I have a confession; I broke one of my New Year’s resolutions and downloaded Hinge. I can already hear my best friend screaming at me for that, but I can argue that it was with good reason that I did this.

In the past, I downloaded it in search of a boyfriend or girlfriend (only briefly successful), and after that I vowed it off for good. However, this time my goal for downloading the dreaded sea of singles was not just to date but simply to get out of the house and meet new people in the city I will be studying in. Honestly, it was just to get me used to people again after having a very, very limited social life.

Right now, I don’t want a relationship. Sure, in principle I do like most people (see Single Human Female), but right now it’s not my primary objective. A year of focusing on me still stands in full. It doesn’t stop me from getting a little lonely sometimes though, and with a whole new social world opening for me in September, I really needed to dip my toes in.

It was this separation from the goal of finding someone that made me realise how dating apps turn falling in love into something strangely corporate: a manufactured placebo for a lonely generation.

In my young adult years, I have had to go through many job applications, interviews, and disappointments when not getting the position. I have succeeded in some, got hired, and ultimately failed because, in practice, it just wasn’t right for me. Dating, especially on dating apps, feels a lot like that to me.

You look at someone’s CV or application (dating profile).

You shortlist them (swipe left or right, give a heart, give a rose, skip).

You do the first round of interviews (chat for a bit).

If successful, you go to the second round (actual dating).

This round can vary. Sometimes it’s one or two dates, sometimes it’s a few months, like a probation period.

The only difference is that there are supposed to be two people looking to hire each other instead of it being one-sided.

Yet still, it does feel quite one-sided sometimes.

Funnily enough, my best friend said and I quote: “Hinge matches are my LinkedIn connections”
He is always a source of inspiration for this sort of thing. My muse if you will.

Dating apps are a blind application with no idea whether we fit or not. Imagine how pointless it would be applying to be a bioengineer if your passion in life is making balloon animals.

You simply wouldn’t do it, right?

You’d get rejected.

You might’ve wanted it badly; you might not have cared much. Yet you still get a pang of disappointment, an embarrassment at rejection.

You go through the whole process only to randomly be hit with the “Sorry, I don’t feel it,” a.k.a. “you’re not a good fit for this position.”

I have received a few of these after dates, and even if I’m not in the market, it still stung. I’d be sat in the same cafés, answering the exact same questions, experiencing the same awkward silences, and wondering whether I had a coffee moustache from my latte. It made me realise just how much dating apps make you one applicant in a long line of countless others.

So I deleted it, bored of the shallow, one-time exchanges that felt so awkward I pretended I needed to leave early.

I must ask: what happened to the meet-cute? I miss it.

Growing up on romcoms, it’s always struck me as the perfect way to find someone who truly gets you.

App-arranged dates feel so pressured, so full of hope that doesn’t exist, expecting that rare instant connection.

In my case, I find affection builds over time, mostly before even suggesting a date. I find it impossible to tell whether I like someone after just two hours. I need two months at least. I need to see how they treat service workers, how patient they are, whether they stop me from crossing the street too early in front of an oncoming car. Slowness in a world of impulse and instant gratification feels like a rare luxury. Please tell me the romance of falling in love slowly still exists. I like to think it does.

So, back to my dating app experience. I downloaded it again, but it was very short-lived. I think I went on a total of three dates before I realised that I don’t actually need it. I think people rely on apps, and maybe they do have a place. They work well for some people, but in my case, I feel like I was using it as a crutch. I was so under-confident in my own ability that the app just seemed like the easy route. Technology has a way of doing that, unfortunately.

I think I will keep the applications and interviews for actual jobs.

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I have been through probably every hair colour under the sun. The first hair colour I ever experimented with was a bright pillar-box red after listening to MCR’s Danger Days album at twelve. My favourite is probably the pink pixie cut I had at seventeen, and my worst was the blue and purple mix I had at fifteen. I can’t believe I ever thought that would look good.

Since the age of twenty, though, I have kept my hair relatively natural in tone. I have experimented with different shades of brown, blonde at one point, but in the past two years I have decided to embrace the natural red that I was teased for at school. Oh, how hard seven-year-old me fought to claim it was brown, not red, that sat atop my head. I don’t know who I was convincing.

Funny how the things we were once picked on for become one of our biggest compliments when we’re older. I don’t think anyone has ever complimented my hair as much as when I let my auburn shine through.

So, I don’t know what the hell possessed me recently to throw it all away in favour of going dark. I don’t mean just a couple of shades; I mean as dark as the edges of space, espresso brown that borderlines black. To be perfectly fair, I didn’t expect it to go that dark. I just wanted a chocolatier version of what I had.

That was not what I ended up with when stepping out of the shower. Some God-knows-what girl from The Ring looked back at me in the bathroom mirror, but I held my breath. Hair always looks darker when wet. Not time to freak out yet. I just needed to blast it with the hairdryer, and I would end up with the cocoa locks I wanted.

I did not.

The problem with my hair is that it likes to dry naturally, and it always looks best when I let it do so. Taking a hairdryer to it removed every trace of the natural wave that gives it the movement I like. So instead of a sopping wet Samara cosplay, I ended up with Wednesday Addams, pre-braids.

What if I curled it to soften it?

It worked... a little.

Not really.

Now it was time to freak out.

If I hadn’t made plans to go out that day, I probably would’ve been fine, but no, I just had to dye it just before I was due to spend the day walking around a lovely little market town. How my red hair would’ve loved that.

Word of advice: never freshly dye your hair before a social engagement to avoid the absolute distress I worked myself up into. I went out, though! I put on a brave face and marched out of that front door, even if I didn’t want a single soul in the world to see me.

The day was nice. Would’ve been better if I didn’t feel like shit because of my hair.

Simply because I just didn’t feel like me.

When I was younger, probably during my MCR-loving days, I would have adored the abyssal darkness that was my hair. I would’ve revelled in how pale it made me. I would’ve even put it in braids. Admittedly, Wednesday Addams was my idol and style icon at that age, probably since I was eight years old, when I wanted to be a mortician.

Now, though?

Nothing felt so far removed from me as a person than having hair the colour of liquorice.

I have changed so much. It’s been so gradual, so seamless, that I didn’t even notice how much of a different person I have grown to be from my moody teenage self. I don’t know whether it is maturity, a better state of mind, healing, or simply what happens when growing up, but it’s fascinating.

I am the exact same human being that I was born as. Same blood, same bones, same eyes, lips, body and mind. The same heart and the same soul from then, to now, then for eternity, but I have transformed into so many different versions of myself.

Like butterflies, or my personal favourite, moths, we metamorphose. However, as they have three distinct stages, we have millions of micro ones that happen every single day without us even noticing until we one day wake up and realise we are far from the caterpillar we once were. Never to go back, only ever moving forward onto the next phase.

The dark hair didn’t last long. I could barely survive a day with it. There’s a certain amount of shame in walking into a beauty store and purchasing hair dye remover whilst sporting a horrendous hair colour. Pity gets painted over the faces of every person you interact with. Sympathy for poor decision-making when feeling desperately out of control and in need of a change to get myself back on track.

