Thank You For the Music – The Soundtrack of my Life

I let your love tease me
Now I am your love’s whore
Keeps me hardly breathing
But I could only love you more – Ellie Rowsell

This year, according to Spotify, I listened to approximately 32,693 minutes of music so far in 2017 which works out to be 22 and half days of music. My top songs include a mixture of artists and genres from Whitney Houston to The Wonder Years, from Drake to DJ Sammy, however buried within this year are songs that have vivid memories attached to them. I love hearing about people’s favourite songs and why those songs mean something to them, it says a lot about a person when they share the reason behind why they are particularly drawn to specific music. For me some songs didn’t make the cut in my top 100 songs yet they still hold such weight when looking back at 2017, like Childs Play by Drake which will forever remind me of the numerous road trips we took this year or There’s a Honey by Pale Waves which will always take me back to late night texts they left me smiling (and cringing) like an idiot. I wanted to recognise those songs that had shaped my year and ones that will continue to take me back to 2017, making me feel all fuzzy and nostalgic.

A Little Time – The Beautiful South 

You need a little room for your big head, don’t you, don’t you?

• The 15th of May of this year marked the day I finally handed in my dissertation and completed university, however the week leading up to this will be a week that I will never forget. I managed to write my ten thousand word dissertation in 6 days, during these six days me and my 2 gal pals who were in the same boat as me listened to nothing but Magic Radio, during our six day Magic Radio stint we found out about our friends love for The Beautiful South and it was one of the shining lights of the worst six days of my life. During this time I was also very poorly and the day before my dissertation was due in I ended up being taken to hospital after having a weird but amusing reaction to the antibiotics I was taking which left me saying that the TV scared me, I couldn’t feel my arms and everything had a border around it. After an odd trip to A & E I was left with 12 hours to complete the last 1200 words of my dissertation and I would like to thank The Beautiful South and particularly this song for getting me through it.

Diazepam – Turnover

‘Cause it was always a dream just to know you, sometimes I find I can hardly speak your name’ 

• Turnover are a band that have consistently been playing during key moments of my life in recent years, a band I adore so much with the song Diazepam being my favourite. This song reminds me of the moment I realised I wouldn’t be seeing a certain boy again. We were driving in my car, neither of us uttering a word until he broke the silence by asking me what was playing on the stereo and I simply replied ‘Diazepam – Turnover’. I could have blamed it on the hangover or the lack of sleep but the crushing realisation when he kissed me goodbye and then proceeded to leave my car was enough for the song playing to be ingrained in my memory. A few weeks later, after some drunk texts, another meeting and many sleepless nights he proceeded to break my heart again, and in true Carrie Bradshaw style I drove the short distance home from a friends at 2am listening to Diazepam whilst overthinking absolutely everything. During this extremely dramatic episode I stupidly ran a red light, which resulted in me crying in the back of a police car, mascara and eyeliner running down my face, slippers on my feet and explaining to a lovely police woman how I had got to this point.

Robbers – The 1975

‘She says, “Babe, you look so cool”‘

• Anybody who knows me will know that I have an endless love for The 1975, I listen to them an awful lot and I tend to go through phases with their songs, one day it will be Somebody Else on repeat and the next day it will be Antichrist, however this year Robbers has slowly but surely crept in to become my most played song of 2017. 2017 has been the year where I found a new love for Robbers, listening to it when I need to sleep, when i’ve been driving late at night, whilst getting ready for the day, when i’ve been sad, when i’ve been happy, the list goes on. It taught me that you should never attach music you love to people, because if they let you down or disappoint you then it can tarnish the very thing you found comfort in. There have been times throughout this year when Robbers has been difficult to listen too, but it has always been there to remind me that there is very little that your favourite song or album can’t make a little better.

