22 & not a clue

She stood up too quickly as the tube juddered to a halt coming into the station, bouquet in one hand and a kiss on the other blown to a somewhat bemused looking young man. She smiled and bounced off onto the platform. He put his head in his hands, rubbed his face and looked up smiling.

His hair looked unkempt and it appeared he wasn't much of a sleeper. She had had her hair in a pony tail, diamante earrings but a rain coat; the sensible but sweet type. They may have been on a date, his lingering smile told me as much. She seemed abashed, perhaps she knew that she had jumped up too soon and maybe she should have kissed his cheek rather than her hand. The air isn't as sensitive a receiver as skin.

He clutched his satchel, scuffed in a similar way to his shoes both of which he seemed too fond of to replace. His shirt was creased, but then so were her jeans - no one irons anymore. He sat for two more stops, his expression transfixed somewhere between the evening's events and the blurring black hole of a backdrop that lies outside the window of the carriage.

He rubbed his hands together feverishly, perhaps they had been clammy from holding hers all evening as they strolled along the Strand. A cliched date idea but it appeared this had been their first, and aren't we all allowed to indulge cliche when it's the first of anything? Finally he rubbed his hands along his jeans and stood up. Straightening his satchel, his shoulders dropped and his smile fell away as he followed single file out through the sliding doors.

Here's a thought, if Eve hadn't tempted Adam with a delicious apple then man would never have come to exist. That pair would still be living it up up there and our blue dot of a planet wouldn't have happened.

There is this viscious chicken or the egg paradox which comes with living in London. You can't get a flat without a job and getting a job is infinitely harder when you're sleeping on a friends sofa without your own flat. So when I lost my dream flat in Shepherds bush for the second time I realised I wasn't going to get it all. 

What a curious thing it is to consider that part of your life, a chapter if you like, is over. Published and done with. I will never drive around in cars with Gerry or Brian like we used to. I will never have cause to sit in a Lurgan car park of a Saturday night smoking a 'bine', trying to keep up with the slang. I will not catch another boat to Stranraer to see that lover, may his acne never go away. Lastly I will most likely never catch another Frankston train home to see family I hardly know but love all the same. These periods and habits are done with now and I have outgrown them all. The are both past and passed.

A sure sign of spiritual growth is when you want more freedom and less stuff. I am not taking anything back to London with me unless it is vintage or second hand. The thought of buying furniture is giving me hives, I can't shake the feeling that I am not done yet. The saying

runs through my head. I know settling down has to be done at some point in order to begin the 'career journey'. I want that with both hands outstretched and claws unfurled. Yet at the same time my horizons loom so large and bright it seems a crime to glimpse them from the foot of the mountain and then only venture half way up. The adventures to come will be different. They will be shared, partnered and there is so much joy to be had in that I am sure.

But as someone who has been independent for so long I am nervous that I am sacrificing a few dreams in order to be happy. At 22 is it too early to do that? I don't want to compromise on my dreams. Why should we?

'You refuse to make a man the centre of your life, but romance is.
That is your conundrum.
So you are smart enough to know that life is short and needs to be filled.
But you're not sure life can be filled if there isn't a romance as part of it.'

I don't know about the rest of you but at some point this realisation hit and I was truth tripping all over the place. Thanks to the good friend who made that happen. But seriously, is this just me? The committment cold feet, the accusations of running away from anything that resembles stability?
It can't just be our age, it has to go deeper subconsciously to somewhere t
hat's still nursing the bruises left by bastards in the past.

Life is to be lived, love is to be had and shared, but why would you want to share a life if your half hasn't yet been lived to the full? You shouldn't put on hold all the things you want right now. It's like the old man who told me 'don't work all your life and not have adventures in the belief that one day you will be able to pay for them all at once - because you won't. Go out and adventure now.'

And yet what we humans want most is to be loved, really, when you think about it. We just want love and so we are split between the want for adventure and the need to love and be loved. We let the hunt for one over-ride the necessity for the other. We are unable to quantify our lives as they are or appreciate them until we have someone else to share them with.