Never again.

All of you, promise me now: if I have the urge to dye my hair dark again, for the love of my sanity, please stop me.

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I like people watching. It’s one of my favourite things to do, especially somewhere like a train, where people are coming and going while I sit still. A café is another favourite.

Obviously, on a train it’s a little more restricted, but I have still managed to catch some interesting people on my twenty-minute journey. Performative humanhood disappears and people quietly become themselves. I like that about travel: being unknown to everyone around you. Utter anonymity.

I’m sure I have been the subject of some people’s people watching myself. I actually hope I have.

I’d like to get every stranger who has ever seen me in a room to ask them what stories they made up, what they assumed, and what they thought.

I should really write down my own observations when people watching too, just to have a record of all those I have witnessed in my life.

It’s been a while since I have written anything worth sharing. In fact, my brain has been absent of most thought. Call it writer’s block or call it lacking motivation. I like to think of it as a healthy break to replenish myself, but the other day, whilst on the train, I let my mind wander.

A guy sat a row to the right of me, and he immediately caught my attention. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, in my view, but I was fascinated by the way he was dressed: the little details, such as the chipped blue nail polish on his fingers and his silver rings. Where I live, it’s rare to see people be so expressive in their appearance, and immediately I found myself wanting to compliment him.

I stopped myself, though, because it’s weird for some random girl to tell you she likes your nails.

I have complimented people in the past on the colour of their hair or what they are wearing, and every time it’s the same. The “Oh, thank you!” always comes with sheepishness, embarrassment, or bewilderment. Always tinted with the same shock. I am guilty of this too. In fact, I don’t know if I know how to accept a compliment without feeling exactly these three things all at the same time.

Is this humility? Or something more?

Even giving a compliment makes me feel weird until I have given it. It feels intrusive until I see the reaction. People aren’t expecting kindness for the sake of simple kindness. Why is being kind something that is stifled?

I ask, when did being kind become weird?

Maybe we’ve stopped expecting kindness from people who don’t owe us anything.

I regret not giving people compliments or just being nice for the sake of being nice, because I feared being perceived as weird or creepy. Yet never in my life have I seen a negative reaction to sheer generosity.

Words are free, sentences cost nothing. It is the easiest way in the world to be generous.

It might make someone’s day. They might think you’re an alien who has dropped out of the sky, but it is a small step in the fight against a world that shuns human connection.

I got off the train before he did, and I caught a glimpse of him through the window as I made my way to the exit. He was wearing eyeliner, better than I could ever hope to.

If I see him again, I will tell him he looks cool.

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Melonpan turtles by me. Recipe here

When I was a younger girl, I was obsessed with the idea of magic, of the arcane and mysterious. I still am, though I fear adulthood has taken away some of that childhood whimsy. Not too much though, I still believe that there is something spiritual far beyond human understanding and I most definitely still believe in mermaids.
I had been fascinated by the idea of witchcraft; it further led me to the concept of alchemy.
The idea that it was possible to take one thing, deconstruct it and make it into something else captured my imagination and I was determined to one day achieve the feat.

I never managed to turn something into gold or manifest a homunculus into existence, but I have achieved it in my own form, as many others have too. I call it Feminine Alchemy.

I view women as born alchemists, being able to create a life is alchemy in its most natural form.
Born to create, we have wombs, organs made for it. I do think it goes far beyond that though.
I can never tell if I am a nurturing person. I don’t see myself as a mother, in fact I don’t know if there is a maternal bone in my body. Still, the feminine urge to create is within me.
I think it is there for all women whether by making a child or not.
Personally, I think I belong to the latter group.
Instead of wanting to create life, I find my drive to create things for those in my life. Those who already live and who I love. I suppose that is a kind of nurture in its own way.

I used to make potions for my parents from water, pebbles and flowers from the garden. I spent hours outside making them, wishing that they would be useful in some way. Instead, they always ended up smelling quite sour and rotted, tossed away to use the jar to make another.
I loved to pretend to make cups of tea with my plastic kettle, cakes with paper ingredients, all to give to those around me. I have lost count of how many paper cafes I opened at six.
I made birthday and Christmas cards myself, wrapping paper too because I simply love creating something that existed just for certain people.

I like to bake now, I know I am in a good place mentally because I will bake.
It’s my love language too. My mum says she can always tell I am in love when I bake for someone outside of the family.
I am not the best at it; my cooking is definitely hit or miss (unless it’s Italian or Mediterranean for some reason?). My baking is adequate but wouldn’t have me winning The Great British Bake-off (even if some say otherwise). Though, when I break eggs, chop things up, take all these ingredients which have no real reason to be together and make something out of them, something warm, something comforting, something full of love. I like to think of this as my own version of alchemy.

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We are living in a time that could easily be mistaken for Armageddon. We have the four horsemen: death, disease, war, and famine on the news every day. We see it on our phones, that being the way most of us consume world events. We scroll TikTok, Instagram, our favourite chosen news sites, seeing these familiar four countless times. Scroll, scroll, scroll, then we stop and see a headline that’s an outlier. One that is equally refreshing as it is sickening.

The Met Gala 2026.

Initially, I was relieved to see it, pleased even. I have followed it every year since 2015 without fail and, for the first time ever, I forgot about it. I don’t know about you, but I find it kind of hard to bother keeping up with that sort of thing when innocent lives are being turned on their heads and many people don’t have a home to go to.

Seeing those brightly coloured, frivolous outfits used to be a joy to me, and they were for a split moment this year. I did my usual judging in my pyjamas from my bed as to who wore what and who wore it well, but the further I looked at it, the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it felt.

These celebrities, millionaires, billionaires, all gathering together wearing out-of-this-world costumes that probably cost more than a minimum wage worker makes in two years, seemed very similar to a well-known young adult dystopian book series, did it not?

Historically, the Met Gala has been a charity event, one to fund the museum in which it is held. For the record, I would like to state that I am one of the biggest promoters of funding the arts, but surely 100k for a ticket could be put to better use during a time when the world is in crisis. UNICEF maybe? Doctors Without Borders? Something that will help our current climate?

Even the name of this year’s event felt like a mockery.

Fashion as art.

Historically, what has art been used for? What was its original purpose? To connect people, to tell stories, for self-expression and the human soul. I saw none of that in this year’s Met Gala. All I saw was a breeding ground for “clout”-chasing tech bros (I am looking at you, Bezos) and the superficial promotion of elitism as aspiration. From the record in recent times, I’d say being elite doesn’t make you a better person.

The Met Gala acted as a catalyst for me, one that made me reflect on other areas of fashion.

I have always loved fashion. In fact, one of my favourite films of all time is Disney’s Cruella, purely for the dramatic punk looks inspired by the seventies and eighties London scene. I love putting outfits together. I love showing them off on Instagram. I love looking at clothes, and I have Pinterest boards full to the brim with outfit inspiration, but it is not something I am willing to compromise my morals for.