Something About the Way You Look Tonight  – Elton John

‘There was a time I was everything and nothing all in one’

• This year saw the release of Elton John’s greatest hits and as someone who has always been a sucker for a guilty pleasure I couldn’t help but become a little bit obsessed with it. I grew up living with my Grandparents and through this I was lucky enough to be introduced to the likes of Elton John, Celine Dion, Tina Turner, Cher etc from a very young age. My Grandad especially loved to listen to music whilst he was getting ready to go out on a Saturday night, one of my earliest memories of my Grandad is hearing him bring his big bulky black stereo out onto our landing so he could listen to Elton John on full blast whilst in the bathroom. Sadly my Grandad passed away in 2016 and it left a huge hole in my life, 2017 marks the first whole year of my life without the man who I had lived with from the age of 5, without the man who had taught me to tie my shoelaces and without the man who hated me having posters on my bedroom wall. As soon as I hear songs such as Something About the Way You Look Tonight by Elton John I am immediately taken back to those Saturday nights where I can smell his aftershave and I can hear him picking a shirt to wear, but now it will also bring me back to the latter half of 2017 and the feeling of missing someone important.

 

 

So Far (It’s Alright) – A Love Letter

But that place on memory lane you liked still looks the same
But something about it’s changed – Alex Turner

Three years ago, on the 20th of September 2014 I moved to Plymouth, I moved into a little room in Francis Drake halls and I was so incredibly nervous and I honestly thought I would be moving home again within the next few weeks, I had no faith in myself that I could make a new life for myself away from what I always knew. Yet here I am, three years later, moving out of Plymouth and it feels like leaving home all over again, leaving the people who know me probably better than anyone and leaving a comfortable little life for the outside adult world.

You meet the best and worst people at university, you’ll meet the people who will help you become a better person and open your mind to completely different walks of life, you’ll also meet people who will drive you absolutely crazy but even that in itself is a learning curve when you realise that not everyone is gonna be your cup of tea and vice versa. Moving in with 7 complete strangers, for me, is perhaps one of the bravest things I have ever done, before uni and moving to Plymouth I had no direction, I would work, go to college, maybe see friends every now and again and that was about it, I had little joy for anything and I wasn’t happy living in a small town with a mundane life. I wasn’t particularly outgoing, I chose to never really put myself out there and I had a very unhealthy mindset that anybody I would meet would probably dislike me and therefore why bother?

Moving into halls or a houseshare forces you to interact with people you would probably never associate with, a boy from Cornwall who is obsessed with football and sharks who confidently burst into my room 5 minutes after I moved in, another boy from a little village outside of Plymouth who knows everything about music, has the cutest dogs you’ll ever meet and works harder than anyone I have ever met. A girl from Somerset who couldn’t be more different than me, a girl so full of energy, who taught me about drum and bass and convinced me to get my nose pierced and another girl from Frome who became my soul sister from day one, my coursemate and agony aunt who taught me that coffee can solve anything and that 2000 word essays can be done in one night.

Our little flat that we lived in for a year became everything to us, from movie nights, to the 80’s and 90’s parties, to revising together at the kitchen table, to power cuts and hungover mornings. Even when we moved from house to house in second and then third year, losing and gaining people along the way, we always managed to find a way to make it feel like home.

University is like a revolving door of people, people come in and out of your life and some chose to stay and some chose to leave but you always have your core group, your number ones from day one who have been through everything with you from the start and even though it’s over I know that whatever happens as a group or as individuals we always have that and I wouldn’t change a second of the last three years together.

 

Don’t Delete the Kisses – You’ll Always be a Tinder Boy to me

I wanna tell the whole world about you
I think that that’s a sign
I’m losing self control and it’s you
It really is, one thousand times – Ellie Rowsell (Wolf Alice)

