I know a girl who doesn’t have a license but always has a boyfriend. To her, a partner is supplemental, and when they break up, there’s this big empty hole roughly the size of a four-wheel drive that leaves her completely stranded. She moves on quickly and never goes without. I wonder what she’s willing to overlook when something so serious hangs in the balance? Maybe he’s mean, or boring, or terrible in bed, and it just stays between her and the walls.

I went through a breakup last year and thought of her often. I found myself setting these stringent timelines for healing, contemplating if being out of the house could erase what seemed to be six months wasted. I weighed the options of sitting in my feelings or opening myself up again and thought about how embarrassing it had been to have felt so strongly about something so flimsy, ignoring incompatibility in the name of temporary comfort and middling security.

I never wanted to be seen as someone who can’t be alone, but it’s hard to be Miss Independent when I always want someone to talk to. I’m more than capable of solitude, but there’s some secret pleasure that comes from having someone to worry about me.

Recently, a man told me, “I feel like you’re the kind of girl that’s used to getting everything she wants.”

To me, this couldn’t have been further from the truth; a complete misrepresentation. I wasn’t that ‘kind of girl.’ Images flashed across my mind of everything that had slipped through my fingers, the way I’ve always had to work for it to make it happen, how wanting something so badly never seemed to make it stick.

He held my head in his hands, and I nodded along, smiling like I had gotten away with something: because I had. I closed my eyes and felt the scruff of his face as he kissed me, an emanating warmth that spread pink across my cheeks.

Some tell their partner everything. They sit on the couch with their feet propped up and vent about the past. They relive every time they felt heartbroken or hopeless and think that saying it out loud will somehow prevent it from happening again. This sort of delusion creates a buffer; they think surely this will set the standard, that he won’t be like the others because they know what they’ve endured.

I don’t want to be perceived as someone capable of being mistreated.

I want a man to think my dating life has been nothing but light and love. I always get flowers on the first date, and I’ve never even entertained looking at the bill. No one has ever raised their voice when speaking to me; I get carried across puddles and always get picked up on time, not a minute later. I want him to know that I’ve never had to fall asleep without a goodnight kiss, tumble-dried sheets, and a carafe of ice-cold water at my bedside. I’ve never had to wait; they’ve always made time for me. My text messages are always returned instantaneously, and they pick up the phone before the first ring and answer with a syrupy sweetness in their voice. They offer to meet my parents in a suit and tie, lift me with one finger, and take me on luxury vacations with empty suitcases.

What’s the harm in that?

I don’t believe in divulging every time I’ve been disappointed, every text that sent me spiraling, or every night I’ve spent ruminating over something a boy said to me in anger. Omission as truth; I rewrite history in the small ways that matter. I let him try to figure me out, and I have fun pretending to be the girl that always gets what she wants. I wake up in the morning smiling ear to ear, and he’s there with espresso before I’ve had a chance to wipe the sleep from my face. He thinks this is what I’m used to: the kind of curated thoughtfulness you tell your friends about.

I got a drunk phone call in the middle of summer, and he found himself scrambling for the words. He ended up telling me he didn’t want to “mess this up,” a confession of genuine concern. He sees me as someone who always wants more, expects more…someone who gets more.

I’m not the girl who needs her hand held, and he knows this.

Me, who has never been treated poorly.

A24’s The Invite is second-hand embarrassment on steroids as Olivia Wilde delivers one of the most uncomfortable theater experiences and labels it a “comedy.” The label undermines the drama entirely in the same way Secretary (2002) similarly delivers a far more cerebral experience than a viewer might expect. On the surface, the film talks about a sexless marriage being shaken up by a shocking proposition, when it is really about feeling seen in a relationship. The narrative explores the complicated nature of long-term relationships and their capacity to disintegrate when people stop prioritizing emotional intimacy.

The film follows Angela (Olivia Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogan), a couple who have clearly grown apart, hosting a dinner party with the couple who live in the unit above them, Piña (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton). Angela is an anxious and high-strung stay-at-home mom, while Joe is miserable, stuck working as a music teacher during the day after failing to make it big. Piña is a domineering vegan psychotherapist, and Hawk is an arrogant retired fireman. Angela goes above and beyond, decorating the apartment and curating an elaborate dinner to impress the guests while it is clear that Joe is entirely resistant to them coming over. He goes on to complain that he has been extremely frustrated by hearing the couple have sex, so much so that he plans to confront them about the noise, to which Angela pleads for him to be civil when they arrive. Throughout the night, everyone becomes closer, exploring the depth of their respective relationships and aggressively stress-testing them through a series of confessions. The dinner devolves, and the pair admit that they know their sexual exploits can be heard and ask if they would like to swing with them.