I buy from Vinted. I buy clothes that have been made ethically with sustainable materials. I have taught myself to be more mindful with what I buy and what I throw away. That has been a huge area of growth for me. I like to see it as a sign of maturity.

The very last bit I have been hanging onto, though, is my investment in fashion magazines. Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vanity Fair have been my go-to reads, though I have to say Vanity Fair has been teetering on the edge since that whole multi-page spread about the Trump administration.

I used to dream of being in them, whether in my modelling days, through my writing now, or even just as a person someone actually cares enough about to write an article on, but now I am not so sure. My morals outweigh it.

I turn the pages and see what the Met Gala has become in glossy printed format. Shallow pages of nothingness with maybe a cool feminist article sandwiched in there somewhere, followed by some ridiculous fad beauty trend. Remember, you’re not pretty if you have acne, wrinkles, or sagging tits, but make sure to empower yourself (not).

If you age, you’re doing it wrong. Get Botox.

Don’t worry about those starving because there is no food, make yourself as thin as possible. Go on Ozempic.

There is so much more to worry about. Personally, since the Met Gala, I have started to worry about where humanity has gone.

If that is what fashion has become, a strive for elitism, then I really hope people like Anna Wintour are shaking in their Chanel boots.

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Before I begin, I want to talk about being single.

I have no problem being single. Not in the “because no one will ever love me” edgy type of way. I am happy being single because I have always been happy in my own company. Growing up an only child (an autistic one at that) equipped me with that superpower to be happy in solitude. It comes in handy when friendships are difficult to maintain and negative experiences have left me with severe trust issues.

However, despite this fineness with being single, I have found myself lately really craving the companionship of another person.

Not in a friend way, not in a family way, I am fulfilled in those areas now, but in a romantic way.

I have been in relationships (and situationships), around six to be exact, in my short little life. The only reason I have managed that is because I felt it was normal, expected. I never really wanted to be in any of them, not when I look back from a less rose-tinted-glasses perspective. I’m pretty sure that’s why it always went down the drain and I disappeared each time into their shadow. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t ready for it yet.

I remember when I was eleven and whilst girls were starting to notice boys, I still wanted to play with my Monster High dolls (all of which were undoubtedly lesbians, by the way, before I even knew what liking girls was). Funnily enough, I fancied other girls before I even considered an attraction to boys.

I swear it wasn’t until recently that I truly gained a genuine attraction to the opposite sex. Imagine that, twenty-five and only just now finding myself experiencing what all the other girls did about ten years ago.

Whilst they all had their thing for Harry Styles and some other popular male celebrity of the 2010s, I felt nothing.

I really thought there was something wrong with me, hence why I forced myself into anything, even if physical contact repulsed me.

I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t exactly diagnose why I am so delayed, but it probably has something to do with the cocktail made from trauma and the inability to understand my neurodivergence sooner rather than later.

Though now I understand it, I’ve fought my demons, and my brain is supposed to be fully developed now, it all seems to have slotted into place.

Like a big bang, a huge chemical reaction, for the first time in my life I actually feel attraction.

Now, this doesn’t mean I am going to turn into a lust-crazed succubus hellbent on anyone I find remotely attractive. I’ve done Hinge, I am not one for dating around. Instead, I find myself wanting something that I can only describe as intentional.

I am very set in my mind. Whatever I do, I like to make a list of hopes, expectations, and desires. I have never done this before in dating and maybe that has led to my dissatisfaction, choosing the wrong people, and further putting off this evolution into womanhood.

Masculinity has always been a bit of a threat to me for obvious reasons that I will not go into, but now I am finding a new appreciation for it, not only in men but women too.

To me, masculinity is now strength, power, protection, someone who I can rely on to look after me and soothe all my storms. Being physically imposing isn’t something I would say no to either.

(Leon Kennedy, I am looking at you.)

How very primal, evolutionary-advantage-seeking of me.

It reminds me that we are all just animals.

When I think of it that way, it all becomes humorous to me instead of shameful or embarrassing. I’d like to be more comfortable with the idea of attraction and sexuality. I am working on that.

At the core of it though, I want love.

Real love, true love.

The type of love that knocks you off your feet and makes you realise everything before was just practice.

I have loved; I am very good at it, in fact. I love hard, I stay soft, and devotion takes over my body, but I have never experienced it back.

I don’t want to just be loved by someone.

I want to be their home.

I want the gentle, nurturing, strong masculinity that will make me feel safe.

I have never wanted that before.

Maybe I am finally catching up and yearning for human companionship, or maybe it is my biological clock setting itself to panic mode, but I have never felt an urge for love like this. It feels anthropological in nature. Maybe I should build a nest, collect pretty pebbles, or scream into the night as some kind of mating call.

I am just a single human female looking for a mate.

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I feel like I am suddenly going through an evolution. Remember Operation New Year More Me? Well, that honestly felt like it was going nowhere for January, February and March, but almost like a spring tulip, I feel as though I have fought through the harsh mud and dirt to finally sprout and bloom. A little lamb born after a ewe’s harsh winter. Let’s call this my Lamb-hood.

Now that I feel like I have my shit together enough, I thought I would write a little update, a record of what I have done in this personal journey of self-improvement.

Clearing my Wardrobe

I overhauled my entire wardrobe.
I am a hoarder of clothes, always have been, to the point my wardrobe is constantly bursting with things that I either forget I have or that overwhelm me so much I end up wearing nothing but the same safety outfit all the time (washed, of course). I have spoken about this before, about aesthetics and finding my own, but this time I was so brutal I ended up with about 60% of my wardrobe gone. Everything that didn’t make me feel good, anything that didn’t do anything for me or that I used to hide in, everything polyester and poor quality, has either been donated or sold on to someone who will use it a hell of a lot more than I did.

At first this made me panic a little, thinking I had absolutely nothing to wear anymore, but once I stood back and actually assessed what I kept, I realised I have more outfits now than I did before. It may be less than half its original size, but it feels far more controlled and far more me.

To my dear departed from my wardrobe, I wish you well, however you are worn.

Working for my Body not Against it

Food and exercise have been the bane of my existence for the entirety of my girlhood and, so far, womanhood, but I decided, no more. I do not want the rest of my womanhood to be governed by the demon of eating disorders.

Over the last month, I have started to change how I think about food and how I exercise. I still see food as fuel, that’s still my philosophy, but I realised I was trying to put as little into my body as possible just to keep it going. Slowly, week by week, I have been upping my calories to a much safer range. Let me tell you, it has made me feel so much better. I never realised what a detriment I was to my own body, my chronic illness, and my overall life by under-eating and not giving myself the nutrition I needed. I am so sorry to my body for being so cruel to it.

My exercise has changed too. I am gentler with myself, slower and more deliberate. I think, overall, I have become more intentional, and training has been a big part of that. Daily yoga/Pilates and a walk with Po is all I need. No more running until I feel like I am going to pass out or crunches that just make my stomach hurt. I still have a long way to go, but I am beginning to see improvements. My arms are certainly stronger than the untoned noodles they were.

The only dangerous thing about it is that it has given me confidence, and with that, the desire to model again.