I deleted Tinder in May 2017 after I reached 1000 matches, out of those 1000 matches I spoke to around 20 of them, when I say talk I mean actually have a conversation past the classic ‘hey how are you?’ which ultimately leads to the conversation grave yard alongside other conversation closers such as ‘wuu2’ or ‘what you wearing’. Amongst these boys, 6 played guitar, 2 were vegan, 7 were at uni, 3 of them were obsessed with their cat and one even had a full time important grown up job. However at the end of the day they all turn in to the same person, the same beggy individual who will message or ring me at 1am saying ‘you awake’ or ‘wish you were here’ or the even more classic and unforgettable ‘i’m so drunk, send me a picture of your tits.’ All these boys start the same way, the hope that they’ll be different, that they won’t be the same as the others, maybe they’ll even end up being the one, but no, each and every one comes to a dramatic and bitter end resulting in sitcom worthy stories that are so ridiculous I lose all faith in the male population, however here are some of my personal favourites.

The first boy who I spoke to from Tinder lasted for a very very long time, from the end of my first year of uni right through to the middle of my third year. Although on and off he eventually became the blueprint for every classic tinder boy. To begin with he had that quintessentially British charm and he was a poster child for middle class Britain, spending his weekends playing cricket and holidaying in the south of France, it was catnip to me and we began talking 24/7.  I should have known he wasn’t worth the trouble when he told me his favourite band was Linkin Park but we carried on talking until the drunken phone calls started, being rung at 2am for him to tell me he was getting with a ‘poor mans version’ of myself is laughable and makes me jealous in no way whatsoever. The real kicker came when he started to get ‘obsessed with the gym’ however in reality he never went to the gym and thought that by telling me he was gymming in order to get hench for me would of course make me so overcome with lust and passion I would fall at his feet. Everyday he would send me snapchats of his supposedly new and improved body when in reality he had clearly googled ‘six pac’ or ‘muscley arms’ and taken a photo of the screen. The turning point came when he told me he could deadlift 300kg, after only ‘committing himself to the gym for around a month’ and for those who aren’t aware that’s the size of a pony or a rather large donkey. Things came to a head after a particularly stressful day leading me to politely tell him that I knew the photos weren’t of him resulting in me being blocked and that chapter closing. Soz hun but I know that isn’t you.

Boy number 2 ended on more of a weird note, the youngest lad I had ever matched, he had perhaps one of the best names I had ever heard, but from the word go he was the most intense 20 year old I had ever spoken too having a slight obsession with hair and once coming all the way to Plymouth because I hadn’t replied to his messages.  He went from 0 to 100 real quick, telling me he had feelings for me after talking for no more than a couple of days, however after a week or 2 he felt the need to get extremely drunk and of course text me declaring his undying love for me. I’m all for grand gestures and sharing your feelings, however a young lad telling you he loves you before you’ve even met is enough to make even me back off. Sorry babe, you were an absolute diamond but I wasn’t the one for you.

Boy number 3 was the closest to home, I didn’t often choose to match boys who were so close to where I lived for the fear of bumping into them when I went to Sainsburys in my slippers with a bare face resembling Sloth from the Goonies. However, boy number three took me by surprise, he was a music teacher who was slightly older but seemingly had his life together. It started how they all start, he told me his favourite band, his favourite album, his favourite film and then of course he dropped the line that always gives me heart eyes and makes me quiver like jelly…he was in a band and he wanted me to watch him play. In hindsight i’ve come to realise that there is being in a band and then there is being in a ‘band’ you know, because by band he meant ‘we sometimes play open mic night at your uni, but we can’t get a gig because we can’t play in time or tune our instruments’ which he failed to mention when he was describing the international fame his ‘band’ were set for. However the pièce de résistance came after 2 months of terrible flanter and mundane chit chat when he sent me a snapchat of a child, thinking perhaps it was his nephew or brother I of course replied ‘awww cute’ but little did I know this small little human was his child. He was a Dad. A Dad who had failed to acknowledge the existence of his own son. Sorry hun, but honesty is key, and your band was shit anyway.

Tinder boys will always be the same, all dick pics and drunk texts, however you learn so much about lads and the way they work from talking to arguably some of the oddest people you will ever encounter. After a 1000 matches you learn that some will never change, however they will always provide hours of amusement and it will forever be the biggest learning curve.

