Tinder is the Night

I think I was absent on the day everyone else learnt how to talk to the opposite sex. 

Maybe I'm stuck in the days of courting while everyone has moved on to Tinder.

Love is so lifeless now.

Through a screen.

I can't succumb to it.

But if I did, would I feel less lonely?

Less patronised?

Less embarrassed?

Less anxious?

I'm sick.

Dear Taylor Swift

Dear Taylor,

I wasn't sure if I should do this seeing as a letter is quite personal, but I liked the idea that because there would be no chance of you actually reading this, then others can. 
I have been a fan of yours for a very long time now. While I have enjoyed other artists in the past, I always manage to come back to your music and I still get the same feelings now, when I'm eighteen as I did when I was thirteen. I like how I feel that I have grown up with you, from the fairytales to the more mature, pop sound. However, I've noticed there are so many things that I haven't experienced in your songs that, at this present moment in my life, I wish I had because it just makes me feel like I'm stuck as that thirteen year-old hopeless romantic. 
In September I started University without ever having a boyfriend, and only having kissed two people when I was stupidly drunk on a holiday with my friends (I still have a feeling of dread whenever I think about it). What I'm trying to say is, I've not even been close to having boyfriend. When I come back from University, I dread the question, 'so...any boys?' because the answer is always the same blunt no. I've learnt how to quickly change the subject whenever it comes around but obviously what I really want to do is talk endlessly with my friends about boys and advice, but I've never had the chance. Instead, I listen to all my friends discuss it while I get smaller and smaller until I'm practically invisible. 
Now, I don't want this worry to take over my life, it just makes the same question whirl around my brain - 'What's wrong with me?'. I know so many people go through this and I don't know whether it's because all my friends are now talking about relationships, or if your music has made me realise how little I actually relate to it, or perhaps it's the fact my brother has been with his girlfriend for 6 years when they met when they were 16. All I know is that I can't stop thinking about it and feeling sick when discussions come around. If there is one thing I can relate to in your song 'Blank Space', it's the lyric 'I get drunk on jealousy'. There doesn't seem to be anything that I can properly relate to. No TV series, no music, no book. 
I love your message of being single and having your friends, because I've always felt that. I have the greatest friends ever and they remind me a lot of your group, but I can't help but think the difference is, you've been in love, you've had that feeling - I haven't and I, rather stupidly, want it. I'm that kind of girl who's fine with being on her own, because she doesn't know any different - I want to have that difference. 
I hate that I'm writing a letter to you about this because it's not until now, when I've moved away, that I've started to realise how unlucky in love I am. I have made great friends at University, so it's not that I'm lonely. I think it's because I'm nearly 19 and have never been in a relationship, while everyone else around me has. I know you're great at your advice about this kind of thing, so I felt you were the best to write to. 

From,
Your best friend you never knew about.

PS - I always knew you were a feminist, I have written so many things arguing that you are. Thanks for finally voicing it.

A slightly different blog post today. I have had this idea for a while now and I think I might do more but with different people in the public eye where I ask for their advice. Seeing as Taylor Swift has always been my number one, I felt she should be first. I think my next letter will be to Lorelai Gilmore, so yes, fictional characters are included. I hope you like this letter thing, and obviously, if you have any advice for me, give me a shout. 

The green eyed monster inside me

It was my last day of college today. Two years of boredom and unhappiness have finished in a flash. I remember myself two years ago. I thought everything would change for me. Thanks to college, I now don't get my hopes up for anything - it means I'm never fully disappointed. But I'm the type of person that feels so much, while I experience so little. Perhaps I don't take enough risks. Perhaps I'm too shy. Either way, I'm very underwhelmed by it all.

I'm a hopeless romantic who's hopeless with love. I've gone through life watching everyone else experience the things I want to do, but I've just stayed put. Instead, I feed my emotions with exaggerated shit just to feel something new. Romantic films, books, music. You name it, I've used it. My mind has been drowned with romanticised views on love that will never happen, so I'm constantly let down. While I've stopped getting my hopes up, when I see it happening around me, I get so jealous it's hard to hide it.