Trying a New Language

Salve! Io sono Lydia e sto bene!
That, and ordering a coffee, is the extent of my Italian at the moment, but I am getting there.

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my future, and one of the things I really want to do is live in a different country, even just for a year. After careful consideration, it became a toss-up between France, the Netherlands and Italy. Guess which won.

Previously, my second language of choice was French, but honestly I crave passion, artistry, enthusiasm and warmth. Not to say French doesn’t have that, but there is a certain something about Italian that has been drawing me to it for years.

Planning my Future and Finding my Voice

Along with Italian and the hope of living in Italy one day, I have also been looking at other areas of my life. I know what I want to be. I know what I want to do. It all suddenly became clear, an epiphany, as the clouds cleared and daisies sprouted from the grass. Most importantly, it is for me.

I want to write, and after attending my university open day for my master’s, I couldn’t be more certain of it. My voice feels like it has grown stronger, and in large part I have this Substack and you amazing people who read my work to thank for that.

I don’t know if my work will ever end up on the shelves of Waterstones, whether I will be in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, or any magazine for that matter, but I won’t know unless I devote myself to it entirely. When I think about my future as a writer, I never feel more alive.

Friendships Old and New

I don’t know where I would be without the people in my life, my mum, my dad, my aunt, my best friend. They are the quartet that has kept me going.

Lately, I have found myself valuing them even more. I don’t know whether it is because I am out of a hole of isolation or whether it is part of this evolution, but I feel it deeply. I am spending more time with them, talking to them, cultivating those relationships and letting everything grow instead of keeping it stagnant for control and holding everyone at arm’s length.

I have even made a new friend. That is unheard of for me, but for the first time I feel myself wanting it, excited to see where the human bond will take me next.
I think I have finally learned to love the right people.

…

Writing all of this out, I am only now realising how much I have managed to achieve. It hasn’t felt like much individually, but altogether I can see the shift. I am starting to feel like a human, an actual person, instead of a being that was just existing.

I don’t often feel proud of myself, but on this one occasion I will say well done for taking these steps. May it continue.

Arrivederci, a presto x

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I think I am a nihilist. My faith in humanity is probably as strong as water with milk. Often I wonder whether I am part of it at all. Can you blame me? Look at what we do to each other, what we don’t do for each other, and how wrapped up in our self-absorbed little lives we are. We have become apathetic narcissists who, in many cases, believe ourselves to be gods. Sometimes it is hard to forget the nature that we came from, how ingrained in the animal kingdom we are. Hence why I am thankful for the little moments that remind me that I am just a smart ape in clothes.

I had been brushing my hair when one of these moments happened. I’ve been annoyed about the ginger undertone of my hair, and in the light from my window it just seemed so orange. It was from this window that I can see a typical British suburban road and a steep wall to someone else’s garden. It is not a special or particularly interesting view, but given it’s springtime, birds often fly around. Mums collecting food, babies learning how to fly.

I have a big soft spot for birds. Maybe it’s because I was hugely into dinosaurs as a kid, and it blew my mind to find out their direct descendants are flying around above our heads.

One of my favourites is the robin, a feisty little bird with a red breast. My parents nicknamed me after them. Like the bird, I am small but feisty, but I definitely don’t have a red breast. Still, it’s a name I have carried for a long time and has become as big a part of me as the name Lydia, so naturally robins in general just stand out to me.

When I was going through a tough time as a teenager, I remember a robin coming to sit by me, and it sang to me. No matter how close I got, it didn’t flinch or try to fly away.

I have had subsequent robin encounters, increasingly so since my grandma died. Apparently, seeing a robin nearby is a sign a passed loved one is too.

Robins have become such a comfort, the animal I see as my protector, so when a mother robin landed on the wall, I paid attention. Soon after, a baby followed, but not as elegantly as his mother. Where she landed on the wall, he hit the curb, and after shaking himself off, he attempted to join his mama.

The only thing is, this wall is high, very high, and this little bird didn’t seem to be able to quite fly that high from the ground yet.

He tried and tried; I willed it from my bedroom to succeed. I even went to tell my own mum in excitement.

There’s a robin with a baby!
It can’t get up the wall.
It’s fallen down the drain.

I don’t know what went through its small head. Maybe a run and jump? I have been informed since that birds don’t work that way.

I watched in horror as, with one little hop, it vanished down into the abyss. I stood frozen, unsure of what to do.

Could I save it?
Should I try?

I went back and forth in my head, wondering if I should intervene or let it be. In the end, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. My empathy and the guilt I would feel for abandoning it overruled every other sense in my body, so still in my pyjamas and slippers, I marched out of the front door.

Damn nature and its genius tactic of disguising baby animals with camouflage. At first, I couldn’t see him. Down in the dirt, I could only see muddy water, leaves, and Cadbury’s wrappers, but there he was. After my eyes had adjusted to the murkiness below, I found him.

Now that I had seen him, I couldn’t leave him there to die.

I first tried to reach through to him, but the gaps were too thin. Who decided it would be a good idea to design something that lets things fall in but you can’t get them back out? Human design, convenient for us, but not for those we share the planet with.

I raided the kitchen, trying tongs, a sieve, anything, but it was either too big or not long enough to reach down.

Maybe the RSPCA? Nope. I tried ringing them, and all I got was the world’s slowest menu, where there wasn’t even an option to report a wild animal in distress.

It was up to me.

I am not the strongest, far from it, but still I attempted to lift the drain grate. How I thought I would ever be able to do this, logic left me. Perhaps part of me thought that I would be like that mother who saved her child from under a truck (I think that’s a true story?), and adrenaline gave her the strength to lift the vehicle.

Perhaps a bit dramatic compared to my own situation, but it was worth a try.

I did not get very far.

A DPD driver passed the baby bird and me twice, gave us a funny look, and moved on with his day. I suppose a young woman crouched down at a drain by the roadside isn’t a sight seen every day, but clearly not enough to enquire if I needed help.

I didn’t need him anyway.

I had Google.

Which I utilised by asking, “how the hell do I get a baby bird out of a drain, uk?”

Bingo, make a net out of duct tape and a pole.

We always have duct tape in our house (don’t ask), and a random pole we use to get the dogs’ toys out from the hard-to-reach places they purposefully push them into.

It was whilst I was frantically making this makeshift net, getting caught up in duct tape and becoming increasingly anxious and frustrated, that my dad came home.

My dad, in his late seventies, is not the sort of hero you usually imagine, but to me he is, without a single doubt. The moment I explained to him what I was trying to do, he jumped into action. Out to the drain he followed me and immediately set to work trying to figure out how to get it off.

I had visions of him committing vandalism trying to get it off. Maybe a saw, or knowing him, some kind of blow torch. I have no idea what tools he has in his shed, but it turns out it was just a simple lever job.

Like I said previously, he doesn’t on the surface seem like the most likely hero, but I would challenge you to think of him as anything else as he came back out of that house holding a shovel and chisel. I think I get my determined empathy from him.