The Night is an Ocean – An Open Letter to Myself

Just take it out on me
It’s easier than saying what you mean
Test me, see if I break – Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim

When I began writing this blog post the theme was honesty, I began writing and through this I realised that I haven’t been honest with myself for a long time and for months i’ve been rationalising things in a way to make them appear better than they are because that way it’s easier for me to deal with them. If I tell myself it isn’t over then I don’t have to deal with it right? If I pretend you aren’t that person then you won’t be, if I pretend we haven’t changed then you’re still you and i’m still me.

Some things hit you slowly, waves will come and take your breath away every now again but they never truly hit you. But at some point, a tsunami will rush over you and you will nearly drown in the realisation that this isn’t working and no matter how much you try and convince yourself it’s what you want and that it will happen, you won’t be able to stop the oncoming wave that things are falling apart.

I’ll tell you that it’s fine, I’ll tell you that I understand, I’ll tell you that you didn’t do anything wrong, but this isn’t honesty. None of this has been fine and if i’m being truthful I don’t understand these circumstances.

Being there for someone should never make you feel like a terrible person, it shouldn’t worry you or make you feel anything less than full, caring for somebody should never make you feel clingy or desperate because everybody needs somebody in their corner, whether they want it or not, and whether they realise it is up to them.

This blog post is to remind myself that i’m not a bad person, my actions, my thoughts and how I feel is all completely warranted and I should never apologise for that. It is to remind myself that I shouldn’t cling to the good moments in order to justify the terrible ones, and that ultimately I should never lesser myself to make you feel better.

Weight of Love – It’s not you, it’s me

You’ll be on my mind, don’t give yourself away to the weight of love – The Black Keys

Is there a girl out there who doesn’t hate herself in some way or another? I feel like for the past 8 years i’ve been in a battle of acceptance and self hatred, from my personality to the way I look or act, there is always something that makes me think you need to change or it’s my fault this has happened because of the way I am. Self love and self acceptance is a concept I struggle with, sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve to be happy with the way I am, I don’t know why but I just don’t, I also don’t feel as though this is unusual or uncommon as a young woman either. Feeling inadequate is somewhat of a normality for many girls for a number of reasons, not funny enough, not pretty enough, not intelligent enough.    

This thought stems from numbers, the number of my jean size, the number on the scales, the number of people i’ve slept with, the number of people that boy I like has slept with, the number of friends I have, the number in my bank account, I could go on and on. Why should I feel so inadequate because I can’t possibly compete with the 17 other girls he has slept with or because i’ll never fit in a size 12 dress. These are thoughts that make me question the love I have for myself and who I am. Sometimes I think, should I even compare myself to those other girls? How could someone like me possibly even match to those girls? Yet other times I wouldn’t even think twice about it, i’m my own person and in no way comparable to anyone else.

Sometimes I think i’ve come a long long way these past few years, i’ll have days of self acceptance where I think ‘this is who I am and quite frankly it isn’t all bad really is it,’ I think about the fact that since uni started I dropped 3 dress sizes, I have a group of friends I adore and I nearly have a degree. However, eating quinoa and doing exercise dvds and losing weight isn’t gonna make me instantly love myself, just like letting boys walk all over me because I think it will make them like me more doesn’t make me happy. Self love, acceptance and happiness is a mindset, a mindset I think I am still yet to truly understand.

I Would Hate You If I Could – Toxic Friendships

I hope you’re alright, and I’m sorry that I wasted your time – Turnover

At the age of 22 I can safely say I have had my fair share of toxic friends, some of which have resulted in friendship break ups, some of which are still in my life and some in where I have considered myself to be the ‘toxic friend.’ In my opinion a toxic friend is someone who takes more than they give, any friendship should be about balance and if your friendship isn’t 50/50 then what is it? If someone who you would consider a friend makes you feel anything less than 100% then that isn’t a friend, and quite frankly as you get older you lose friends and this is perfectly normal, because you get to strengthen friendships as you realise who you would drop everything for and who would do it for you in return.

