#33: boy sober.

i think about boys every day and i hate it.

MANEATER

I am a self-proclaimed loser in the game of love. When it comes to crushes, when it comes to sorting through those sticky, unrecognizable emotions, I am clumsy and uncoordinated, like a foal learning to stand on its four feet. For that reason, I do not like having crushes. I liken having a crush to feeling about in the darkness, arms stretched out, hoping to grasp a hold of something. Most of the time, one doesn’t. It is only a few times that an object happens to be perfectly within reach, ready to be grasped. Other times, one feels about, grabs a hold of the wrong thing (or nothing at all), and ends up on the floor in pitch-black darkness. 

I associate crushes with negative feelings— jealousy, self-consciousness, insecurity, and embarrassment. I have also never been one to stand out (in terms of allure or whatever it is that boys like), so I was never sought out, even by the people I liked. Maybe that contributed to my association of crushes with embarrassment. I was always embarrassed that I liked someone who did not even give me the time of the day. It felt weird, icky and uncool. And there is nothing worse than feeling weird, icky, and uncool because of a boy.

If you grew up super fundamentalist like me, you would know that having a crush and things of that sort is frowned upon greatly. I attended a deeply religious boarding school and my school was so strict that boys and girls had separate lanes to walk in, separate rows in class, and separate dining tables. My school had occasional “gender forums”, seminars specifically crafted to teach each gender the effects of mingling with the other. Most of their advice was valid, as I have come to realize. However, their delivery was not so great, akin to a fiery, scary preacher who, while telling the truth about sin and its consequences, does it in a fire and brimstone manner that either puts off his audience or makes them fearful of God and his harsh judgments. The result? A conditioning that left us resentful of and biased toward the opposite sex.

That conditioning has followed me into my young adulthood. Having a crush on a boy comes with almost instant self-disgust and a wave of guilt. I wasn’t groomed to interact with boys, be friends with boys, or even like boys.

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Nowadays, we don’t even need religious institutions to instill “the fear of men” in us. We do it ourselves, online and offline. The “bear vs man” discourse on TikTok is a stark indication. Twitter interactions are an indication. Girls resonate with songs like Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please, this idea that a man you are in love with (but don’t trust, because well..he’s a man) can embarrass you. After all, ‘heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another, I beg you don’t embarrass me, [little sucker].’ There is an emphasis on feminine self-actualization, and with good reason. Girls and women are realizing the unhealthy and patriarchal patterns that exist especially heteronormative romance, and they are raging against the machine. Oddly enough, I’m comforted that others share my anxieties.

I spend my days on the addictively entertaining brain-rot app called TikTok, and that was where I happened on the term ‘boy sober’, coined by famous comedian and TikToker, Hope Woodard. I resonated with the term, this idea that you can free yourself up from the exhausting patterns of dating and focus inward. But I ask myself daily, am I boy sober by choice, or am I boy sober without choice? I don’t know the answer to that, and it scares me. I consider myself an empowered young woman (a feminist with a capital F), striving every day to live truthfully to my values, one of which includes decentering men. But ever so often I am confronted with the fear that I find it easy to declare these sentiments because I don’t get male attention – at least not from the people I want. It haunts me; my apparent hypocrisy.

I think about boys all the time. I love the idea of romance.

Perversely, I rarely ever think about real boys. I always think about the hypothetical boy — He’s safe. He’s warm. He loves to philosophize. He appreciates my opinions. He doesn’t think I’m fussy or weird. He’s aware of his shortcomings. He’s aware of my shortcomings and embraces them. He doesn’t weaponize therapy -speak or is in any way manipulative. He writes well and speaks well. He reads Camus, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. He is politically engaged. He has slender fingers. He is, most importantly, not a real person who is capable of hurting my feelings.

Here’s the thing though. I hate that I think about boys, fictional or otherwise. I hate that I am a hormonal teenager with flickering, unreliable feelings. I hate that I am concerned about how boys view me, and then I am not, and then I am again. It’s easier not to care when there is no one in mind. I hate that having a crush makes it difficult not to care.

It’s a conundrum; swinging from place to place, from ideal to ideal. What do I want? I keep asking myself. I keep policing my emotions, trying to get them to act in the right way: stoically and sensibly. 

What I have realized is that I don’t trust myself. What with the conditioning from high school and my disappointment in the patriarchal systems that guide our world, I have unconsciously concluded that having crushes goes against fundamental values in my life, both spiritual, moral, and political. 

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Heather Havrilesky is always writing about how important it is for us to embrace the range of all our feelings, both the “good” and the “not-so-good”. Be a sharp knife, she says. Feel. Be sensitive and overfull with your feelings and emotions. Embrace your humanness, this unreliability about your person. When I police my crushes and stop myself from feeling to the utmost extent of my humanness, am I being a good “sharp knife”? This desire to always be in control of everything around me, especially my feelings, is not only an unreasonable one but also an unhealthy one. How incredibly dehumanizing is this self-imposed prison I have set for myself? And how can I learn and love and grow if I don’t allow myself to feel in the first place?

I have to work toward embracing my hormonal teenage hood.

As for my efforts — my learning and unlearning of my internalized misogyny and unhealthy approaches to romantic love— I have to trust myself enough to know that when it comes time to act in the right way, I will.

I have promised myself that the next time I find myself in that weird, exploratory dark room (a.k.a the next time I have a crush on someone), I will enjoy myself.  I will close my eyes and feel about in the darkness and giggle and allow my heart to flutter and fly. I will write cheesy lines in my Notes app and lock it so no one can see. I will not tell the person (never doing that, what will happen to my ‘steeze’?) but I will talk to my friends about him and we will have the time of our lives dissecting everything he does. Most importantly, I will laugh at myself and permit my friends to laugh at me, a mere mortal who has fallen victim to the laws of attraction. I will revel in my youth; I will appreciate my ability to admire another person. Hopefully, I won’t do anything stupid, but the next time I have a crush, I am leaning into it like a true sharp knife.

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 weekly favorites:

• In line with the theme of this week’s essay, I recommend Single Girl Syndrome by

  Julianna
  from Keepsake.

  single girl syndrome

• My Summer 2024 playlist. I update it ever so often, too. 

• I am re-reading Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas for the millionth time. I find it hard to move on from books I truly love.

• At the risk of sounding vain, my June dump on Instagram. I’m having fun posting. I think I’m getting better at social media!

• Hanging out with my not-so-little cousins. Children are such a delight to be around. They made me laugh so much. Ola knows more Taylor Swift songs than I do. Ayo is so good at Fortnite now, and will soon be a teenager. Where is time going🥹

• This bowl of Chicken Afra I ate on Saturday.

  

  Captioned this on my Instagram stories: “ I came to Gambia for my fattening.”

• Sharon Ooja’s wedding.

  I Regret What's In My Camera Roll

  Was challenged by this essay: I Regret What is in my Camera Roll by Totally Recommend.

• The NYT article on medium friends.

See you next week,

xoxo

blessing

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