Angela is repeatedly dismissive of Joe and steamrolls over him regardless of what he has to say. From the beginning, she definitively gaslights him as she insists she informed him of the dinner plans the day prior, which is later proven to be a blatant lie. He complains about work, he complains about his back, and she is clearly past the point of caring, hand-waving his pain time and time again.

Joe is depressed and angry about what his life has become, dissatisfied with his place in the world and unwilling to appreciate what he has or change it. Angela tries to use therapy techniques to de-escalate fights; Joe stonewalls; every day looks the same. He fails to compliment his wife’s efforts even once, stating he doesn’t know what she does all day, underscoring the amount of emotional and physical labor she performs that goes unnoticed.

While Joe is a talented musician, he refuses to indulge in it even as a hobby because it reminds him of his own shortcomings: an insecurity that plagues him in all aspects of his life. He is protective of his piano and doesn’t allow anyone to hear the music he was once so proud of. It becomes clear that it isn’t about not being able to make music professionally; it is about how small and insignificant he feels, as if his talents mean nothing without widespread recognition. Joe says that none of his students care about music, but fails to recognize it is because they can tell that HE doesn’t care about the music; he sees the job as beneath him and the outcomes as inconsequential.

Angela completed an art degree but has since put it on the back burner to pour her creativity into being a mother and homemaker; embellishing their space with renovations and interior design, finding fulfillment in the power she has to shape her surroundings. She swoons when Hawk compliments the rug she purchased, overjoyed that someone had appreciated her attention to detail for once.

Both of them simply crave attention. They want to be wanted and fail to have their needs met by their partner, as she is actively “surviving off of crumbs,” as Piña describes it. Tensions rise when Hawk reveals that Angela routinely allows him to see her naked through the window; a ritual that allows her to experience feeling desired. Similarly, when Piña expresses interest in Joe, he feels euphoric as he believes her attention validates his very existence.

The upstairs neighbors’ incessant intimacy juxtaposes the dead bedroom beneath them as they’ve gotten used to simply living beside one another. Over the course of the evening, Joe goes from being unable to welcome them into his home or allow them to touch his piano to being willing to partner swap with two people who are essentially strangers to them. Ultimately, the film isn’t really about Piña and Hawk, but the feelings of inadequacy and desperation they inspire within Angela and Joe.

The Invite isn’t really about sex, but instead about intimacy. It is about the bids for connection that get ignored, the effort that goes unnoticed, and the love that gets lost when complacency sets in. Angela tries to involve him in her world; she wants his opinions on the color they should paint the walls, she wants to hear his music, and above all, she wishes that they were still in love.

However, it is entirely possible that I’ve spent too much time mulling over a film starring Seth Rogan, a man I have never taken seriously ever.

The film ends with an awkward goodbye as the evening falls apart and they acknowledge that their marriage might be over. Angela is distraught but hears music in the other room; Joe is playing the piano, demonstrating that he is open to starting over and opening himself up to her once more.

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A girl I know thinks she’s lost the love of her life, and I’m positive she’s wrong. Her days are a coin toss between despair and that reinvigorated drive for momentum: the kind of propulsion that takes one step forward and two steps back.

What I’ve found is that that guttural, sinking feeling when everything seems to be falling apart always makes way for the good stuff- how it feels to set aside comfort and familiarity for the sake of progress. I saw it coming, and I think she did too, walking blindly as if opening her eyes would make him fall away to dust if she looked with enough intensity: a lack of scrutiny that creates peace.

He wasn’t all that, but he always paid for her to get her nails done and made sure to take her out of this little town when things got too stale. She cried hard and often. I wondered what was really happening when she relegated her evenings to sitting out on his patio while he watched the game—all those feelings in excess.

I suggested that maybe she was hard work.

Upon recounting all of this, a man asked me if I thought I was too. I glanced back at him to return the question: did he think I was hard work? He says “no,” that I certainly “have expectations” but “deserve to have them met.”

I think my friends think that I’m hard work.

I never want to be the girl with the low-effort boyfriend, the kind of relationship where you find yourself praising him for doing the least. Accessibility without continued effort merely serves to reward participation, a presence that lacks contribution.