Everyone has that friend, the one who makes questionable comments, the one who makes zero effort, the one who only needs you when it suits them, but what do you get out of that? These types of friendships normally exist out of pure loyalty, they didn’t start this way but this is how they have ended up, and because of this they stick because a friendship of years has to mean something right? This shouldn’t be the case, people change and if a friendship isn’t making both parties happy then it isn’t a friendship anymore.

Now I’m not saying friendships shouldn’t have rough patches, but it should be about taking the rough with the smooth, but if its all rough and not a lot of smooth, why bother? If you have a friend who makes you feel like shit, is it truly worth it?

On the other hand, the majority of us have all been this friend. The friend who is lacklustre with plans because you’re far too busy or the friend who is perhaps a little too honest sometimes and, to be fair, this is okay. But if you’re genuinely being a shit friend and you’re aware of it then think why. Why am I in this friendship? Why am I being a cow? Why am I avoiding their third text in a row?

As you grow up you realise what you want out of a friendship, whether it’s someone to text about the new Jeffree Starr lipstick that is coming out, someone to tag in memes or someone to drink copious amounts of coffee and moan about boys with, that is what a friendship should be. A friendship should not be effort, it should be about being content watching shit TV together and being able to tell them what they’re wearing is ugly without coming across as a bitch. It shouldn’t be about the scheduled moments or the ‘we’ve been friends for 10 years therefore we have to stay friends’ it’s about making each other better people and always being there for those who would always be there for you. 

Lost My Head – Worry Worry Worry

And you say I’ve lost my head, can you see it? – Matthew Healy

Anybody who knows me will know that I am the biggest worrier. I constantly worry about the smallest things, such as is my eyeliner even? or does this dress fit me properly? Or is there lipstick on my teeth? Perhaps the most tedious things to have genuine worries about. I even worry about other peoples worries, if someone tells me something they are concerned about I tend to put it to the back of my mind and then, out of nowhere when i’m making dinner or having a shower, I begin to fret over something that doesn’t even remotely concern me whatsoever. Perhaps this is why it has taken me so long to write another blog post because one didn’t do particularly well despite numerous people telling me they enjoy them?

I tend to have three levels of worry and fear, the small things such as oh my god what if I shrink all my clothes in the wash or what if a bird shits in my hair. Then I have my medium worries where I think about what will happen if I fail uni because I play sims 24/7 instead of writing essays or what  if don’t pay my car bill on time and I lose my precious fiat 500 because I buy too many lush bath bombs. What follows from this is less about worries and more about genuine fear, what if I have an incurable disease? What if no one ever loves me and wants to marry me? At the tender age of 22 these thoughts are so incredibly stupid that it pains me to even write them down.

Recently i’ve been suffering from a case of the 4am terrors, where I wake up in the middle of the night and worry about every single thing that I can possibly thing of, from the most mundane things such as did I set an alarm or what would I do if The 1975 broke up to what if I end up in financial troubles for the rest of my life or what if I can never have children? Usually, after watching half an episode of Rupaul and listening to a sleep playlist on spotify I manage to calm down enough to fall back asleep. The result is often me waking up 4 hours later and thinking how absolutely unnecessary it is to think about these things all the time, the absurdity of it stops me from telling people because if I think its stupid what must other people think?

After thought and discussion i’ve put it down to being a third year uni student. After uni i’m ashamed to say, I have zero plan. No job lined up, no house or income lined up and even though during the day I convince myself it is fine and loads of other people are in the same boat I can’t help but worry that I have no idea what to do with my life. I come from a family of worriers and perhaps worrying is in my DNA, or perhaps everyone my age feels this way and it’s just a phase to get over.