It's the argument of will anyone hear the tree should it fall with no one there - is it still an adventure if you go it alone. Of course it is. In fact its how we are designed, unless you have stuff going on there should only be you in that head of yours. So listen to yourself, silence all the hum and answer the question: "What is it I want?" Once you answer that question, go out and do it, find it, see it, live it. Because time waits for no man and the best time to do anything is now.

Surgical students are given a cadaver amongst groups of 8 to study for their first two years of med school. They dissect and examine every single sinew, strand and seam of the body. Collecting each part as they work. At the end of the two years they conduct a funeral and lay the body in its entirety to rest. Giving thanks for everything they've learnt and taking the time to say goodbye to someone they knew more intimately than their lovers.

She sits with smudged blue cheeks beside daddy with his huge hands. Hands bigger than the plates mummy washes every night. Hands with wiry hair that doesn't end or start from arm to knuckle. Daddy's little girl in an AFL top and CFC on her cheeks. Asking questions quietly so he leans in. His bushy ear brushing her blonde kiss curls as he listens. She is safe and sound bedecked and loved. She is wanted and paraded by the man with big hands. He holds her close in the crowd and when she can't see, up we go, above everyone else, hold on tight, patting his bald spot she giggles. 

The trouble with being alone & single for an extended period of time is not that it gives you unrealistic expectations, but that it teaches you what you need. You need a man who asks how your interview went, who responds to his emails & who is sensible with his money. You don't want someone who talks about themselves, ignores their emails until asked & is forever broke.

Unfortunately the longer you spend independently fine tuning all the things you did badly in your formative years, the less likely you are to accept that shit from someone else should the opportunity for commitment present itself.

Accepting yourself and working on the flaws should teach you some compassion & patience, you would hope? Wrong. It teaches you life is short & other people don't work things out unless they're forced to. If you get into a relationship with someone who doesn't know how to be an adult how do you ever expect them to be a man.

Perhaps leaving him out to dry, whoever he is, for a little longer is for the best? Because frankly if you haven't sorted your own shit out then how do you ever expect another persons problems to work with yours in a relationship? People throw themselves together in dire hopes of happiness without ever truly getting to the bottom of what made them miserable or useless in the first place.

He may need to grow up, but you sure do as well. Take time to consolidate where you're going wrong with people, life, career or worst of all your day to day emotions. Only when you work those things through will you be in a place to meet your man half way.

I visited TKMaxx once, in London on Hammersmith high street. I had wanted a pair of Birkenstocks forever. It was like the summer equivalent of the Hunter wellie - a must have. I wanted them, but until now I hadn't had a legitimate enough reason to buy them. Now I was being whisked away to Rome by Daniel. A bi polar sufferer from Lincoln who was crazy about me.

Very long dramatic story later, add copious amounts of red wine + dozens of packets of fags & surprise surprise I didn't go to Rome & I still don't own Birkenstocks. The truth is that regardless of how much you plan, save or try, you have no control over any of it. It all just happens. Just like that. Life is what happens while you're busy making plans.

You don't always get what you want. Sometimes you get your heart dashed in two by a guy who flies hotter & Colder than a Taylor swift album.

Sometimes you just don't get the right shoes until you've walked far enough. You have to go there to come back, just so you know better how to do the next bit.

I always say at some point I will turn my life into a book, or maybe a tv series. But then GIRLS happened & Lena Dunham stole all my ideas. Regardless I have to believe my life can't be this ridiculous without a good reason - to publish it.

What happened the other night is the stuff of nightmares. Living this far away from the origin of all yours sins sort of gives you an undue sense of confidence. You aren't going to run into any exes or bitches out here. But no one prepared me for running into their ghosts.

Sitting outside in the cool Melbourne air on Monday night; casually whiling away the hours before bed time & the start of yet another working week. A Flatmate had friends round & here enters our character: Adam. Adam is a Brit, but unlike ever other Pom round these parts he has a more sunny disposition. Everything had a silver lining to Adam's perspective & thank god for that.