There’s this internet trend where women ask their boyfriends whether certain gestures are “bare minimum” or “princess treatment,” then tentatively threaten to spray them with a garden hose if they answer incorrectly. Video after video, they sit there pathetically, their hair dripping into their wide-eyed stares. Here, they would give examples such as holding doors open, paying for dinner, or bringing breakfast in bed; all the while, these men would struggle to decide whether or not it was expected behavior.

The truth is, I think some men are attuned to figuring out the baseline, setting expectations low, and keeping them there. Suddenly, even the slightest demonstration of labor or offhand compliment becomes princess treatment.

When I say “as he should,” what I really mean is that the car door should open for you, you should always get the bigger half, and praise should always flow freely. I’m not referring to exorbitant gifts or flashy vacations, but care.

When he doesn’t care about your feelings, this care is then framed as “walking on eggshells,” the very idea that such consideration is some sort of insurmountable task: fragility and the crushing weight of being disregarded again and again. The kind of guy who thinks boundary-setting is some new-age feminist construct.

I thought about couples who have sex even when they’re angry. How I’d heard about the restorative properties of makeup sex or the heated blow of break-up sex and how arousal transference seems to reward bad behavior in all the worst ways.

I need consistency and consideration, and I want to be both heard and seen in the small ways that matter; the warm intoxication of finding that you’ve shared something of yourself and that something has been carefully stowed away within them. I’ve found that I love surprises. Not because I’m needy or feel that I must be celebrated in some over-the-top way, but to receive that care without having to prompt it into existence. Surprise, by its very nature, requires proactivity and observation.

The nature of disappointment is to overpromise and underdeliver. To play the game of thoughtfulness and follow-through, there is one rule: what is said must be done.

People may say that I shouldn’t expect a man to be able to read my mind- the very idea that men are somehow incapable of indulging outside of their own self-interest is the sort of pessimism that allows mediocrity to propagate. The undeniable power of a “can you-” or a “please” that ends in flowers that weren’t his idea in the slightest; the petals slowly shedding as the romance falls away, revealing it as a simple act of compliance.

What are your dealbreakers? What sort of fatal flaw could undo months or even years of romance, of dedication, or of intimacy? As someone incapable of secrecy, I often struggle to know what to keep to myself, asking what degree of transparency is warranted when the connection isn’t entirely clear. How it feels to gauge how much of my interiority must be visible to avoid flipping myself inside out completely.

Earlier this year, The Drama hit theaters worldwide, sparking a broader conversation on coming to terms with your lover’s past and, at times, seems to contemplate the existence of unconditional love. The film follows Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson), a young couple preparing for their wedding. The film grapples with loyalty, forgiveness, and the construction of one’s social reality through feelings of guilt and shame.

The film draws on themes of performativity, the ways people will bend, contorting with discomfort for the sake of favorability. While it is true that the ceremonial aesthetics of weddings are inherently a performance, I’d like to think there is some sort of underlying authenticity at their core; perhaps they love each other as much as they say they do, more than the flowers, or the gowns, or the cake.

The tone of the movie changes completely when the couple, accompanied by Rachel (Alana Haim) and her husband Mike (Mamoudou Athie), gather to sample wines for the upcoming ceremony. They’re tipsy and giggling when Rachel says she will reveal the worst thing she’s ever done if her husband does the same. Here, Mike begrudgingly tells the table that he once used someone as a human shield to prevent being attacked by a large dog. His wife then details how she locked a (perhaps mentally disabled) child in a closet in the woods and allowed the town to send out a search party to find them rather than coming clean. Charlie is then prompted to participate and nervously laughs that he supposedly cyberbullied a child so harshly that they may have moved out of town to escape it. When it is Emma’s turn, the mood is soured as she confesses that she planned a school shooting but decided not to go through with it.

Throughout the movie, the characterization proves that some people never really change.

While the others are simply in shock or a state of denial, Rachel becomes infuriated. Charlie interjects while Mike says nothing. Mike’s silence is demonstrative of his cowardice… still just a scared boy who would let someone else bleed rather than face sharp teeth.

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A couple of weeks ago, I cut my leg open at work after a pint glass shattered in the server alley. I inhaled deeply, the air caught somewhere between my lungs and my pursed lips, and my leg poured blood into my sock.

It’s strange. I never think of him when I’m with my friends, when I’m eating a good meal, or when I’m doubled over with laughter. I only think of him on my worst days, when it’s dark out, and there’s nothing good on TV. I think of him when it’s raining, and I have the couch to myself, the kind of rain that makes you want to go to bed early just to listen to the quiet rumbling. I think of him as I spill out for the attention and sympathy; the indomitable human urge to be coddled.