I wonder what this little baby robin was thinking, looking up at these monkeys so adamant about opening its prison. He didn’t move and he didn’t chirp, so most likely he was hoping he wasn’t going to be eaten instead of starving to death. Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been?

New to the world, in a cold, dark place where your mother couldn’t get to you. Any living creature being in that situation makes me want to be sick.

Remembering to never touch a baby bird, I used the first thing I came across in the kitchen to scoop it out, and in a tub, the little robin was hoisted to freedom, onto the wall and off to find his mama.

I googled after if robins find their mothers again, and to my adrenaline come-down relief, they do.

It took me an hour to fully relax after the ordeal, long enough to sit down and write this.

This baby bird needed me, and I followed an instinct to come to its aid. I didn’t do it to film a TikTok or go viral. I didn’t do it for any other reason than this deep, instinctive urge to be there for another living thing.

I think we often forget about this kinder part of ourselves.

Funny how it takes an animal to remind me that I am human.

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There is a theory that when you break up with someone, you will never cross paths with them again unless you are meant to. You might bump into them in the supermarket, through a friend of a friend, or somehow inexplicably out of the blue. Luckily, I haven’t ever had this experience. The universe has protected me from ever seeing the face of someone I once loved again.

Recently, though, I had a near ex experience that I think I needed.

When I was with my ex, he invited me to live with him, and to save the hassle of parcels going to my parents’ house and then having to be re-sent down to me, I decided to just change my delivery address to the one I had been living at.

As you know, that all went to the pits and I moved back home.

There was a weird sense of loss when I changed my address once more to my original one, but I was diligent in doing it as soon as possible on every account I had, given that I am a prolific online shopper. I can’t remember the last time I went into a shop to buy something that wasn’t groceries.

So it was all back to how it had been before, minus a little trust in men and faith in relationships. I treated myself to some new underwear. I didn’t think twice about it until I went to check my parcel’s tracking information and, to my horror, it was going to my ex’s address.

How that slipped through the net I have no idea, and I can promise you I did not intend for that.

Contacting the company was hopeless, so I had two options:
Cut my losses and pretend losing £95 and some really nice underwear didn’t sting,
Or swallow my pride and get in touch with the man I hadn’t spoken to in months.

I surprised myself by having the balls to send a text.

Now, to his credit, he did get in touch and, to cut an oversharing story short, he delivered them to me personally.

It wasn’t the usual face-to-face reunion that most exes have. More a drop and run, and only a text after driving away to let me know he had dropped them off, sort of thing (thankfully).

This only happened a couple of weeks ago, but was otherwise forgotten about until my university open day. With an hour alone before the final stretch of the day, I had a moment to sit down and really take in the world I will be stepping into in just a few months’ time. Around me, other future master’s students with their own stories and pasts were also getting used to the direction their futures had decided to take. Energy surrounded me, positive, busy energy, the type only found in an environment meant for you.

For some reason, this near ex experience came to me in that moment, and I think I must’ve looked insane to the professors having lunch just one table over from me. I am clearly the best at first impressions.

Notebook forever in my bag, I pulled it out and began to write the bare bones of this essay and how the universe really did me a favour with the address mix-up.

If I hadn’t had my heart broken, I wouldn’t be at my dream university, preparing for my future. I would not be living the life I wanted, I wouldn’t be happy. I would still be in marketing, balancing it with being a stay-at-home girlfriend to a man who always put me last. I write all the time now; I look after myself, and I seek out opportunities far beyond what I ever have before. I think I have been so focused on getting to where I am now that I didn’t allow myself a chance to reflect on the immense change I have made to control my own destiny. I actually can’t help but thank him for ending that world before.

My near ex experience reminded me of the life I had, and now I can appreciate how far from it I am.

It is strange, having a brush with someone I knew so intimately. I felt a sensation that I can’t quite name. Nostalgia? Grief? I am not sure. It’s a dull ache left behind after a broken heart has healed.

It had been a world, a future I didn’t want with a man I thought I wanted, but it wasn’t mine. Now I am getting to know a different one, the right one. A world created by me.

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Why the hell did we ever let anyone make us believe that Bridget Jones and Andi Sachs were in any way fat?

I was born when stick thin was in, pushed on every girl across the world. Kate Moss was the epitome of how a woman should look, and ‘heroin chic’ dominated the runway. Zero-calorie snacks, (useless and empty) lined the shelves. Be as small as possible, as thin as possible: that is attractive. Is it any wonder, with this constantly being shoved down our throats, that my age group grew up with some of the worst body image in generations?

At nine years old, my relationship with food started to go downhill due to trauma and anxiety. I craved food for stability, and I gained what my mum insisted was “puppy fat.”
I wasn’t happy, but I accepted it as part of puberty.
All of the influences surrounding dieting, WeightWatchers, and cardio hadn’t affected me. I ate what I wanted, became pescatarian at ten, and focused on surviving school (spoiler: I barely did).

That was until a very specific moment in my Year Eight science class. I don’t remember what we were learning, but the teacher thought it was a wise idea to get a group of developing, insecure pre-teens to weigh each other.

The scales were old, the kind probably made in the eighties. Second period of the day, we each stepped on. Of course, I grouped with the girls I thought were my friends. Turns out, they weren’t. I was aware they were all smaller than me. I was the only one who had started my period at that point; the others still had flat chests and narrow hips. One of them later boasted she could fit her hands around her upper thigh in the changing room before PE. I wonder now if that was the beginning of her own fight. I hope she is okay.

Another had already been put on a diet by her mum, despite being the thinnest of us all. After that, I started sharing my lunch with her. I had never seen someone so grateful to see tuna pasta.

They weighed themselves first, small, identical. Then it was my turn. I took off my brogues, which I had worn because they all wore them too, and stepped onto the scale. The red dial climbed higher than any of theirs had. The metaphorical queen bee spoke.

“I always knew you’d be the fattest one out of us.”

I was only weeks away from a spiral that would lead to me being homeschooled. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of it.

That moment has stayed with me for thirteen years. It never left. My comfort eating pivoted into restriction.
I was fourteen when I was diagnosed with anorexia.

Since then, it has been a constant battle. I moved from overeating to binging and purging to not eating at all, eventually settling on as little as possible. Puking made me feel worse. Body dysmorphia and the eating disorder fed each other, urging me to eat less, move more, become smaller, telling me I didn’t deserve love until I did. It’s all bullshit, I know, but once it gets its claws in, it’s hard to pull free.

I was around seventeen when the fat acceptance movement became a popular topic of conversation, and it did not compute in my brain. I don’t have anything against fat people, or people embracing their size and loving their bodies. In fact, I actively encourage people to feel comfortable in their own skin. I just couldn’t do it for myself.

I was at my lowest weight at this point, and the body shaming of being overweight flipped to shaming me for being too thin. I received messages on social media, people giving me their unwarranted opinions on something I was already mentally beating myself up over.

I was in therapy at the time too, working with a dietitian that I could’ve really done without.
Great idea, give a girl who can barely eat five hundred calories a day and doesn’t eat meat, a diet plan that tells her to eat a Mars bar for a snack and a meat pie for lunch. I didn’t go back to that one.