We're chilling out, discussing hilarious and disastrous dating experiences in the efforts to cheer up a Canadian friend who has just been jilted by Love. It's my turn, which should I choose? There have been a few. One particular period stands out vividly but that's another story.

Adam hails from a particularly grey area of Essex where it just so happens an ex came from also. He reminds me of this & I laugh. I give away a few details; the predilection for weed, the disastrous hair & then finally the reason we parted: 'You should sleep with other people'.
"I mean who says that!?" I shouted. No but really? It wasn't until the final detail I revealed that Adam stands & is convinced that's his friend Blaine. 'It's Blaine! It is not Blaine! Ginger pubes? That's Blaine!'

Fuck. it was. But I mean how many guys from Essex do you know with ginger pubes & natural black hair? My horrendous romantic choices had come to haunt me & Adam was only too willing to tell me how pathetic they were. My flat mates couldn't get over it. This was hilarious. I wanted to be sick.

The topic didn't drop all night & I no longer feel safe in public. How many other ghosts are out there hidden behind the guise of a well meaning friend or acquaintance? I am living proof that you can come 10&1/2 Thousand miles & still be haunted by your past. Try as you might, no matter how much ice cream or wine you pile on top of that one there is no escaping your past. It will always be there like a spot without a head you are watching over in agony.

There is no escape Guys. I just take comfort in the knowledge that I didn't come out here running away from anything. This isn't an escape & despite my melodramatic musings: my history isn't that bad, but if it could be a while between this & the next ghost I'd appreciate it.

In our grandparent's generation you met someone, fell in love & got married. There was only one experience of love. You did not have many boyfriends or lovers. You met, courted, met the family, fell in love & lived out your life together. That was what happened. In some ways it appears simpler. It seems idyllic. Personally I can't imagine getting married to my first boyfriend as we were children at 15 and I barely know the man he has become now.

There is something to be said for how things used to be in the art of love. If your first love was your only love, and if that was all you had known then surely there's an argument to be made that these people knew less loss. I have yet to experience anything as painful and lasting as the loss of love. Some of my own break ups I will never forget, and will undoubtedly immortalise on a page at some point. If I haven't already. The countless poems, sentences & ruminated thoughts that the average teenage girl collects so early on these days must baffle the older generations. We must appear in constant states of heartache or heartbreak to our grandparents, who ask how that boy you dated 10 months ago is doing.





I can only assume as I no longer have grandparents. But I did introduce my ex to my Grandpa, I don't regret it but I do remember his guffaw at my words 'he's a keeper'. How right you were Grandpa. Do young women now not have the first clue as to what a 'keeper' actually is? Or maybe the concept is just null and void. It's a shame because we are conditioned to want the 'first, my last, my everything' and maybe this vicious hunt causes us to hold ourselves less dear and in doing so we rack up notches on our proverbial bed post.

Either way one thing is clear, we just don't fall in love the way we used to. Not most of us anyway. Even our parents can boast more lovers and a mysterious past. The twentieth century has ruined courtship and classical romance. I should know, I have spent the past three years studying this. I am also a veteran dater and renowned for my terrible taste in men. Until very recently I hasten to add.

The casual use of terminologies such as 'seeing' & 'dating' are alien terms to our grandparents. That's just it I suppose; casual, our relationships, our bodies and our hearts. We are too flippant about all of these things; I feel conflicted as I want to exercise my right as a woman to have casual sex. Yet I feel we may only be doing ourselves and perhaps our sex a damage in the long run as we do not place enough value on ourselves.


I will continue blindly stumbling through love regardless of everything I have just said. But I would say, that it would have been nice if it had happened that way. But in truth what are the chances. We don't wait anymore, least not the way man kind used to. Fewer women know now what it is like to wait for a man to return, not only from war but from life. Why can't two people wait for each other? Why won't we is a better question.

There is a man on the 59 tram who quite literally takes up most of two seats. He somehow always finds a seat and always has his earphones plugged in & an iPad wedged between his forearm & chest.

