Doing it for the plot - fun or fatal?
The good, the bad and what's kept for the GC
Welcome to In Order to Bloom, a space where we’re unpacking the trials, tribulations and wins of being a twenty-something trying to adult. Be sure to comment and share if you love reading, it really helps a lot.
There have been countless takes on what girlhood looks like in the past year. For me, it’s watching your bestie scoot around on find my friends and spotting she’s definitely not at home, and definitely going to have the fear when she wakes up in the morning. The group chat will be alive with questions, queries and analysis but above all else, it’ll be cheering her on. But in all the frenzy and excitement, I wonder - have we taken doing it ‘for the plot’ too far in the name of having a story to tell?
Telling your friends about your dates is sometimes the best part about them. The debrief the morning after is a right of passage, taking ancient traditions of sharing information in the form of gossiping and telling stories and bringing it into a new light is by far one of my favourite pastimes of being a woman.
Waking up to messages asking you what he was wearing, where did he take you and did he give you a kiss goodnight is thrilling. But nothing gathers a gaggle of girls faster than when you tell them you had an awful time and have already blocked his number. Your phone begins to blow up, with messages flooding in exclaiming they just can’t even believe it as you pour over the minute details of a first date that went horribly wrong with someone you matched with on an app.
You pander to the captivated audience at your feet, keeping them on the edge of their seats as you save the most grotesque details for the very end.
“And then, he told me he was in an open relationship.”
“And then, he tried to do a runner on the bill. ”
“And he wasn’t even 5 foot 9, let alone 6 foot like his profile said.”
The dramatics and the carnage - much like a car crash - are what people struggle to turn away from. Which means, when it comes to unraveling your dating life, it’s not the nice ones people want to deep dive into. The ones where he pays for your drinks and walks you to the station, stealing a kiss as you jump on the Victoria line without him. The ones where he’s booked a place that was on your list and remembers what your favourite drink is. Or the ones where he makes a point to text and let you know he’d like to see you again before you’ve even turned your key in the door as you arrive home.
No, the group chat audience - as supportive as they are - don’t care for the mundane. We thrive on misery, despair, and above all the torment of a bad interaction with a man, to remind us all that raising a toast and clinking our glasses to the hatred we have of the men who treat use poorly bonds us more than anything.
I jest, of course. I know my friends have my best interests at heart and don’t really want me to carry on going on car crash dates. We unpack these bad experiences together because misery loves company, so if they have to watch me battle through the trenches of modern romance, they’re going to sit there and laugh through it with me.
While they support my intent on remaining an independent free agent, I know what they really want. What they envision on my behalf, is the day I waltz into the pub with a tall, beautiful man, whose arm is wrapped around my waist guiding me to their table, as his colgate perfect smile flashes and he exclaims “hello girls, lovely to finally meet you.” As he heads to the bar to get a round in, they’ll ensue whispering to each other how nice he is and how happy it makes them to see me happy.
But how is this to become reality if I won’t veer off the path I’m currently on?
Is the plot holding us back from opening up to someone new?
As much as I like to blame the apps and the state of the world for why forming connections is so painstakingly hard for the single percentile, I also think we crave the chaos that doing it for the plot brings. The delicious, tantalising thrill of acting in a way we know will serve the ego in the short term but be something we talk to our therapist about in the long term is too sweet to ignore.
There are risks, obviously, to taking the ‘fuck it, life’s too short’ attitude to heart and living by it in the name of having fun. One must relinquish the control of the outcome in order to experience the debauchery of sitting on the tube the next morning, mentally unpacking what the fuck just happened as your reflection stares back at you gleefully wearing last night’s outfit.
You can’t be too precious, or expect too much of yourself, because that’s when your conscious kicks in and you realise what you’re doing might not be a good idea. That must be ignored, and like a stereotypical man, you must think not with your brain but from the waist down. Where do your legs want to go? Where do they want to wake up tomorrow? Whose sheets should they be entangled in when the sun peeps through the curtain? Yours, or the boy who likes your story every Saturday night? That is where in which your answer to “is this a good idea?” lies.
However, the older I get - day by day - the less this appeals to me. I am training myself, after a fraught few years of figuring my shit out, to not give in to the short lived self esteem boosting antics I used to rely on. Because whilst there are lessons to learn and fun to be had in saying yes, there are also repercussions.
Fleeting moments of giving into temptation run the risk of delivering only fleeting feelings, too. The short lived euphoria, boost in self esteem and validation we get from giving in and itching that scratch feels fantastic at the time. You can feel high from it, like you’ve conquered everest. But once you’ve come down from that high, you may be left with raw confusion, emotional disruption or just some good old fashioned regret from giving into something that once it’s over, makes you feel exposed and vulnerable.
This is based purely on my personal experience, of course. I know, and envy, many people who enjoy casual encounters, relationships and agreements freely without any consequence to their psyche. Those who have mastered it, seemingly are thriving in a world of their own creation, where they have found people who not only do they fancy enough to spend their spare time with, but are open to keeping things strictly surface level and fun. No expectations, no attachments, no pressure.
It’s something I used to look down on, if I’m honest. I used to think if your dynamic of choice was casual, it was due to the fact you don’t have the emotional depth to feel anything more than lust for someone. Or, that you were someone who used and took advantage of people for your own gratification.
Now I’ve grown a little and educated myself, I don’t see it that way. Keeping things casual can actually open up a lot of doors for exploring yourself and your needs, as well as put into practice applying boundaries and being far more emotionally transparent than you could be in any traditional relationship dynamic.
In the short term, treating dating as an opportunity to find out what you want and need from your potential partners, enjoying the people you form connections with for who they are and knowing that the world doesn’t end because a relationship doesn’t last, is a refreshing place to be in.
Taking ownership of and exploring your sexuality is a very liberating, and privileged, thing to experience. Having autonomy over our decisions and making informed and safe choices in who and how we choose to express ourselves, is something not everyone in this world, in this lifetime even, gets to do.
Doing it for the plot, to some, may look like giving in to reckless abandon for what’s good and right. But for many, it’s just a way of getting your kicks whilst you can. Do it safely, do it smartly and always remember to keep your find my friends on when you do it so the girlies at home can feel a part of it too.
Thank you for reading In Order to Bloom this week. I hope it offers you some escape and peace of mind today.
I’d love to know what else you’d like to hear my thoughts on, or any topics you’d like me to unpack - be it dating, friendships or something in the news - so please get in touch with any suggestions by leaving a comment for me!