Instead, I tried to figure it out myself. I began to wonder “what if this was simply how I was”. Later, I learned that eating issues are common in late-diagnosed autistic girls. In a way, I wasn’t entirely wrong.

What did help was my parents. They became my support system, steady and patient, and helped me begin to rebuild. My mum introduced me to a simple idea: food is fuel. It sounds obvious, but it changed everything for me.

The world, the beauty industry, the girls around me, everything I absorbed growing up, told me I needed to shrink, eat less and starve myself. I internalised it so deeply that I shrank every part of myself. Food became the enemy. Pushing myself became the solution.

Now, I am trying to undo that.

Food as fuel shifted something in me. It became less about control and more about connection. This is a philosophy I still carry with me.
Instead of worrying that I don’t enjoy eating, I focus on the fact that I need to eat to live.

I no longer want to disappear; I want to feel strong. Steady, alive in myself rather than trying to escape. I don’t like my body now because it is in a constant state of bloating, inflammation holding onto everything for survival. Every time I look in the mirror, I don’t enjoy what I see, but instead of wanting to be smaller, I want to be stronger. Not bigger, not bulky, but simply someone who feels at home in her body.

I imagine a version of myself who is nourished, energised, and free. She isn’t afraid of food. She isn’t measuring herself against anyone else. She has enough energy to be a fire.

It is not perfect. I struggle immensely. In the last few weeks, I have finally been able to eat more. Not enough, by far, but better than the Bridget Jones style calorie yo-yo I’ve been on for over a decade. I am working out gently and intentionally, not obsessively, and I let myself enjoy chocolate every evening.

I am more in tune with my body than ever before, even if it is still learning to trust me.

In truth, I don’t think I will ever be able to say I am fully recovered. It perhaps is just how I am in a way, but I know I am moving in the right direction, and for now, that is enough.

Baby steps, not baby calories.

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We like to believe we are singular, but spectrums are what we all fit onto in life. No matter how unique we think ourselves, we all fall onto one. It’s the nature of humanity; we are a species interlinked and related no matter how much we sometimes feel disconnected from one another. On the spectrum of humanity, there are even more. Spectrums within spectrums. Take a shot each time I say ‘spectrums’.

Sexuality is a spectrum.
Gender is a spectrum.
Neurodivergence and mental health are a spectrum.
Identity is a spectrum.
So is intelligence, class, opportunity, everything.
All of it, spectrums.
Femininity is a spectrum.

I know my place on all the other ones, but for some reason femininity has been the concept that I have had the hardest battle with.

Spectrums don’t allow for black and white, not really. It is a gradient that slowly shifts from one to another until each end feels entirely different from the other. However, I do think there has been a forced two-tone expectation on femininity. Who decided the female must be binary?

When I was a little girl, I was a doll, described by everyone in my family as one. As the first-born grandchild, I was given some level of favouritism, and I was put on a pedestal that I did not want to be on. I looked like I fit into the archetype of the typical little girl, and just because I was a girl, I had expectations placed on me to be a lady.

Now, thankfully, I was not pushed to be too stereotypical thanks to my mum and dad, who let me play with dinosaurs and run in the woods with dogs growing up. But thanks to a misogynistic patriarch in the form of my grandfather, emotionally, I was forced to internalise my wildness. It was a silent battle, one throughout the years, slowly growing out of this perfect little doll worth bragging about into an actual living, breathing, dare I say, even thinking little girl. The moment I refused to be an object to boast about, when I removed myself from the pedestal, I was no longer worthy of love.

This idea of objectified femininity, being something owned by a man, became what I call the ‘likeability tax’.

To be liked, to be seen, to be wanted, I had to be agreeable, polite, reserved, censored. Subservient.
If I argued back, if I dared to have a voice of my own, I was in debt and had to repay it by being a ‘good girl’.

This was my learned femininity, the right femininity. This was not the type I wanted, and it caused me to cut familial bonds that should’ve stayed strong. Though I realise now those bonds were not tied right in the first place.

Combined with other significant traumas, I spent my teen years rejecting this learned femininity and, in a lot of ways, the whole concept of it altogether. I allowed my tomboy side to take over. I cut off all my hair, I refused to wear dresses and skirts, I refused makeup, and I hated anything ‘girly’. I think this was my form of teenage rebellion because there was NO WAY I would be doing it the usual way, if there even is a usual way. I was too busy hiding away from the world, healing, processing, and I didn’t know it at the time, but stripping myself of girlhood had been more of a punishment to me than an act of defiance.

There’s this view that on the spectrum of femininity, it is either you are a girly girl or a tomboy.
Quiet, fragile, roll over on your back for men to do as they please, or a rude, boyish bitch who hates men.

For a long time, it felt like these were my only two paths. I often wonder how I picked up this idea of being a woman, given my mum didn’t fall into either of these, but I suppose that is the whole nature versus nurture argument. Maybe nature and nurture versus society?

I did recover my girlhood in my late teens, but unfortunately, I did so without fully addressing and healing the wounds that made me reject it in the first place. For every boyfriend I had, I was either their mother, their therapist, or their punching bag. I became this good little girl again who took everything and anything because the likeability tax had now been presented to me as a woman. To be loved by a man, I had to be a victim to a man.

I know that I just chose the wrong men, and to be perfectly honest, I do not trust my judgement much now.
Do I regret this though? Not at all, because in a weird way it helped me heal those wounds that had been instilled within me from birth.

Every time my heart broke, every time I was hurt, I learned something new: how to say no, how to set boundaries, how to hold my ground and keep myself me.
The more I did that, the more power I felt, and ultimately, the more feminine I became.

I present to you now my femininity at twenty-five. This is my healed femininity, my discovered and self-taught femininity (maybe now take a shot every time I have said ‘femininity’).

I am wild, I am feral, I am free. I don’t hold my tongue, and I say what I think. I am unapologetic, strong in my convictions.

I am emotional, very much so. An extremely emotional young woman who feels deeply, and that is far from being a bad thing. This idea that women must be so, but not too much, to make men uncomfortable is an idea I refuse to subscribe to.

My softness, my kindness, my empathy, it is all strength.
Womanhood isn’t having the heart and disposition of a mouse; it is to have that of a lioness.

I give in to passion, I am romantic, I rage, I feel, I think, and I speak.
I run with dogs like the feral child I was.
I love wearing dresses, beautiful things, and having long, wild, untamed hair.

My femininity is that of a she-beast long caged, beautiful. It is not my fault if it is frighteningly so.

Emily Bronte once wrote:
“I wish I were a girl again, half savage, and hardy and free.”

I plan on always saying:
“I am a woman, entirely savage, hardy and free.”

This is my femininity, healed.

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I’d like to think that the influence that Sylvia Plath had on my writing is evident but for me, her impact is far more than that in the words I write.
I first read The Bell Jar when I was around seventeen. I was starting my A levels and deciding on the path that my life would take. It was quite daunting to think about, and I still think it is unfair to expect an uncertain teenager to be certain about their future. I had no idea at that time, of what I wanted to do.