For the first time in my life, I felt like there was no one I could call.

I drove to the hospital alone and held my hands over my face when they unwrapped me, not wanting to look as they threaded the needle through split skin and fat and punched staples through tender flesh; the kind of morbidity you see in monster movies. These visceral foreign bodies to remind me of my own fragility. I winced and twitched, and suddenly it was over. I left alone, I made dinner, and I slept in.

Is it a weakness to need someone when having yourself isn’t enough?

I remember wanting so badly for someone to have worried about me, to have held my hand, or someone to look to rather than facing it with blinded eyes. I wonder if he ever feels it, too. If he misses having someone to blame when he was late to work after I’d held onto him too long, if he misses seeing my silver rings on the bathroom counter, or having someone to call with good news. How it feels to try to cut out the rot and find yourself searching in all the wrong places.

In the spring before I met him, he moved into this big, empty place by himself. I wondered if it had crossed his mind once, maybe twice, and found myself asking if I believed he’d really thought it all the way through. How it must’ve felt to pack up the car and drive over 1,000 miles south of the house he was raised in, just sit alone amongst the unopened boxes.

I figured maybe it was impulsive, that perhaps he’d decide in a few weeks that Florida wasn’t for him, that I couldn’t stop him if he later decided to void his lease and head back home; that sort of transience makes everything feel shallow and temporary.

When we were together, he told me that he didn’t dream; that he would simply close his eyes and sleep like he was dead. The kind of guy who was here one minute and gone the next. Always dealing in absolutes and never concerning himself with nuanced conjecture or improbable realities. Unlike me, he never had to resort to staring at the ceiling in anguish or aimlessly counting sheep, too riddled with worry to allow himself the comfort of a good night’s sleep.

On a random day in August, I got the call that it was over, so I spent the day in my room and the night in his bed. He spent the workday pretending to be happy and asked for a do-over when his lunch went uneaten, and he couldn’t stomach the change. Said it felt like he was cutting off his own leg. The analogy stands: a self-inflicted sort of bleeding…blade against bone and no one to say they asked him to go forth with the needless amputation.

The heartbreak of hearing these words after experiencing days where I was wishing away my own life just to live in his, and thinking about how clearly he must’ve seen the writing on the wall. The bravery of making the choice for both of us and telling me what it’s like to live lopsided and incomplete.

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Lunar New Year has once again come to pass, and I found myself delusionally expecting the Year of the Snake’s end to feel like a curse lifting. The weight of all that self-development, a newfound independence that forced my shoulders forward into a lumbering hunch. The Sun turned its back on the Moon, and time lurched forward regardless of whether or not I was ready to face it, ready to forgive or forget.

I’ve never been good at letting things go.

Not too long ago, my friends and I rallied to go lie out on the beach, and by 2 pm, we’d eaten our weight in potato chips and fruit. One of the girls rolled onto her stomach and squinted as she read from her phone, “What’s your biggest red flag?” I said that mine was that I talk too much, and she replied, “Try again.” I thought about it for a minute before it clicked: “Is it that I’m too sensitive?” They nodded in agreement and turned to lie on their backs once more.

I pondered my own reactivity. The way a passing comment could shift my mood entirely, stuck looking out the window, feigning sudden interest in the street lamps passing by. My face always betrayed me, illustrating every shred of emotion and leaving nothing to interpretation. How I’d been trying so hard to care less.

At the end of last year, I cut off a guy my friends used to call Mr.B2B, short for Mister Back To Back, because he would always ask me, “So what are you doing tomorrow?” My friends used to say he was good for me: calm, patient, and unburdened by the opinions of others. I liked that he was predictable, the kind of stability that leaves you without questions or grappling with insecurity. Nearly every day was the same: the same liquid breakfast, the same commute, and retracing his steps at the supermarket over again and over again.

One day, he told me he felt like he was walking on eggshells, always afraid to say the wrong thing and burn it all down; two people who knew how to turn friction into fire.

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It’s been almost a month. I thought I’d be over it by now, but I’m not.

I found myself at that coffee bar on the other side of the river with one of those shitty little vending machines that dispense junk, funky earrings, and tiny works of art. I typed in the alphanumeric code and watched a small pack of oracle cards drop into the tray. I was hoping they’d say something about personal growth, rebirth, fresh starts, or something like that. They told me nothing. Nothing changed.