I have observed him often in the mornings, mainly because he appears blissfully ignorant of the raised eyebrows, disgusted looks & sharp glances from fellow passengers perched beside him. I'm sure its a life long practiced skill.
I have often thought to myself that if he tried to sit beside me I would say something & ask him to sit elsewhere. I have also thought how it would be better if people sitting next to him just stood instead of being so rude.

So this morning the only seat available was a few square inches beside this man. I perched precariously for most of the journey, cursing him silently & judging him for being the way he is. Surely he should be considerate of others and stand. Or apologise? Or walk?! The longer I sat there the more people got on, scuffing my feet, standing on my toes & sticking their arses in my ears. I was infuriated.

But as I sat there, I glanced over at his iPad & read the screen. He was reading a romantic online fan fiction story. The tale seemed gripping and judging by the pace of reading it was. The heroine appeared passionate yet vulnerable, the villain sleazy and beguiling. There was no sign of the hero, yet.

I am a hypocrite in every sense of the word, not just because I have many plus size friends, am plus size myself and simultaneously loathe & pity this man. But because I chose to be mean minded first, rather than practicing what I so often preach which is compassion. He didn't wear a wedding band, he wasn't particularly attractive facially, but none of that matters. I condemned him for what I saw on the surface alone.

After a few minutes more observing him and the story I started to realise he was just another A searching for a B. We all want to love & be loved in return, regardless of shape, size or form. Who dictates how and what we should love? Why should one body be shamed in the support of another & who says one body shape is superior in aesthetics to another?

It only takes one person to love you & think you are wonderful. Not the whole of society.

I'm ashamed of myself for being so cross at a man who was just going about his business best he can like the rest of us. The truth however is that I can preach about compassion all I like but at the end of the day society will still think for us. Change in views and attitudes work at a snails pace, there will always be prejudices and rudeness wherever we go. What helps change is the recognition of the negative and the search or discovery of the good and the things in common.

I check this section every day. It is at the back & I flick to it as soon as the bleach blonde punk with stretchers at Melbourne central station hands it to me at 16:50pm.
I read this religiously for two reasons. Firstly it restores my faith in humanity. Secondly I hope that someone has spotted me and wants to send me a message, give me a compliment or ask me out for coffee.

I know this is pathetic. I also know I am loved. But I still, vainly, check it every day. It makes me smile to see all the individual messages of hope and light people send to each other. Without knowing even the other person's name, they send this signal out into this huge city in the hopes that person with whom they had a moment's connection will respond. Occasionally someone will reply with a message, usually asking for more details. I have yet to read a message which tells of what happens next. Were they disappointed? Did they meet under Flinders St clocks at 6pm last Wednesday? Did 'tattooed guy' find his 'asian beauty'? I think that's a book I will write one day.



I read this one when I first arrived in Melbourne and it has stayed with me ever since. I want to be this couple. I want to be the kind of couple who share their fish and chips and hold hands. I think we all do. I also think this section of the MX is the closest most of us get to a 'movie' kind of moment. So reading it every day, for me, restores hope that romance isn't dead and that

It feels like your early twenties are spent in a nauseating state of flux between anxiety and panic. "What will I do? Who Will I be? Will anyone ever love me? Where will I go? How will I afford life? Ever?!"
It's one never-ending cycle of euphoric highs and depressive lows. No one ever has sufficient advice to give you other than hang in there baby. Eventually you begin to feel like that metaphorical kitty in the poster in that you truly believe you may slip, fall and not land on your feet for a change.

But baby you've got a rubber arse. You can only bounce back.

That's the mentality you just gotta have. Because in ten years time you will want to tell your twenty something self to chill the fuck out. You will wish you had appreciated the highs and had more patience with the lows.