Like Esther Greenwood, I found myself under the proverbial fig tree without even knowing it.
This was the metaphor from Sylvia Plath and her only novel that resonated with me the most. The unending possibilities hanging as ripe fruits from extensive branches, rotting with every moment I delayed, desperate for me to pick something.
I don’t want it to sound like a brag, but I was a gifted child. I played violin, guitar, I danced, I acted, I painted and, I wrote. If I had been born in the time of Jane Austen, I might’ve been called a very “accomplished young woman” but it was this that left me frozen in place, just like Esther. Growing up like this, being perceived as capable, “gifted”, has left me exhausted. Too many things pulled me in different directions. So many times, it’s caused me to feel burned out and unaccomplished. I have very little to show for it now given I have forgotten how to read music, play the violin and hold a single ballet resting pose. I do make up interpretive dance routines in my room though and I can play a couple of songs on guitar so that’s something.

In the end, I pursued art, dedicating my studies to art history and fine art painting; the former of which I still enjoy immensely to this day. I find it interesting though that it was when pursuing art history that I truly realised how much I love writing, dissecting, analysing and pulling together my findings and thoughts. That’s what has led to this, I think, writing essays. Up until then, I had been under the fig tree of life, but it was during this time and after that I planted my own.

Around this age, post A levels I had no idea what to do. I remember standing in Tesco and telling my mum I wouldn’t go to university, yet I did. After trying and failing at jobs in hospitality, I decided to at least apply.
This was the time when my fig tree began to flower from its quickly grown branches.
I got in but I was torn as to what I wanted to do. By now I think it is obvious that I chose creative writing. I loved everything about it, and it has really set me on a path as a writer but still, as I stand holding the fig in my hand I feel a greed, a gluttony to do more.

So about to start my Master’s, creative writing once more, I am taking the first bites of this fruit, gushing with seeds of its own opportunities, I look up to survey all the other figs that hang.
The fig wishing I hadn’t given up ballet,
The fig disappointed I never became an Olympic swimmer,
The fig moulding because I no longer have a passion to paint,
The half-touched fig of the modelling world.

There are also figs that I had tried but they had tasted of nothing and didn’t nourish me; the fig of the “trad-wife”, the “marketing girl”, many others too.
I am surrounded by figs of possibility, of what I have wanted to do, the possibilities bearing far too much fruit for me to ever eat. It is stressful and it has left me frozen in place.
This fig tree is dying, my possibilities diminishing before my eyes, successes I could’ve had but I chose something else instead.
The writer’s fig is in my palm, juicy, tasty, one I want to bite into again but before I do I notice something within.
A smaller fig, a seed it seems.
It contains more possibilities, all stemming from my writing fig.
Actress,
Playwright,
Magazine writer,
Author,
Novelist,
Poet.

I now realise that my previous fig tree was bound to die, and I am not meant for all these successes but instead the ones that are woven into my true passion of writing. They all come from this one writing fig. So many possibilities and a promise I never have to define myself with just one thing. I have allowed the other figs to die and now I plant a new fig tree, one that won’t grow too big but one I will be able to eat every single fruit from and enjoy it too.

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This time last year, I was in love, like in LOVE love, but when my ex and I broke up, to the shock of everyone around me, it was strangely easy to push it all aside and get over him. I didn’t even do anything to make that happen. I didn’t date, I didn’t pick up a new hobby, I didn’t cut my hair or do anything drastic. Instead, I came to a realisation. The thing is, when you understand that you haven’t been happy for a long time, or that you haven’t truly been in happiness, it becomes extremely easy to fall out of love too.

It’s insane how your body picks up on things before your brain does. I wasn’t happy, and my body was screaming at me to wake up to that fact. It sent me panic attacks and intense waves of loneliness. I found myself crying nearly every day, and one evening I polished off a whole bottle of wine by myself whilst he was out with his friends or pursuing one of his hobbies; hobbies that seemed far more important. Remember that scene in Closer when Natalie Portman is asleep on the sofa and Jude Law comes home late? That was my nightly existence for a good few months after moving in with him. I would fall asleep waiting for him, and then when he did come in, we would go to bed together, exchange a couple of words, and go to sleep. We spoke and spent less time together than when we lived apart. On the evenings he was home, he was so absent, but sex was still on the cards, and going to sleep came with kisses and cuddles; lip service to my nervous system, but it wasn’t working.

I was in love though, so I should’ve been happy, right? I realise now that being in love and being in happiness are two entirely different things. I loved him, yes, but I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy with his absence. I wasn’t happy with the way his family treated me. I wasn’t happy not quite knowing where I belonged. I was an hour’s drive away from my parents and my pug for what? To sit alone every evening, after he was the one who asked me to move in. That whole relationship was a contradiction.

There is no shame in confessing that I love being in love, and I do love being a girlfriend, but I love being happy more. Single and happy, I will take any day over being a girlfriend in sadness. Being in happiness, in my opinion, and this may be shaped by my previous life experiences, is far harder to attain and maintain. To me, it now holds a much higher value.

Yes, being in love should make you happy, but love needs happiness to thrive. It is not sustainable without it. Being with my pug, daily conversations with my best friend, time with my parents, and pursuing my lifelong goals; that’s what I love, and therefore it’s what makes me happy.

To close, I’d like to leave you with this little piece of my own newfound philosophy: being in love is for your heart; the physical. Being in happiness is for your soul; the eternal.

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Episode 14, season 7 of Friends opened my ten-year-old eyes to the horrors of growing old as a woman. This is one of the most prominent memories in my mind on the matter. At that age my teenage years seemed unfathomable let alone the idea of turning thirty. I am twenty-five now, halfway through my twenties and getting closer to that age has made it even more real. This memory stayed hidden away in the back of my mind, until recently upon realising that I am in fact five years off of this dreaded age.
I am not frightened of reaching this number, in fact I am quite looking forward to seeing who I am at the coming stage of my life but I have found myself slightly worried about the signs of aging that will begin to appear. Realistically not much shows at thirty but still that fear is ingrained in us that the moment we hit the big three zero we become old women, middle aged, past it and “over the hill” as Rachel’s birthday card said.

We are only enforced to believe this idea with the culture of Botox, fillers, surgery and injectables we find our modern world immersed in. It has distorted our idea of age and how to present it. You’re supposed to stay looking twenty forever and any hint of being past that golden number is considered old, imperfect. It is shocking to us that a woman at say thirty-five can still have smooth skin and a youthful glow like her thirties are still not incredibly young. Is this the new “spinster ideology” from the 1800s? We don’t have to be engaged by eighteen anymore but instead it’s an expiry date?

If age is just a number, then surely, aging is just a concept too, right? So why is this the excuse for an old man to lust over a girl, barely a woman but not for a woman to embrace any lines or changes in her face? Is it because as we grow older, we grow wiser? We stop believing bullshit and lies, false promises and we call them out on their own mistakes. We are stronger as we get older, a blasphemy to the misogynists who control our beauty and identity industry who require us to remain youthful – stupid and malleable.