I know he would’ve laughed at the idea of me spending six dollars for a vending machine to tell me about what comes next. The very concept of sampling divination to snap me out of whatever spell I was under and think about something else for a change.

I used to love talking about him, our weekend plans_, and what movies we’d watch after work; I used to think we were so lucky. He remarked it was like the honeymoon phase that never ended: like we were just floating through life together, unchallenged, too busy pretending we were meant to be.

After several months of being together, we found ourselves in this murky place of uncertainty; neither of us wanted to call it what it was. I remember how he would open his mouth to speak just to close it again as he rolled the thought around in his head a couple more times. His gentle nature chipped away to reveal what he actually thought about the world, about my friends, about me.

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Growing up, I felt intense pressure to perform well academically—a self-inflicted sort of aching. I used to collect every “good job!” sticker, and every report card ended up on the fridge. Undoubtedly, this informed much of my personality as it stands today: the semi-pretentious way that I speak and the resistance I have to so-called “constructive criticism.”

I was hard on myself, I lost sleep, and went years at a time where I felt like I was incapable of true relaxation. An inherent sense of competition, falling short of the goals I’d set, and feeling like I was disappointing myself. My urge to make mountains out of molehills and die atop them rather than offering genuine surrender. Anything to avoid losing.

I’m stubborn, and I can’t help it. I’m a Taurus, and he used to hate it when I blamed it all on the stars. Said he doesn’t believe in astrology, or God, or karmic justice. Oh, to not believe in anything…not even the vaguely spiritual power of coincidence or the small joys of a wish on your birthday. A naive attachment to a childish sense of wonder, I could never fully regain, like loose sand falling through my fingers.

Although my friends often joke that my browser history is like that of a preteen girl, given how often I’m typing subjective questions about love into the search bar.

“When are you supposed to say ‘I love you’?”

“How long do men usually wait before saying ‘I love you’?”

The first time he told me he loved me, it was more of a concession. A sickly-sweet de-escalation. “I love you” sounded more like “please.” He reached for my hand from my lap, which hung limp and disengaged.

I said nothing and let him feel my silence.

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I grew up watching a lot of old cartoons. Those dated, sometimes grainy, two-dimensional depictions of curvaceous women, slinky dresses, red lips, and men with bulging eyes and open mouths. The sort of command of a space that Monica Bellucci exudes in Malèna, putting a cigarette to her lips…

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“So when are we going to meet this guy?”

I searched their face for intention, wondering if this endeavor was out of genuine interest or with the aim of conducting some sort of interrogative effort.

I pictured a large wooden dining table set up; hands folded in laps, a basket of buttered bread, and cups filled with garnished…

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During one of those typical midweek slogs at my restaurant, I found some time to scarf down some food in the server alley and talk. When it's slow, I tend to spill my guts to pass the time. I’ve found that I will say just about anything to occupy that dead air. We start out civil: hashing out kitchen-table issues or personal notes on the weather, then we slowly devolve until I know the details of everyone’s sex lives. Tiffany tells me she’s gone on two horrific dates this month. Haley plans on being with the boy she met at fifteen until she dies. Savannah has been trying to use QuickAdd like a dating app for a few months now, but with little success.

One of my coworkers turns to me and opens her mouth to ask, “Are you still being breadcrumbed?” She asks me so flippantly as if she had just asked me for the time or offered me a piece of chewing gum. I turn back to the rack of loose silverware, suddenly motivated to get going on some running sidework, shuffling through it to delay my response.

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What is it like to truly love someone totally and completely? Perhaps you picture it through the lens of endurance: the kind of love that truly ends with the decay of the physical body. Maybe it's love even in times of strife or sickness: a partner gently spooning bone broth into your mouth. To me, th…

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There is an idealization of unconditional love; the idea that it has no end, often failing to consider that one must accept even the most disagreeable aspects of another person. Some people spend a lifetime searching for this seemingly elusive construct, while others are cynical and unsure of its …

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No one really prepares you for the isolation that comes with the recovery process. You can’t eat crunchy foods, use a straw, or engage in any sort of strenuous activity for at least a week. I spent this time drinking strawberry-banana smoothie pouches and waiting for a text back from a boy. I tongued the st…

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In the first week, there was a sudden wave of videos on the sorrow: that hole that opens up when you drink co…

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Babygirl (2024) is a masterclass in building tension.

The film is confrontational in all senses of the word. Very few movies have culminated in a cinema experience such as the one I experienced today at my local AMC, watching Harris Dickinson sweep Nicole Kidman off her feet. The theater was filled with…

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