I had some bad news today. I let it get to me. It was all I could think about. Before I knew it I felt sick, wanted to cry and couldn't breathe. I panicked. Over something which I already have multiple solutions for. I had a job offer last week for God's sake. I have contacts. I am resourceful. Yet despite all this positive evidence for why this reaction was unjustified I was right there, down in the low letting it wash over me. Sometimes all you want to do is lie down under the sheer overwhelming terror; 'how will I pay the rent this month?", "will I ever get a job?" etc. We panic most about situations over which we have the least control. And at twenty-something control over our life is absolutely vital. It is central to our being, because we are beginning to shape and define who we are.

The truth is, having less control may actually open up more avenues of opportunity. By letting go we open up to chance, and in fact Life itself comes at us.

So after wallowing well into the afternoon I strolled downtown in the sunshine to Salsa. I caught a glimpse of my hair in a shop window & just walked straight into the nearest hairdressers I could find.
I hate the hair dressers. I hate people coming near my hair with scissors, because having such long hair all they ever seem to want to do is chop it all off.
This lovely asian lady greeted me and after giving her strict instructions about what I wanted she combed it all out and smiled at me.
"You must have man"
"Hmm.. yes, I suppose"
"You either have or you haven't, which is it?"
I grinned up at her, my head eerily superimposed on this vast black triangle. "I have man, but not here. He's in London."
She gave me a puzzled look & shrugged. "You leave him for here?"
"Yes. I don't quite know why."
"You young. Be happy. Much time for that. Much much."
We grinned at each other, I asked her about her man and she said not anymore. But once. Advised me to find an Australian boy, French man aren't to be trusted and then chopped away.
"You like me. You come back in two month."
I smiled and tipped her 5 bucks and left.

Sometimes you have to cut out the dead ends, cut short the panic and lighten the load on your shoulders.
Focus on the positives. Like the one you love and who loves you. Or the good friend who listens to you over a glass of wine.
Focus on all the opportunities this change may bring.

Because you will bounce back.

There is only so long that you can do things for someone before you realise you need to put yourself first.
The age old phrase of bringing a camel to water but the bugger still won't drink is still relevant a millennia later.
Putting yourself out there for others may be a part of who you are, it may be your way of showing you care. It may in fact be your most prized quality amongst your friends. You are known for your selflessness. The person they know they could call on Christmas Day if needs be.
It is a wonderful thing to be.
But it is also a very draining responsibility.

You can encourage, support and aid those you love in all they do but if the person won't push the ball of struggle up the hill themselves then why are you still standing behind them shouting words of encouragement?
Your ball still needs dragged up this hill of life the same as any other & who is there for you ?
I am not advocating selfishness, I am saying look out for yourself.

Don't always be the one who loves most. Because love should not validate your actions or give you purpose.

My latest tv series obsession;Girls, written by and starring Lena Dunham. A writer, actress and director at the age of 26. The show mixes beautiful 'Juno' style realism with some 'Sex and The City' undertones, only much less glamorous. I am inspired by Dunham's career and her writing. I regularly scream 'Someone is stealing my life' at the screen with each episode. Between disastrous lovers, empty bank accounts & bad decisions it strikes a chord with a part of life that isn't written about: The early 20s of the average woman trying to make it in a city.
This is about Hannah, a little overweight, alot broke & completely unemployed. A writer struggling with a dead end internship and determined parents. Not another Carrie Bradshaw. Thank God.

In one episode a very telling quote which struck me and has stayed with evidently was
'If he's not reading your writing, he's not reading you'.
If your friend or loved one isn't actively as interested and supportive in your life as you are in theirs then perhaps you need to think about why that is.
We are what we do & we become what we think.
If the person we love isn't interested in whatever our passion is then they aren't interested in us or who we are. Putting yourself first is soo much easier said than done, but in the long run it is less exhausting than supporting and loving someone who doesn't do the same for you.

Hold yourself more dear, expect the same from your friends and lovers.
Don't accept shit excuses and inattention because you wouldn't treat you like that.

Life is simply too bloody short.

It's Valentines day. My day was unexpectedly full of good things. Starting with the IT guy in my office giving me chocolate. Pleasing result considering I thought he'd been staring at my chest all week. He probably has, if I had standards I wouldn't have eaten it but I don't.

