Diane

Everything I’ve come to love, think, feel, and believe has been born from an amalgamation of the love, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of other people—from the content I consume on a screen inches from my face in the dead of night.

one thing is certain: the script is shifting. Being partnered doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore; it is no longer considered an achievement, and, if anything, it’s become more of a flex to pronounce yourself single.

Women were rewarded for their ability to find and keep a man, with elevated social status and praise. It became even more suffocating when this could be leveraged on social media for engagement and, if you were serious enough, financial gain.

You spend years building a sense of self, becoming the main character of your own feed, and suddenly you’re someone’s girlfriend. The camera pans out. You’re no longer the story, you’re part of one.

Maybe women are keeping things private because visibility has become a liability. Maybe it’s because public love has started to feel like a setup.

i say this because i genuinely find beauty in everyone. not necessarily in a romantic sense, but in that soul-level kind of admiration. the kind that exudes from how someone tells a story, the pauses in their voice, the sparkle in their eyes when they talk about something they love. it’s in the way their words unknowingly reveal their own processes... See more