There has been a recent boom in readership on my substack. Hell, I’ve just gotten the most likes I’ve EVER gotten on my last post. You guys love to read about romance and embarrassment…I can promise I’ll live up to the embarrassment.
There’s something in the air, it might just be passing, it might just be beginning. I’m akin to name it divine timing. I used to say I wanted to believe in the mysticism of it all because it made the world seem wider than being stuck in your brain. It’s kind and ultimately sweet to believe that other things could be on your side. This all sounds really stupid coming from a girl who is double majoring in Astronomy. It’s quite literally my job to demystify the universe.
I think I miss being drawn to people. I think the mysticism of life has been so fleeting. I used to believe some feelings were so strong that two people had to be able to both feel it. That some people could work so well that every talking moment, every almost touch felt like letting two magnets find each other. And I would like to believe that these things are still true but in it’s absence, you forget they exist.
— Me late july
I think I’m finding my way back to this. I wasn’t wrong when I said you can tell if another person is into you, it’s as tangible as the air you breath, so palpable that you can’t touch it but feel it sift through your body and invade your mind. Although sometimes, it’s easier than that—men just stare at you to signal they want to kiss—SO scary.
I know my life is not a book with predetermined chapters or, a story that follows a three structure triangle but there are themes. They reoccur like an easter egg in your favorite show. and I’m dialed in. I’m visible.
At the end of my last post, I said I need to learn to love embarrassment, and I really took it to heart, much to my own surprise. I haven’t felt this excited since my freshman year of high school. It’s my personal goal not to shy away from embarrassment but to seek it out. To do it, over and over again. It used to be scary to say, scary to commit to but the fleeting nature of being in this city really does give me the freedom I need.
Regardless my title is a bit misleading. I came up with the name before I fully wrote down the thoughts that came along with it. The men, i’ve heard of and met have been quite weird, or maybe exactly what you expect them to be. I have two friends that have been cool girled by two separate guys.
Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl…because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.
Laying in my dorm room, cold rainy Friday, I got high off of the edibles I snuck in (to the country, oops). In my semster goal to engage in more art my high time is my movie time. I do think I should stop doing this because I really do think too much when I get high. An over analyzer—I can’t tell when things are satire, leaning into camp, or a male fantasy.
Charlie recommended me, Redline. Which was a pretty fun movie but it is about racing and a cool guy, with unshakable cool morals who is the best racer ever. It was a man movie. JP was always going to win the race, get the hot girl who’s so cool and so hot and sexy BUT WAIT she’s not just cool, hot and sexy! She has drive she has goals, she wants to win this race too. But she was never going to win. JP quite literally wins the girl and the race with her as an armpiece.
The boys in my film class, and weirdly other boys I’ve talked to really enjoyed A Complete Unknown. I didn’t think of it as a man movie when I saw it, but now, it must’ve been! I have minute qualms with this move. Timothee did his best but Bob should’ve been played by someone else because at the end of the day I don’t see Bob Dylan but Timothee Chalamet playing Bob Dylan. The women in the movie were written pretty weirdly. Most of their acting wasn’t in their words but with their faces, which would be fine but it feels like they weren’t given the grace to expand their characters on screen but off to the side. And overall Bob Dylan is a dick who makes good music. Anyways, it’s really easy to categorize men and pretend that I understand them but I recognize in a sense this might be an overgeneralization.
But I do have a story to tell! A few weeks ago I ended up at a house party/pre game for Heaven (once again). Me and Maya spent half of the night confused about whose house we were actually at. “He’s in bell bottoms,” “He has scary green eyes”. When I finally located the culprit, I didn’t realize his eyes but definitely noticed the bell bottoms—Kendrick wore them better.
I was particularly social that night and didn’t really start up conversations until the bus ride to. We ran into other smithies which, to explain how out of the blue it all was would not suffice. These smithies were abroad in a different part of the UK and to end up on the same night, going to the same club, at the same time, on the same bus—too much. But gay people will always end up flocking to gay spaces.
Bellbottoms (this is what I will be referring to him as) was excited to go to Heaven and get hit on by a guy, his friend shared the same sentiments. I thought this was amusing, how could I not make fun of this?