This was followed by one of those conversations that leaves your stomach doing somersaults with a certain man who has my heart like melted butter in a croissant; deeply layered and bad for you. But oh so good. French butter. The kind Julia stiles could only dream of.

The day dragged on & I began to daydream about things that may never happen. The bad things & all the worries of the tomorrows that may or may not ever come to pass. The way you do at 3pm after your third green tea of the day and a full inbox. This was until I was pulled up by my ears by my best friend who is freezing her tits off in the bowels of England teaching wretches for pennies. She basically slapped me about with reality for a while thank god. We all need someone who is willing to tell us what we need to hear & not always just what we want to hear. Only true friends have the balls to tell it to you straight.
Follow this by a very emotional youtube video of US Marines surprising their loved ones and I'm feeling suitably positive and appreciative of life.

That is until I have thwacked my way through several dozen walking rose bushes, pushed past the women dragging boxes wider than themselves & just generally hissed & spat my way down most of Elizabeth street where I get to salsa and we decide to warm things up a little with a glass of bubbly.
Definitely a good idea as there were more couples on bad first dates than ever before.

Fast forward a few trodden toes, my bruised ego & we are back at the pub.
Conversation ensues & it turns out everyone is keen on this. We all want to get it right. I want to get over myself and 'let it go' the irony being all too obvious I know. The guys want to get the steps down & lead & the women just want to be lead.

We are all looking for a partner with whom it will all just click. Did you see what I did there? Yet another relationship metaphor. But it is the truth. Come right down to it & every individual wants to get it just right with the right partner.

Its just you have to let go of all the other crap first.

And it's not until I sit on the tram home, noticing the scuffs on her heels, that he hasn't ironed his shirt, that her skirt is too short & she's conscious about it, he's got a rip in his jeans & she looks a little sunburnt, but that they all look happy. That I remember, that life & love for that matter are not about perfection.

It is not about getting it right. It is about the scuffs and the creases. The rips & the burns.
It's about making all the mistakes with someone willing to make them with you.

Communication can be a bit like the guy who told the group he only came to salsa class because his therapist told him to.
You avoid it & him like the plague. Same shit different smell as a good Jewish friend recently told me.
Nothing changes you just avoid it.
It can't be just me?

I live in a bubble of denial, I throw myself around the globe & my heart with me like nobodies business, say its all fine & then get my mother to call me from Northern Ireland at 1am because homesickness has finally caught up with me.
Reality rape essentially.
And it's entirely my own fault.

You have to be aware of what's going on & how that impacts on you & others in your life. If you choose not to communicate there will be problems & you will fall down a rabbit hole of emotion where you won't even need a little label saying 'drink me' for encouragement.
Learn to be open to talking about your emotions. If you feel shit then say so. Don't do this western passive aggressive crap that soo many woman have perfected these days.

If the sex isn't good. Say so. Coz otherwise it won't get better.
If you don't accept shit sex then don't accept feeling down & not saying something about it. Don't be too proud to just lay it out; how you feel & maybe, if you don't already know, you'll figure out why.

Online communication however is a completely different kettle of fish. A phrase I have never understood as why would you put fish in a kettle anyway.

If you send someone two emails over two days & then maybe a FB msg in reply to their reply from the previous day then you may find yourself on a park bench outside your salsa class blogging just to ignore the rising sense of anxiety that comes with doubt.
Oh fuck.

Regardless, say it. Because if you don't you might get hacked to death by the guy who you ignored last week because his therapist made him come & you will never get that chance to clear the air, appreciate or love that person you wanted to reach out to.

So yeah, I love you.

Doesn't that feel better?

Time to cucaracha !

X

At 22 I am becoming a veteran of the dating world. I have online dated, I have speed dated, I have salsa classed & I have committed the cardinal sin of blind dating. But then with the internet who isn't blind anymore.

