I’m sitting on my floor, half dressed, crying to Ariana Grande’s No.1 hit, thank u, next.


It didn’t start like this.


It’s been a tough week. Listening to the song started as an empowering ode to the numerous boys who have rejected me in the past couple of days. Except when she mentions ‘Pete’ and ‘Sean’ I’m filling in the blanks with the names of the boys I used to date, that I expected I could run back to. I am also therefore assuming I had a healthy relationship with any of these boys, which is a lie.  This was supposed to make me feel better, clearly it’s working.

Half of them I never even went on second date with, just clung to incase my relationship drowned. And now I’m sad that they aren’t paying attention to me. Which is pathetic.

They have all moved on, or aren’t interested anymore. To be fucking honest I’m devastated. But I’m stuck between trying to figure out whether im devastated at the fact that these boys weren’t waiting around for me or that I’m devastated with myself; that I crave and need so much attention from men.

I’m being pathetic but I’m indulging myself because in this day and age, being lonely is difficult. We live in a world where relationships are plastered across instagram, reminding you of your current position, which is in bed at 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a wednesday after masturbating to some questionable porn whilst picking off some dried cereal from your pajamas. We live in a world where we can superficially chose people we are attracted to with the swipe of a finger, thousands of men are on a device where  I can make myself seem more appealing than I really am, and I still can’t get a fucking date, the only people I match with are guys that have one blurry photo of themselves and then 10 of their cats. So yeah, being alone in 2019 is fucking hard because life in 2019 is so fucking hard. Brexit, poverty, rising mental health issues, the fact that the property market is fucked, I mean fucking tr**p. It would be nice to have a normal stable relationship and be able to rely on someone to make me feel like I am not so fucking alone.

          But then just as the songs chord changed I realised I wasn’t. Because when I felt sick you held my stomach softly to stop the pain for 7 hours. When I disappeared with a boy upstairs during another one of my nitty parties, you made sure my house wasn’t wrecked and you double locked the door and switched all the lights off. When we walked past a shop selling my favourite record in it, you walked inside without hesitation and bought it for me. When I had to see my ex again the day we broke up you waited out on the pavement outside his house as we fought for three hours at 2 in the morning to make sure I was okay, take me home, undress my sobbing body and lay with me until I fell asleep. When I said something mean to you, you forgave me and never brought it up again. When I slept with that guy the both of you were in the room next door and we lay in the bed the morning after laughing and singing and there was nowhere else I would have wanted to be. Even though I cried about him 7 times over and over again, you all sighed and hugged me, and told me it was okay. When it’s my birthday you make sure you bring me flowers because you know they are my favourite. Whenever I act out of line you call me out on it. You run into my fucking room at 6am in the morning when all of you are drunk because you know I won’t have a go at you. You drop me off at inconvenient places so that I don’t have to walk. When all the drinks are finished, and the boys are snogging other girls and the sun is coming up, you are all there. Each and every one of you that I have just mentioned above. The collective yous that are the women in my life. The strong, talented, filthy, offensive, dynamic, authentic, beautiful women that have given me more mental, emotional and physical support than any man.

I’m worried that I’m finding this stage of my life hard. The version of myself I want to be, doesn’t need validation from men. She is hardworking, independant and when she feels low she listens to a feminist playlist on spotify, shaves her legs and gets the fuck on with it. But it’s hard in a world where we feel that we constantly have to have a backup option to not feel utterly and purely alone. To feel that all the boys that you are attracted to, that at one point liked you, have now found something better or just got on with their lives the way you should, stop trying to get them to break up with their girlfriends, stop calling them at 2 in the morning so you have someone to say you can call at obscene times in the night. Stop imagining someones hand slipping into yours as you walk off into the sunset. Just hold your own hand. There’s two of them. I’m thinking of all the missed opportunities, all the times that maybe I should have just gone for it and now I have missed my chance and what if this is it and life is paying me back for making the wrong decisions. I’m thinking about each of those boys. How gorgeous and dynamic and different they all were, and how lucky I had been. But as I’m thinking about these boys, I start to remember that they all did something shit at one point. Something that was enough for me to stop and think, or to let go. I made that decision for me. I was glorifying these boys so that i could accept them. Make myself feel like they were good enough for me, because I believed I wasn’t good enough for anyone.

And then the song chords switched back to the chorus and I realises another reason why I won’t ever be alone. Maybe I have got my own back. It’s like I am holding onto the idea of these men for validation, but what validation do I need except from myself. To look in the mirror and think yeah, i’d fuck that, more than that, I would wife for life that piece of ass. To realise it’s okay to let go of them, cause once I let go of them, I will finally have enough space for me.

So I’m crying on the floor of my room listening to arianas song, but i’m smiling now. Cause its okay if im a mess, because there is no one else to see it, it’s just me.

So to all those boys, thank u, next.