-leaning” (#psychospeak), it still rears its needy little head. Hence the question.

Do I get attached easily?

Yes.

I love love. I love being in love. I can love so fiercely it terrifies me.

When I meet someone I like — romantically that is; I’m pretty normal in friendships (wahey) — I’m in. Sure, nowadays, I can casually date, implement boundaries, enjoy superficial connections, but inherently? I’m all in.

I can’t explain the relief I felt knowing I wasn’t the only one to obsess over their last active status, being left on read, a marginally blunter reply. It finally made sense to me why I struggled to let go, even if I knew it was the right thing to do. Why a small shift in tone, a reference to a female friend, a desire to have some alone time made me feel so sick. Hell, I even understood why I’d ended up re-shagging all of my exes. I had answers!

Hold the applause. That same girl ended up in a six-month situationship at 27 (so Gen Z), returning again and again because his inconsistency turned her nervous system on. I went back after four days of silence (look, he needed time to think!), last-minute cancelled plans (though he did say I could “come to the party if I wanted”!), and shutdowns every time I tried to ask where we stood.

Fuck. The duality of woman.

Oh, I berated myself. How did this happen again? I should know better this time! Why has nothing changed?

And then I paused.

Maybe it wasn’t that deep. Maybe he was just as to blame — or, if my friends are to be believed, more so (thanks guys). Maybe anyone would go a little insane, if someone told them they wanted you, then withdrew.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked hard. I recently realised, after four dates, I wasn’t that compatible with the guy I was seeing. He was lovely; kind, communicative, intentional, hot (I’m a simple woman). But that spark wasn’t there. There was something missing. I wanted more.

What a revelation. For years, I’d taken what I could get. Now, I was leaving because I wanted more.

Knowing why you are the way you are feels liberating. The downside? You start using it to explain everything. Observing changes in tone becomes hypervigilance. Noticing mood shifts is rejection confirmation. Wanting consistency looks like reassurance-seeking. Most times, these things aren’t that deep — but I pathologized them anyway.

Like most things, it’s best in moderation (huge lol at the audacity of me to suggest I like moderation).

Yes, I am the way I am partly because of my attachment style. Mostly though, it’s because I really bloody love people. I make friends easily, love talking to strangers, and I’m the girl commenting ‘gorg!’ on your Instagram months after we met at a pres. Is it any wonder that when I fall, I fall hard?

Twenty-eight years and a few buzzwords later, I think I’ve got it.

Yes, I get attached easily.

Yes, I’ve (mostly) stopped hating myself for it.

Fuck, I might even be proud. This is me — phone-face-down-in-the-other-room-so-I-can’t-replay-his-Instagram-story-for-the-tenth-time and all.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

Call me crazy, I actually like dating. But once revolutionary, “the apps” are now cringe and passé — a certified badge of embarrassment. How did something fun and novel become just another way to feel guilt and shame?

You can either be single — with several photogenic hobbies — or you can have a life partner. There’s no acceptable in-between. You can’t be seen trying. Love has to fall into your lap (via shagging your flatmate in Freshers Week). If you do try, you have to loathe it, at least a little bit.

I was casually seeing a friend of a friend, chatting about our dating lives over drinks. He announced, cocksure, that he wasn’t on any apps; he had no need for them. He looked at me in camaraderie, convinced I too was above such tragic infrastructures. I nodded, my extremely active Hinge profile burning a hole in my handbag. It felt unsexy to correct him. I confess: I liked being the girl who didn’t need an app. Admitting I had one — and God forbid, that I enjoyed it — felt like admitting I wasn’t enough in the wild.

… And this, from someone who has met every serious partner in person. Fuck.

I appreciate online dating can feel like a minefield: copy-pasted messages, one-word answers, group shots with far more photogenic friends. I’m far from a ride-or-die. I still love meeting people IRL — at the bar, on the dancefloor, even at the office (just kidding, HR).