My last salsa class was going well up until the moment where I pointed out to my partner, (a bald man with a Hawaiian shirt) that this was all rather like a wheel of fortune but with cock.
My last fore into internet dating led to my best friend & I lying on our single beds in onesies with facebook open in one window messaging each other & Plenty of fish open in another whiling away the evening pressing the refresh button. In the dire hopes that the psycho path who had been messaging us both for the past week had replied.
In the end, nearly a year later, she ended back up with her ex of four years & I with the boy I met at uni two years before. It was all a massive waste of time.

Now I'm not shitting all over internet dating. I am shitting on our approach to dating as a whole. I mean what is the point in all this effort spent when the guy is or was probably right under your nose?

If he isn't then just stop. We have a phrase in Ireland; 'Would ye quit?' So just do that. Stop.
Get on with it. Get on the plane to Australia that leaves the man you finally realise you've loved all along behind. Because that's a better idea than staying in London where you haven't a clue what you would do so run away to the sunshine.
Not such a good idea, granted. I am a hypocrite. But my point is that life is short & if we all stopped searching so much & took time just to deal with our own shit then maybe we'd be a better person by the time he / she found us.
This comes from the woman who google searches her ex and stalks a certain relative's instagram and twitter in the hopes of a mention of the engagement that we have all been expecting since 2009.

Internet dating was exhausting. You would check it obsessively. It was like the sexy version of Facebook only instead of a friend request you got an ego boost & possibly a glass of wine if by the 10th message he had finally asked you out. There was soo much to-ing and fro-ing that eventually my nickname amongst close friends became the human-calendar because I had that many dates. I sound arrogant but it was purely because I was determined. Determined to be entertained? Perhaps. Determined to meet the one? Certainly.

But why ? I was 20, practically a foetus & yet I was clawing away at the dating scene like a mid 30s crone with an unfortunately placed mole.
What is it about love and life that sets a fire under us that cannot be put out until we have met someone? And what the hell do we do once we've met someone but go and fuck it all up anyway?

I know for myself I have had to seriously teach myself to be happy alone. My mantra being that 'I am lonely, but I am not alone'. I have wonderful friends, a mad hatter family and a very good life. I have had to self-validate because that is worth more than the validation I seek from others. If I put importance on seeking and gaining the approval of others then how will I approve of myself in spite of others.
Teaching yourself to love yourself is a life long journey. But if you start down the path too late it becomes soo much harder to forgive all the things you told yourself you hated for all those years.

My mother has drilled into me to 'take the fucking compliment'. The man I love tells me to 'repeat after me, I am wonderful' & yet here we are & I am one of many women who won't look in the mirror when I get in or out of the shower. I mean seriously. If you cannot love who you are then who can? The list of these sort of self-help anecdotes is endless & frankly I find them patronising. But in truth, if you don't start sorting out the fucked up child within early on in adult life it is only going to lead to chaos later on. I know this because I have met my parents.

How do you do this ?
You start listening to your thoughts and the re-occurring negativity that circles that brain of yours and reinforces all the things that make you believe the negative things you think about yourself.
   For example, I hate my arms. I am 5ft 11" with a 36F chest & wear a size 14. Yes I am an hour glass but when I eat and drink how I please I look more like rugby player. This is my negative thought pattern. I tell myself I have huge shoulders & man arms. I don't, obviously. So I tell myself to like my wrists, and then my arms & I tell myself to stop looking at my arms in shop windows. I make myself consciously choose to challenge that negative thought. That is an irrational thought. You don't look like a rugby player, but for gods sake straighten your back.

Sound familiar?

Try it. It isn't a simple case of telling that negative thought to fuck off, more saying why do I think that, is it actually true, no, its rubbish I tell myself, ok then stop. Shut up. It isn't true. My arms are fine. Not rugby like at all. Wash & Repeat.

Your biggest relationship in life is with yourself. If you cannot accept most of who you are, if not all, then how can you expect anyone else to love all of you the way that you want to be loved.

You do not need to love someone to love yourself .You do not need to be loved in order to love yourself. You need to learn to love yourself, slowly, body part by body part. One negative thought at a time.

Good luck.