I read something this week by a nurse who recorded the most common regrets of people on their deathbeds.  One which stuck with me was 'I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.' To me, that means taking risks. Opening up with people, but I always stay so guarded. I felt I took a major risk going to a different college to my friends, but that turned out to be foolish. In turn, no one knew the real me while I was there. I never made 'friends for life', in fact, I disliked most of the people. I know that was my own fault.

It's like one huge cycle. I take a risk, I close off, I dislike the people, I notice other people make friends, I get jealous. But we're all learning. It's all human nature, but in return, we learn from these mistakes. However, from looking at my past notebook entries, I don't always change. It's funny to see I've written the same things down from 5 years ago, 3 years ago to now. History, for me, really is repeating itself.

I still have my exams left, but technically I'm done. "The end of an era" is a common thing I've heard from people. Really though? Two years and nothing happened.Well, I did find a new love for David Lynch. I started to fully appreciate more literature. I realised that my parent's music really is a cut above the rest. But most of all, I did grow up. I am a different person despite my inexperiences. One person who has experienced one thing, may not have experienced what I have. We're all different and I need to stop comparing myself with you all...and you're the same.

 

“Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes.”

I've been on holiday with my family this week. It was great to get away from the city and see a bit of the countryside (that includes cute little bunnies hopping around in fields). It also meant I could really get into my reading. I'm currently reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles. At the moment, I can't say it's my favourite book but because of the holiday I have managed to read a lot more of it then I would have done - I'm a really slow reader. (If you would like to have a look at some of my pictures and videos from my holiday then go to my Instagram here. Try not to laugh at my embarrassing selfies).

One other thing we did was watch a lot of Seinfeld and some films. We watching Marie Antoinette (which was beautiful to look at, Sofia Coppola really has an eye for that whole 'teenage-instagram-indie' phase thing.), Lost In Translation (again) and finally Annie Hall. 

Recently I had watched a Woody Allen documentary on the TV which made me fall in love with him. I wish I had his life. He makes a film every year and doesn't care about the reviews or the box office - he only cares about what he thinks of it. I really admired that because it's sometimes hard to remember that, out of everything and everyone, you should be the main person that's happy with what you have produced in your life. But it also makes you your biggest critic - which I think we can all agree is true for most people. 

By this time, I had only watched Love and Death, Sleeper (years ago so I can't really remember it) and Midnight in Paris (which I lovvveee) so after this, I knew I needed to get watching his other films! Annie Hall, I think, will stick with me for years to come. Woody Allen is able to analyse life, and make it funny - which a lot of people can't. There's this great bit where Woody (Alvy Singer) and Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) are making lobster and they all fall to the ground and it's just a funny scene. It's then reenacted, but with a different girl and it's just not the same. The girl doesn't find him funny (he's a comedian in the film) and doesn't find the situation particularly amusing. This is an ultimate human flaw. We find one thing funny once and then try to redo it, but it's never the same. It's a big lesson that I personally need to learn (and so does Gatsby, you know, "Can't repeat the past" and all that..).

There's also another scene where Alvy and Annie are in a book shop and Alvy tells us the way he views life. My mum had already told me this quote as, after seeing this film in the 70s, she began viewing life in this way also - and now I think I do. 

“I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable.” 

Life is hard. That's a fact. But we should be thankful that we don't have it worse. It's better to think positively, even while you are miserable, because really, everyone else is too. We're all in the same boat and we all just keep going through it because "we need the eggs".

If you haven't already seen Annie Hall, then watch it now!! Not only is it really funny (look out for the cinema scene early on, it made me laugh a lot) but it's also sad. I love films like that. It's a lot like 500 Days Of Summer - or shall I say, 500 Days Of Summer is a lot like Annie Hall.

Sorry for the overload of pictures but I couldn't choose only a few because they're all so great. Ah well, la di dah as Annie Hall would say.