But I also think it’s cool to move with the times. I was 19 when my first friend met her boyfriend on Tinder. It felt futuristic — like we’d unlocked access to people we’d never have met otherwise. What a magical way for our world to expand. Even amidst all the badly lit gym selfies, there’s something endearingly human about it.

We’ve always been self-conscious about making an effort. But after a life lived online, we’re more performative — and scrutinised — than ever. We’re not just dating; we’re curating our origin story. After all, what’s the point in true love, if Luke-from-Year-Nine-Maths doesn’t know you met organically?

I know plenty of couples who matched on the Big Three™ (Hinge/Tinder/Bumble, for the uninitiated), only to “coincidentally” bump into them on the dance floor of some sticky pub — a much more palatable meet-cute.

If someone was trying to make new friends, we wouldn’t sneer. What is it about dating that we feel so ready to ridicule? Is it the earnestness, the hope, the self-consciousness that comes with putting yourself out there?

We live in an age of nonchalance. It’s not cool to care, and it’s even worse to be seen doing so. ‘Detachment’ is the word of the moment, the hypothesised pinnacle of successful dating. Desperation is the antagonist; TikTok alleges online dating is shopping in the reduced section. I mean, Christ. When did putting yourself out there become akin to a yellow sticker?

We’ve succeeded in convincing ourselves romantic relationships aren’t necessary (fact), so now it’s embarrassing to even try (fiction). Reducing ourselves and our potential partners to faulty goods is depressing, as is constantly justifying our perceived market value. There are already enough reasons to feel ashamed. How you meet the one you love isn’t one of them.

Dating requires a vulnerability like little else — opening yourself up again and again for something that, statistically, won’t work out. Some might call that depressing. I think it’s kind of beautiful.

Case in point: I once went on a third date to arse-end-of-nowhere Wales, where the guy met me with a balloon that said “I love you” (There was context. It was loose.). A woman at the train station was so taken by this she asked to photograph us. Alright, we didn’t last, but the memory will always bring a smile to my face.

In a world where we’re slowly being cautioned not to care, dating is an act of defiance. Why bother, if it wasn’t worth it when it went right?

Maybe Hamlet was onto something. Maybe the question of our age isn’t “to be or not to be,” but whether to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous situationships — or delete Hinge again.

Dating is always going to be cringe.

So is caring.

So am I.

Love has never been cool. But it has always been brave.

So get your metaphorical arse out. You’ve got baboons to woo.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

We all showed each other our vaginas.

No punchline. I’ll let you sit with it.

Ridiculous? Absolutely. Revolutionary? Even more so.

It added protection to my sense of self. Protection against shame, comparison, misogynistic beauty ideals — before our bodies became public property, something to present, perform, or apologise for. In a world that does its best to tear you down, it built an unshakeable foundation of confidence.

Years later, when new friends tentatively shared their insecurities - shaped by porn’s uniformity, cruel comments from men who mistook it for education, and a society that prefers female sexuality be vilified, not celebrated - my appreciation for this formative experience only deepened.

On that trip, we lived uninhibitedly, cackling as we raced naked down the beach, screaming and splashing. We experienced girlhood in its purest form. This trip made me untouchable. Society’s pressures came too late; the groundwork was already there, built on the shoulders (and other bits… obviously) of these wonderful women.

Those early lessons in friendship and trust became armour I later relied on. When my first boyfriend cheated on me at 19, my girls were the ones to stitch up wounds they did not inflict. I felt entirely unlovable, yet I have never been surrounded by so much love.

My best friend was on the other side of the world, but still found time to call when I was in the bath and even a moment alone felt unbearable. Another dropped everything to sit with me the night I found out. A third took me out, let me cry in the club toilet, then snog a randomer in the R&B room. Slowly but surely, I recovered.

Through it all, the face of womanhood is entwined in my memories. Laughing wide eyes that met mine across a grotty bathroom stall in an even grottier warehouse. Soft hands that ensured I was fed when grief made me forget. Ears that simply listened. Mouths that told me they were proud. Bodies that shimmeyed out of clothes that “of course you can borrow!”.