I have seen so many, disregarding the evidence of their years of good fortune just to perform youth to varying degrees of success. Our baseline for how we are supposed to look has been shifted and I fear that intervention is no longer becoming optional but expected. If we don’t want to become invisible, past our sell by date, we have to fix the beauty that wisdom and age give us. Perhaps age and the human ego have converged into a summit of ridiculousness.

You are either young or old, no middle ground. We jump from a girl to woman who is either “holding on” or better off not seen. Invisible or trying too hard. What about just being a woman, one that changes with age?
Or better yet, fully seize that power that age gives us and show it on the outside.
I love the older woman, the one who doesn’t try to be twenty but also refuses to let herself become unseen. She shows her age, wearing it with pride. She embraces her grey hair and eye wrinkles. She dresses to be seen, not desired.
She laughs in the face of the fear that looking any older than bloody thirty is worse than death.

My grandma was one of these women. She made it to an age where it showed and to me she was one of the most beautiful women in the world.
My mother, her daughter, is one of those women too, the women who I believe no matter how old will always remain a flower never wilted. She is the furthest thing from invisible and in no way looks like the typical concept of near sixty. Sometimes she worries about how she looks, about aging and being old but when I look at her, I see a different kind of beauty far from youth. Youth is not the only thing that is beautiful, so is letting yourself smile and laugh, using your face as intended instead of worrying about smile lines. So is wearing your hair as you like and dressing in a way that makes you feel good. Youth is meant for desire; age is meant for admiration from the youth.

When I look in the mirror, I still see a young woman and of course I hope to for many more years to come, I will remain this way but never will I worry about wrinkles, about stretchmarks or smile lines. I suppose one day my hair will go grey and I will wear it like the eccentric old witch I plan to be.
Perhaps I will revisit this notion when I am this old witch, no longer wanted by a man but loved by women a generation or so down. I may look at it differently and think myself at twenty-five to be so naïve or maybe I will think that I have also been wiser beyond my years. However I think, there is no escaping that one day my youth will disappear but, in its place, I hope an assuredness I lack now will take its place and no quick fix back to twenty or even thirty will tempt me.

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Mr Darcy, how I used to search for you in every man I had a relationship with. I looked for quiet, silence, tall dark and (relatively) handsome. I sought everything you were. I was convinced I had found someone who embodied you entirely. Unfortunately, it was desiring these traits that made me realise that what I need is far from you.

Ever since his conception, Mr Darcy has become the epitome of the romantic hero. He has evolved to become an ideal referenced across all forms of literature and media. Women fawn over him and I have seen an unending number of posts complaining about how men need to be more like him.
What if I told you that they already are?
What if I told you that this beloved figure is in fact the early template for emotional unavailability, elitism and moral superiority that we have diluted and reframed, dressing it up as depth, reserve and masculine mystery?

If we look at the Darcy archetype beyond the rose-tinted spectacles, we see someone much more akin to the emotionally unavailable men we complain about.
As a man, he relies upon the notion that male coldness is complexity. His aloofness is profound; his rudeness is excused as social awkwardness and his silence is a marker of intelligence. In truth, his appeal leans on us framing his emotional withholding as depth. Many times, I have looked at a guy, in fact many of my exes and thought this exactly. Hell, I have even admired them for it (something I heavily regret now and am incredibly embarrassed by). So just like many women attracted to this, especially those with a prefixed idea that Darcy is the perfect man, I took on the Elizabeth Bennet role of softening him, decoding him and even redeeming him. If they comply then they have completed that arc, our reward for our emotional labour. If they don’t, we chalk it up to them just being assholes and once again start the search.

“But he did change!” I hear you cry. Yes, he did complete this arc, of changing for the better but it was thanks to the work of Elizabeth. She was a tool and a motive to change rather than just changing himself to be a decent person to begin with. Surely, if he was capable of this all along then why did he withhold?
Doesn’t that reinforce the toxic equation that kindness equals weakness and stupidity?
If he needed Elizabeth in order to change, and couldn’t be a good man from the start then maybe he isn’t the strong, stoic and honourable man we mark him up to be.
Why does a woman’s love have to function as a moral corrective for a grown man?

Then there is the argument that Elizabeth misread him. This only reinforces the idea that women should be nothing but emotionally fluent and empathic from the start.
Why should she be responsible for seeing through the blatant insults he threw in her direction?
Honestly, I don’t blame her.
His silence is romanticised yet without communication it becomes superiority and control. It is withholding emotionally. How many men have used the excuse of avoidant attachment or being non-committal for explaining why they refuse to meet you emotionally? How many times have you felt that his restraint is mysterious and intriguing?
In truth I think Darcy and Elizabeth hold the record for the most confusing no contact situationship ever.

Could it be his upbringing? This excuse I have heard many times from women about their emotionally neglectful partners and once again, this applies to Mr Darcy.
Pride and Prejudice as a story is about power, class and the imbalances caused by it. Mr Darcy is significantly higher class than Elizabeth who isn’t by any means belonging to the most impoverished of families. When someone is of the higher class, it is often suggested that they are more civilised, well-bred and inherently better than those below them. Especially during Regency England this was the case as exhibited by Mrs Bennet’s obsession with marrying her daughters off to men of good money. Wealth and status are aspirational and to this day that fact has not changed.
We see this institutionalised elitism from Darcy in how he puts down Elizabeth’s family, deciding that he likes her beyond his better judgement. I myself have been on the receiving end of such backhanded compliments in the past.
I would perhaps forgive Darcy for his elitist and emotionally shut down attitude if it wasn’t for how much of a sweetheart Charles is.

So, I present to you an idea.

Embrace Mr Bingley instead.

In my opinion Jane got the far better man. From the very start, in the book, in each portrayal he is the complete contrast to Darcy. Smiling, full of emotion and honest about it too. He took to Jane straight away and despite the nerves and shyness she caused, he didn’t make any hesitation to dance with her and further pursue her.
He doesn’t need a grand reveal for his emotional vulnerability. He doesn’t need redemption to become kind or lovable. Yes, I admit he did drop the ball a little by being easily dissuaded from proposing to Jane but that was due to his emotionally immature counterpart. I find it funny how Bingley is seen as the least adult of the two when honestly, I think Mr Darcy’s approach is the furthest thing from mature.
Despite this, he did not hide how he felt from Jane and did not need redeeming to be deserving of her love nor did she have to emotionally labour over him to earn his. He did not regard Jane by her class or whether her family was less than ideal. All he required was her. This is the rule I plan to follow in the future:

Men who are warm and emotionally expressive, not cold and imposing.

Of course, none of the characters in this story are perfect and beyond being fictional, it is difficult to compare the desirability of a Regency man against modern standards but this myth of Mr Darcy being the perfect man really needs to be debunked given it’s really not helping anything at all. I have grown up significantly and after having my fair share of partners, I can safely say I no longer want to seek a man I need to decode.
After this there is the question of whether I still love Pride and Prejudice. Of course I do! However, would I want a Mr Darcy for myself? I think not.

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