Pictures of You – Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours

So to sum up, I get sent a metric shit ton of dick pics. By this point i’ve seen pictures, videos and even boomerangs from every angle possible including big ones, small ones, thick ones, thin ones, every shape and size, hard soft etc. I could go on for hours about the amount of boys who have felt the need to send me nudes on the reg. Throughout my teenage years and now even in my twenties it still seems like such a normal thing: the angry red notification next to my snapchat or my messages icon informing me of yet another picture of a boy in bed thinking i’m gonna be consumed by lust and passion after seeing him with a boner. Why do boys think that this is what girls want? Do they genuinely think that girls are turned on by this?

The concept of Tinder has now meant that sexting is such a normal part of our everyday life. The natural next step after sexting is of course nudes: a visual aid that goes hand in hand with telling someone how much you want them and how much they turn you on. Sexting, in my opinion, is harmless and there is nothing wrong with a good sexting sesh, especially when they think you’re in the mood when in reality you’re binge watching Black Mirror and eating fruit pastels. However, sexting is all well and good until pictures are involved. I used to think I would never be the type of girl to send nudes, I couldn’t bare to look at my own body, let alone have it on my phone for someone else to look at. Yet after finding a soft diffused glow that made my skin look flawless, an angle that didn’t show my bingo wings and a bra that pushed my boobs under my chin I found that I could be the girl in the sexts I was sending. When a boy sends you a photo they automatically assume that this means they have the right to have one back. I used to agonise over this, constantly thinking that if they’ve sent me something so private I have to do the same back, however just because a boy feels the need to show you ‘how hard/big he is for you’ does not mean you need to reciprocate.

I’m not gonna lie here and say all dick pics are bad and boys need to stop because quite frankly I love dick pics, but I don’t love them because they turn me on, I simply love them because it puts me in a position of power. Boys often think, when talking to a girl, that they have the upper hand however once they realise i’m not going to easily send pictures back we suddenly become equal as they realise sending me a nude isn’t going to win me over.

Nudes are such a normality these days and people are often so careless with them; side apps are created to screenshot without people knowing, often people show their friends or discuss them and people have to be prepared for the repercussions of sending something so private. This goes hand in hand with sexting, although it is harmless both parties have to be complicit and consenting in order for it to be appropriate and enjoyable, todays society needs to address the risks around sending and receiving pictures because it is so easy and so normal that we have become so desensitised to something so major.

Someone Like You – Why you Would Never Like me

I first downloaded Tinder in April 2015, after many failed matches and the classic “hey, how are you” conversations that obviously die a painful death after the first five minutes, I finally found a boy who seemed somewhat intelligent and didn’t ask me to ‘come round’ after talking for 30 seconds. Initially he seemed to think that he knew me due to the fact we had a common connection in the form of my housemate, which I thought would work in my favour. Little did I know my housemate thought he was a nobhead, which to some extent is true. Yet a year and a half later i’m still talking to the same boy, the boy who has regularly called me a slut, who has regularly made me cry and who thinks it’s okay to ring me at 3am to tell me he’s sleeping with a ‘poor mans version of me.’ I know this is ridiculous, any other girl would have ran for the hills the first time he bombarded me with pictures of his dick from 7 different angles, yet I stuck around, why?

From a young age society has drilled into me that a girl like me should consider herself lucky if she gets attention from boys, that because of the way I look or act that i’m not worthy of their time because another girl will come along who is prettier or funnier than I am. For years and years I have thought this and truly believed that the way some boys have treated me is okay because I don’t deserve better. Flash forward to 2016 and I still feel this way, however it has been severely lessened due to bloggers such as Callie Thorpe and Danielle Vanier who have taught me that it’s okay that my thighs touch, it’s okay that I fucking hate wearing tights and it’s okay that I eat an unhealthy amount of pasta. I have realised that, as a woman, i’m never going to be entirely happy with the way I look or i’m always going to wonder if i’m being to extra when I tell my best friends that I regularly wet myself on nights out, but if i’m comfortable enough with these things myself then why do I still not value my self worth when it comes to boys?