Some songs will forever soundtrack our years together. Lover by Taylor Swift. Simply the Best by Tina Turner. Beat Again by JLS. A slut drop here, a fully fledged dance routine there. A shoulder-shimmy across the bar to signal: not interested. Extract me. STAT.

Famous Last Words by My Chemical Romance. Sports Car by Tate McCrae. Groove is in the Heart by Deee-Lite. Each beat, each lyric, strengthened who I am today. A fluffy-socked two-step in the kitchen. Warbling through the walls of our flat.

I know your favourite drinks, your go-to coffees, the way you battle with winged eyeliner and finding jeans that fit. I know the things you love most about yourself, the ways you’re worried your parents screwed you up, and how weird you feel about that birthmark on your (ahem) leg.

People often remark to me that I am sure of myself. I have a confidence in who I am, what I have to offer. I back myself.

You can take credit for 90% of that.

You are the reason I have never feared dying alone. I know you simply won’t let me.

That girl on the south coast still guides me. From boobs on the beach to break-ups and birthdays. From voicenotes to vulnerabilities, visions to validation, the foundation of who I am is built upon you all.

This essay is but a small token of my gratitude. In this life and the next, it will always be you — and the ways you saw me first.

Speak soon,

Cat <3

I’m open. Not in a “here’s what I had for lunch” way, but in a “my period just started, my womb feels like it’s about to fall out, and I’m going to make that everyone’s problem”. And yet, for some reason, I’m scared to publish on Substack. Strange, right?

[Editors note: To be fair though, it has been 18 years of cramping. What the fuck?!]

It never occurred to me that this was unusual (the openness, not the shedding my uterine lining) until someone remarked on it. I’ll hold my hands up: I’m a performer by nature. I love a good story, an embellished vignette, a salacious anecdote. You’ve seen some of it already - the first dates, the London loathings. I have a lot to say, and unless you tell me otherwise, I assume you want to hear it.

Connection is a big part of it. I genuinely want you to know I just got off the phone with Boyfriend 1™ (Thailand) while texting Boyfriend 2™ (local). I want your thoughts on turning up to a second date with a Valentine’s Day card. I want to know if you hate your job, or your take on hungover sex. And yes, it’s very important that you know that I cannot, under any circumstances, stop listening to Beauty and a Beat (body rock).

Maybe it’s TMI to tell 30 of my nearest and dearest I spent 28 hours on a first date (which, if my mum is reading this, is a lie). Maybe you don’t care. But enough people have said “God, I wouldn’t talk about this with anyone else” for me to think you do.

So much of what we see and do is carefully curated now. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely not claiming that my chaotic love life is a stick-it-to-the-man social statement. But… it is pretty funny.

I’ll happily tell you anything.

So why am I struggling to share my writing? I’m more than happy for you to know my STI test results, but I baulk at the idea of you reading my Substack? That feels counterintuitive. I can control my audience outside of here; there’s no telling who might see this (especially now I have seven whole subscribers - #flex). There’s something freeing about anonymity. And genuinely, I’d probably still rather talk about my womb.

There’s so much of living life out loud I love (Lord, that’s a mouthful). I want more of it. I promised myself I’d have more fun this year, as well as try new creative ventures. Last night I went to a life drawing class - and yes, I happily shared those sketches on Instagram. Oh God, I’m the kind of person who’d rather show someone else’s literal tits than my own metaphorical ones.

It’s hard to be seen trying. But I want to know what you think. I want you to be a part of the mortifying ordeal of being known. I give a shit about this. And I want you to know that.

I’m good with being naked. I’m less good with being earnest.

Because there’s depth to this. There’s reason. There’s meaning. And it makes me feel alive. Someone commenting ‘me too’, or liking because they see themselves in my words? Those years of worrying I was too much suddenly feel worth it.

And if that’s not fun and creative, I don’t know what is. So strap in - 28 years of thoughts coming your way.

Oh, and you’re safe. I don’t have gonorrhoea. You can subscribe.

Speak soon,

Cat <3