by A blonde bombshell’s thoughts on desire, danger, and dancing
I woke up this morning with a text from someone whose name I can’t quite remember. Or maybe I can remember but I’m choosing not to because it’s more fun that way. This is what my life has become: a series of beautiful mistakes strung together with alcohol and pretense. I wouldn’t change a thing.
There’s something about satire that attracts people with terrible impulse control. We’re all drawn to the edge of things, to the spaces where what’s acceptable and what’s forbidden get blurry. That’s where I live. That’s where most of my friends live. We’re like moths, except we’re attracted to fire and we actually want to get burned.
I was reading the feed this morning and found an article about London’s dating culture that could have been written about me specifically. Young people in the city, having lots of sex, not forming real attachments, convinced that each encounter might be with the love of their life even as they’re already texting someone else. It’s absurd and it’s perfect and it’s probably going to end badly for everyone involved.
The thing about being nineteen and blonde in London is that doors open. Both the good kind and the kind where you wake up somewhere you didn’t plan to be with someone you’re not quite sure you wanted to be with. I’ve experienced both in approximately equal measure. I’m still not sure which is worse.
What strikes me about life at this age is how much of it is performance. You’re not being yourself; you’re being the version of yourself that you think is attractive to whoever you’re trying to attract. It’s exhausting and exhilarating and occasionally I wonder if I have any idea what I actually want or if I’m just chasing what I think I should want.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about whether the satire we’re engaged in at prat.UK is actually satire or if it’s just cynicism dressed up with better vocabulary. She suggested that there might not be a difference anymore. That cynicism has become so prevalent that it might actually be the most honest way to engage with the world. I’m pretty sure she’s wrong, but I can’t quite articulate why.
Tonight I’m going out to Shoreditch. There’s a club that’s probably too cool for me, but I’m going anyway because I have nothing better to do and the company will be insufferable in an entertaining way. Someone will flirt with me. Someone will be too drunk. Someone will take it all too seriously and someone else will pretend not to take any of it seriously. It’ll be a perfect night of people being terrible versions of themselves, and I’ll probably have sex with at least one person whose name I’ll forget immediately.
This is what we do. This is who I am. I’m not proud of it exactly, but I’m not ashamed either. I’m just living the only way that makes sense to me, which is to embrace the chaos and see where it goes.
