Many situationships are really meant to be friendships.
At some point in our lives, we have all probably been in a situationship. You know, that nearly relationship. It’s more than friends with benefits that tend to veer on the more fun with the sex side. A situationship is a relationship in the sense that there are genuine feelings involved. In this type of relationship, you actively do couple-type things together and have sex.
I personally have just left one and last year was in another but in my eyes, at the time it was a relationship.
I have learned that there is a thin line that both members…
We don’t need to prove our independence.
I am so tired of being given the advice: You need to feel comfortable on your own. When did this become the defacto advice for any issue, especially during the pandemic? You lose your job: You need to feel comfortable on your own. You become single: You need to feel comfortable on your own. All your holiday plans are canceled: You need to feel comfortable on your own.
Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh!
As society becomes more and more individualist expressing the want or desire to not do things by yourself often gets looked upon now as if you have codependent tendencies. …
When female independence is both a curse and a blessing.
A guy said to me,” I feel like your life is full and mine is empty. What can I offer you?” and it really struck a chord with me, well, actually quite a few chords.
If the person who said this truly meant this insecure phrase, they view me as if I don’t need anything, to them my life boxes are ticked, and theirs aren’t. Which is crap as they don’t know how I feel about my life and where I believe I can go and tick more boxes or what boxes I feel are empty.
Also, there is what…
Balancing and acting on the feelings of empathy with rejection.
*This article is based on a personal relationship between a cis woman and cis male*
We take the male sexual desire for women for granted.
You see it in the movies, the woman complaining of a headache as the man sticks his erection into her back.
“Not tonight, darling. I have a headache,” she murmurs as she rolls over, pretending to fall asleep.
We know that men overall have a stronger desire to have sex with us more than we do with them over time. Women are more accustomed to negating sexual advances of men on a broad scale from subtle extended looks to being physically handled. …
How it took living in Brazil with my African-American housemate to understand the privilege of my skin colour.
I never really thought about myself as white. Well I knew I was white there is no question about it physically but what I mean is with whiteness being part of my identity. I grew up with everyone being white, so my whiteness was so normalised that I didn’t even see it as part of who I was.
I grew up with everyone being white, so my whiteness was so normalised that I didn’t even see it as part of who I was.
Even when I went backpacking through Asia and South America, I still didn’t feel my whiteness. I…
The physical signs you may see when your body tells you you’re in a relationship with the wrong person.
I read once that we are all just glorified plants. When we are in a happy and healthy environment, we thrive, but when we are not, our bodies start to show signs quite quickly. It feels when we are mentally suffering in a relationship and shows us in different ways. It is easier to ignore and push back the anxious thoughts that come into our minds than our body showing us physically that something is not right.
When I was with someone who has NPD (narcissism) my body was telling me that things were not ok even though I was…
We can never truly calculate a net gain in happiness.
Throughout our lives, we are directly and indirectly projected with the message that if we make a significant/challenging change in our lives that we will become better in some way.
We are lead to believe that the sacrifices and hardship endured when taking the road less traveled will mean that our lives will improve.
We equate that the more we sacrifice, the bigger the prize will be at the end.
We think that this persecution of self and loss of things of value in our lives such as friends/partners/time/money will all be worth it.
But is it?
Can we calculate a net gain in happiness?
How can we…
The absurd correlation we make between aesthetics and personal well-being
I find the disconnect between what people see and how we feel very curious. These past few months all I’ve heard from people is about how great and happy I look. The zeitgeist phrase of “glow up’’ has been used numerous times to describe my physical appearance. Whilst I’m not complaining. It makes me feel great for all of .5 seconds because I actually feel pretty miserable.
Yet society doesn’t see it that way. When we see a smiling size 6 woman in a photo, we think to ourselves“Look at how happy and thin she is,” and “She can’t be…
Because of COVID, some friendships will never be the same again.
COVID affected many of us in different ways; people have lost loved ones, homes, and jobs, moved cities, and changed their lifestyles. Together we have felt the losses and pain of others alongside our own. We were initially encouraged to check in on our friends and loved ones, get together on ZOOM calls, and feel connected even though we were physically apart. The underlying message we were subliminally hearing was ‘we are in this together’.
COVID pushed many people to act and behave in ways that were utterly different from their daily lives, and in turn, this affected their relationships…
What to do when you have a partner to maintain your friendships.
Being single can be hard, really hard and what doesn’t make it any easier is when your coupled friends stop understanding your single status. They seem to just magically forget that they haven’t always been in a relationship and come out with eye-rolling comments such as “the less you look, the more likely you will find it” and “I just couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be single now” yeah thanks for that…
If you are in a couple cocoon, you may not realise that you…
Nikola Grace Radley
Freelance writer. You can find me reading under a palm tree in Rio de Janeiro. E-mail: nikola.grace.radley@gmail.com