I asked “So you want to get hit on by a guy but not make out” to which I received many no’s because they were not gay! I am devoutly on the side of committing to a bit, so I spent much of that night—before we split up—telling the guys they had to make out with someone.
When we finally got off the bus, I ended up walking next to Bellbottoms striking up a conversation. I don’t know if it was the act of bantering but a switch had flipped in my head and suddenly he was cute. I express this to Lana who tries to deter me “Kaday you just spent the whole night calling him gay, I swear he was going to cry.” It didn’t matter we lost half of our group quickly on arrival.
So at the end of the night in a drunken state, I find his Instagram and request to follow. It took five full days for me to say fuck it and dm him—again I was drunk. It then took two more days for me to ask to hang out and firmly place my intentions of a date by asking for drinks.
I got rejected! It was a nice rejection that really annoyed me, so I gave a 3-word response. I decided that was embarrassing, putting myself out there. I tossed in my bed and let out multiple sighs of exasperation. Was the problem me? Was he being nice? Talking to me out of pity? Am I not pretty enough? I wish I had pretty privilege. The whole thing annoyed me so much that I was determined, I was never going to speak to this guy again.
This is the evil part—In a few weeks, I’m going to Berlin with a uni club. They were, in part, throwing an event that some friends and I decided to go to. The whole thing was a bust. We were barely drunk, the place was smaller than expected, emptier than expected. But we paid six pounds and it was late. We had to commit to the bit. 40 ish minutes in I spot a familiar face and I brush it off because I can’t place it. And then I spot a face I can place. Bell. fucking. Bottoms. A sick joke from the universe. Again to reiterate, the same night, going to the same club, at the same time—what are the odds? Out of anything a person could be doing Saturday night—we were both at the same shitty club. We didn’t even go to the same school and had no correlations.
It was the last thing I wanted, I was already embarrassed. It felt like being in grade school and everyone knows who your crush is but you’re actively trying to get everyone to keep quiet. Facing him would’ve meant facing my rejection and you don’t go out on a Saturday night to face rejection, you go out to run from it. But alas there was no avoiding it.
Weirdly he was super nice and friendly about the whole thing. Almost excited to see me. I’m sure we had possibly made eye contact before that moment, so maybe he had a chance to think about it. But he hugged me, twice very enthusiastically. And like magic, those texts beforehand seemed all so trivial.
He tells me “I have a girl, that’s why I can’t link” which has a million different connotations that I refuse to get into. But we talk, and I’m a social person so I joke. He again wants to go to heaven—but does not want to kiss a man? Eventually, we end up shaking hands to solidify an agreement of some sort. He gives me a high-five but he insists we have to do it again because “it’s not real unless we interlock hands.”
This man is evil
and I don’t think he deserves rights
Bringing me to a point, sometimes people are evil. Sometimes, men are evil. And they know it or they don’t. I don’t think I was crazy when the idea of DMing him came into my head. I think there is an inherent transcendent thing that we as people pick up on. But what this night really taught me was that I wasn’t the problem!
Seeing Bellbottoms I thought something out in the universe was taking the piss out of me, but now I’m just grateful. I’ve never been over something so quickly and I’m excited to be in discomfort, distress, humiliated even.
Which is what I did today. Remember the guy I met down at the gig in Soho and my failed double texting. I’m over that too, but I still mourn the possibility of our friendship. He has something that I want—connections and knowledge. So even though I’m not reaching out for the same reason I did initially because you can’t crush on a guy you don’t hear from—I want to be friends. And so I’ve done the infamous and controversial: triple texting.
What’s the worst he can do, ghost me? He’s done it before. The way I see it, it was either miscommunication or he’s homophobic. And in either case, I refuse to be in the wrong. Being brave,I’m not going to spontaneously combust into flames for doing something I wanted to do even though it’s slightly humiliating. To be embarrassed: “a feeling of self-consciousness, shame, or awkwardness” is the antithesis of the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
I don’t consent.
I’ve been writing a lot of music since being around, so in a forgotten spirit on my substack here are some songs. I wrote two of when I was sick. Again in the spirit of the blog, not produced and from my voice memos
My next post might be about my mother, I hope you enjoy it.
ur such a fab story teller
this is real; i was there