I’m not going to be one of those girls who says ‘oh I’ve just had a really shit time with boys, they always treat me like shit etc’ because it’s not always their fault. I am hard work, i’m pretty high maintenance, I get moody and I have a tendency to say things I don’t mean such as my excessive use of the word hate when chances are I probably have a mild dislike for it. But all these things are a version of real life Kelsey, Tinder Kelsey is very different. Tinder Kelsey takes no shit, she isn’t walked all over and she’s always in the mood to sext. However after a while real life Kelsey begins to bleed through, the side of me that still believes that maybe when a boy makes me cry it was my fault for being too sensitive or not doing what they want, which is ridiculous because in reality if a boy called me a slut in person I would fucking fume and expect one of my housemates to punch him in the face.

Boys like Tinder Kelsey because it’s the best version of me, it’s the girl that is always wearing make up and doesn’t have hairy legs, it’s the edited version of myself that only includes the good bits. However she is unattainable, i’m not gonna be a hyperaware version of myself 24/7, I am gonna cry and throw a bitch fit when I can’t parallel park and I have to get my flatmate to do it for me,  I am gonna get passionate about Val being kicked off Bake Off and chances are I will try and get you to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race because that is who I really am, and eventually I will find a man who will accept all of those things.

  

Middle of the Bed -Why there needs to be a Middle Ground

In todays society women are often told one of two extremes, you need a ‘partner’ in order to be truly content or you need to be happy and enjoy single life. Yet many women, including myself, are stuck in the middle of this; not quite satisfied being alone but not comfortable enough to be single. The pressure females feel in such a digital age where relationships are thrust upon us in many forms such as tinder or magazines or social media in general, is so great that often I think maybe all my issues and insecurities would simply disappear if I found someone who told me that my arse doesn’t look flat in those jeans and my tits do look banging in that dress. On the other hand we have a new wave of self love, in where women often promote the idea of not needing constant reassurance from other people, specifically men, in order to feel worthy or beautiful. I’m a needy girl, I crave attention from anywhere I can get it, whether that be my best friend laughing at my jokes or a boy I don’t know on tinder telling me I look hot in that black shirt, anywhere I can source it from I do, does this mean a relationship would solve all my problems? Someone to remind me that i’m not entirely stupid when I consider putting a fork in the toaster, or do I need to learn to be more comfortable in my own skin in order to cope better with being single in a world where happy couples are surrounding me?

I started university in September 2014, after a rather dismal year at home waiting to move to a new city to meet new people, I thought for sure that my one true love would be out there. I was like Carrie Bradshaw patiently waiting for her Mr Big to turn up and whisk her away with champagne, red balloons and a penthouse suite waiting for me. What I actually found was trouble, confusing feelings and a boy who compared sex to a cheeky nandos. Throughout my first year I tried and failed miserably to win over one boy in particular, thinking that one day he would make me happy and that I would finally get my Sex and the City ending, instead I ended up in bed with someone on my course who owned an exact replica of the one ring from Lord of the Rings and a map of middle earth above his desk. Both of these scenarios, chasing a relationship and enjoying the single life made me confused, I can’t be that girl who spends her life crying about a boy who didn’t love her back but I also couldn’t be that strong independent female who got what she wanted a left.

What followed was the Tinder experiment, after finding five pictures that made me look like a girl who truly had her shit together, my flatmates and I spent the evening swiping left and right to my hopeful future husband. Tinder is perhaps the most toxic app in existence, the instant gratification I felt after every match was enormous despite knowing deep down that these boys assumed I always wore red lipstick, my boobs were always perky and my hair was always immaculately curled. My experiment proved to me that being a single girl opened me up to men assuming i’m always down for a one night stand which in reality is the complete opposite to who I am.

Being a young female in 2016 is confusing, if I had continued chasing one specific boy i’m considered desperate, if I pursue a number of boys i’m a slut, if i’m happy being single and alone then i’m a crazy cat lady. How can anyone possibly win?