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I’m prepared to be perceived as a hater today, because my God, this is exhausting. Why do we have to do this all the time? When I say “this,” I’m talking about how we women have trapped ourselves in little boxes, thinking that we’re actually doing it for our benefit. I’m sick and tired of pretending like I care about dressing up for people’s eyes. I don’t. I don’t care about your new vela collection. I don’t care about the matcha you’re drinking. I don’t care about the cafe you went to the other day. I don’t care about the traditional marriage proposal your sister got through your mom’s friend on WhatsApp. I don’t care about the opinions you have that make you feel like you’re a misunderstood genius.
Yes I hate everything about you, but I don’t hate you as a human. But to be fair, I hate people in general. And I’m not picky about what I hate about people. I just hate all of us equally. Yes, including myself, because I am nothing if not “people.”
Oh wow you did your nails the other day? WOW! and it made you feel girly? Oh woooww, please, my ears are bleeding. No, no, please, keep going. I can keep smiling in your face and saying “wow” and “oooh!” and “aah” another million times. You’re all boring. And I know this makes me sound like that kid from the book who always thought that everyone around him was corny, but none of us want to sit down with the fact that he was telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
PLEASE, people! Let’s stop pretending like we care about useless information. PLEASEEEEE. Release yourself from the stress of wanting to be perceived as normal by other people. Be weird. Be understanding but also unbothered by the nonsense. Be whimsical! Literally talk to yourself. No one is real. You’re trapping yourself in a simulation within the larger life simulation.
The world won’t stop running if you just stopped caring to play the girly little games society is forcing down your throat. You’ll be fine. You’ll be disillusioned, but you’ll fare better than others. You don’t need to be thinking about when you’ll take the next vacation to show everyone that you’re “living the life.” You don’t need to be worrying about when you’ll buy the next abaya; God knows that consumer culture has you by the throat. Oh, and PLEASE *shrieks and screams* YOU don’t need to be thinking about securing a man who’ll pay $100k mehr.
STOP. PLEASE STOP WITH THIS NONSENSE. You were not born to constantly think and daydream about the perfect man and getting married and moving out. Have a life. Please. Live a little.
The character I was talking about earlier is Holden Cauldfield from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. From what I remember, he’s a moody teenager who kept calling everyone and everything he encountered “phony.” I feel like a moody teenage boy today. Sorry, but to be completely honest with you, I’m not sorry.
Instead of curating photo dumps, why don’t you… talk about your experience as a kindergartener? Why don’t you—and I’m just spitballing here—why don’t you plant a seed in a place it “doesn’t” “belong”? Why don’t you go give your mom a back massage for five minutes? Why don’t you go and create a one-man protest about something you’re passionate about? Make the poster and the cool chants and go all out in a public space.
Life is more than you running out to the mall because you’re running low on your lip combo. It’s not the lip combo I hate, it’s how we as women have made our entire existence surround the mundane things. Some of you might not see this as a problem; in fact, you might call these excursions your “rituals.” I loathe that. I don’t want that word to lose its meaning by you and people like you deeming your utter inanity describable as ritualistic.
I hate how we like to talk about how we CANNOT, like, even, breathe if we don’t have at least one matcha a day. Let’s go back to being cool and weird and mysterious. Let’s go back to being spontaneous!
I don’t want this message to be received by those who plan on being stuck in their ways. I’m writing this to the girls who, like myself, are tired. I genuinely believe that you’re all smart people and I know and you know and we all know that we can do so much more with our lives than box ourselves in. You must believe in yourself and you must carve out your own place in this big, big universe and if anyone goes against you for you being comfortable in your own skin, then wait them out. Play the waiting game. They’ll eventually make themselves scarce once you stop sharing anything that’s going on for you.
This world has so much more to offer once you stop chanting “I’m just a girl! I’m just a girl in the world.” May Allah swt grant you the ability to see how gifted you are. Ameen.