Isn't it embarrassing to feel lonely as a woman?
[ep-4]
Well, well, well... Well, welllll, wellll, well, wel, welll, well, welllllll! Well, welll, well, weeellll... Wwwwellll! I hope the usage of a mediocre adverb in a redundant manner has distracted you from how utterly sad and pathetic the title is. But if it didn't, fear not! I will be generous and rephrase it in a way that's more personal to me.
Here ye, here ye, do you have inverted nipples and are you crippled by the idea of them seeing the light of the day or even the touch of a man? Well, gather here, lonely folks.
Now, I love being a woman, and this is not a new World Order propaganda I am spouting here. I actually do adore it, and to add fuel to the fire, I also thought I was better than everyone. And this was before I even learned about feminism, so I am a self-made narcissist, thank you very much. Nothing made me question who I am. Not even the three pairs of pants I had could have stopped me from talking to my crushes. With an IQ of 120, who cares if not everyone liked me? They can kick rocks and gag on Crocs. This was me until... life.
Don't let that dramatic pause fool you. Life didn't humble me in any way. No, sir! I gracefully embraced the role of the annoying kid, taking bullying as if it was an Olympic sport. Bullying? Challenge accepted! I've emotionally scarred my way into the popular kids' table, and it didn't faze me an inch. Failing multiple tests? That was my way of providing public service. Wait, let's not get carried away. This is not a story about how awesome school was for me. This is about being a woman, and boy, oh boy, just being this thing, this entity, remains to be the most difficult task for me. I thought, for starters, I couldn't do physics, and for some reason, it didn't want to do me either, which, for a moment, made me think that I was on the right track. My refusal to compute quadratic equations felt like a step closer to womanhood. Silly, quite literally, I know. Whatever I did, I couldn't get it right. Whether it be the way I talk, dress, or carry myself, it just wasn't enough. People say there is no right way to be a woman, but I beg to differ. I can see it lurking out there, waiting to be defined. I have heard countless stories about what it means to be a woman, mostly from rap lyrics. I have memorized and belted out the "WAP" anthem, but still, no epiphany.
This might come off as an empty circle of thought for some. After all, you might be thinking, 'You are who you are, so why bother with all this debate?' But being a woman isn't just a mere aspect of who we are. It sometimes feels like it's everything, every achievement or failure you have will be either because you're a woman or it's despite you being one. There have been countless headlines praising women who excelled despite their debilitating condition called boobs. 'Look at her go with her double D's,' they said. And this was what scared me the most, not the heavy hooters, but rather the fact that I didn't know how to be the very thing that defines my whole existence: 'a woman'. Some suggest dating as the ultimate solution, as if the presence of a man will unlock the femininity I deeply yearn for. So, I tried it. I held a man's hand for more than a minute once, which felt good. But then I got carried away and fist bumped him right after. Needless to say, it was awkward and I never got a call back. Oh, well!
I wondered how I would end this triumph of the gendered rollercoaster without resorting to the same cliché, 'just be you,' or 'embrace your own unique brand of womanhood and have your period somewhere in between' route. I wished to provide you more substance than the discussion of inverted nipples and artificially inflated IQ levels. But I don't have the ultimate answer. The only advice I could offer is to maybe brush up on your physics skills and, for the love of God, resist the urge to fist bump your date.
Womanhood, like life, has its own complexity, depth, and a whole lot of 'I am not doing this' moments. So let me not ruin this delightful chaos by treating loneliness as some sort of problem to solve. It's rather one deserving of empathy.
Note to self: maybe... the next time you don't understand what a maxi skirt is, don't go into an existential crisis and write a whole piece about not comprehending womanhood, thus feeling lonely about it. Instead, be kind to yourself and Google that shit.
