They try so hard to be beautiful. Its none stop. I've seen girls shed tears, dissociate, and be completely delusional... I'm talking 11/10 girls...

Their entire identities so meticulously curated. Nuanced and premeditated aura. Intense diets and strict routine... They run a tight ship. They know their value. They know (and push) their limits. They are their own brand. Innate managers and directors.

A lot of women will agree that being "pretty" is the hardest thing in the world, its not easy... You've got this image maintain. It's what sells.

I can't imagine putting in half the amount of work that they do... Therefore I cannot complain. They've earned it, and the social benefit.

I respect the graft.

preferably 2 from the same album

</3

I remember when I was a kid going to the beach to fish and have fun and we would always see the older retired "snowbirds" or "expats" if you're so inclined to call them, and that was kind of it for long term residents of my small Mexican city.

But then when I was in HS, and around or after 2016 I started noticing that these long term residents weren't just sipping piña coladas and swinging on the beach; Now I saw them at laundromats or getting their dogs checked at the vet, but most important of all they weren't the 65-80 crowd I was used to their pale leathery skin now replaced with young and taut bodies seemingly living their lives in the same city as I did, still they were adults and older than me.

Post covid it is very common to see these, I guess now immigrants, the same age as me living their lives having children and simply existing as people here, not sipping margaritas living off their 401Ks but as the young couple with kids I helped this past weekend check out at Walmart because their Chase CC was acting up.

I know every person is different but what’s the general consensus amongst you women of culture?

This is such a specific and first world problem thing to complain about, I’m really just thinking out loud.

My boyfriend is one of those psychiatric medication haters who publicly disparages the mental health industry every chance he can. I agree with him on some things and I can attest to the fact that the industry is deeply flawed and inaccessible and not everything works for every person. However, I’ve just objectively had a harder time in life than he has and a lot of it has to do with my mental health. He loves to tell me constantly that there’s nothing wrong with me and that I don’t need to be on meds at all. I just need to go outside, journal, go to the gym, and eat healthy. Do you think I haven’t tried all that shit? Didn’t help whatsoever when my brain still wasn’t allowing me to enjoy any of it.

I’ve gone through tons of therapists and medications and I have so much gratitude for the fact that I have an awesome psychiatrist that I trust and have been more stable, positive, and calm than I ever have been thanks to the medication I’m on. Side effects suck but they’re better than living as a slave to my various mental illnesses. He talks all about how antidepressants are unhealthy but his ways of coping when things are hard usually consist of immediately getting drunk, spending way too much money on coke, and relapsing on the kratom addiction he refuses to acknowledge. Like bitch what????

Obviously someone who’s never gone through severe depression/anxiety/etc won’t understand so I get that. I just hate having to listen to him snivel about something that genuinely can really people who need it. I don’t think it’s for everyone but this shit seriously gives people their lives back sometimes and I don’t think it’s all as bad as people make it out to be.

I can switch up my fragrances for novelty but I’ll probably be wearing this one intermittently till I’m in the gr*ve. The thought is depressing, people are supposed to keep on changing. How can I change if I smell like the same person, lol. It’s the perfume version of marrying your high school sweetheart and never getting to see who else is out there.

I thought it was tremendous! The casting, the costumes and the score. And it is laugh out loud funny, especially the first half. And the second half I was moved to tears multiple times ;_;. Fiona Shaw steals every scene. And its great to see Daisy Edgar Jones in a good movie. What did ye think?

This is embarrassing, but after leaving a long term relationship that lasted most of my 20s. My monkey brain has catapulted me back to the mindset of my 19y old self, and has left me completely obsessive over male attention.

I wonder all the time whether i am loveable or not, my attractiveness, how im perceived. I feel like its rotting my brain, but i keep returning to these thoughts, i will go out with my friends and have a fun night, but somehow feel like shit afterwards cause i feel like men aren’t paying attention to me.

I feel like obsessing like this also makes the actual chance of any romance impossible right? Like how you wont get something you want too much?Has anyone else worked though these loser feelings after a breakup???

I help run a theatre troupe (i know, i know) with some friends from college and I've convinced them to host a party this month. I really like the venue and the poster I made is cute but I'm worried I will not be able to sway the vibe away from theatre kid (yes, i did bring this upon myself). Do y'all have any advice? I have a DJ, drag, tarot, & rocky horror + drinks of course.

Here's my poster! (Also, come party if you're free! It's on a monday so it doesn't clash with halloweekend plans)

I see plenty of posts about this Demographique but no one brave enough to admit to being in it so I′ll go first, it′s me, ask me whatever, drag me if you must, I can take it 😤

The cough is so chic

Lowkey though I got outta her music after Lust for Life, but those first 4 fuckin albums are the shit

I was thinking about going as Gram Parsons, but my boyfriend insists that we dress up as a couple, and he's too much of a man to be Emmylou, soooooo

how bad can it really be?
if you are lonely, jobless, purposeless - in short, the perfect candidate! its an all in one deal. if you have no money in the first place what can they scam you out of? if you have no close ones to begin with then who can they force you to cut contact with? i say drink the koolaid. learn to levitate.
but seriously i think i might join this cult
they’re kind to me and their children seem happy, confident. they dont have screens.
i am so lonely. there is no place for me. i want to believe!

I’ve been extremely distressed about gaining & losing weight for as long as I can remember and I’m scared I’ll always be like this. I know I don’t have an ED because I do not have behavioral symptoms but I do have the obsessive thoughts. Every day I worry about my stomach & arms being too big and my boobs & ass being too small, no matter what my body weight is. Last year I noticed my clothes getting too tight so I’ve lost 15 lbs over the past year, the healthy way through a small, gradual calorie deficit and regular muscle-building exercise. All my pants & skirts are too big now but I’m terrified to buy new clothes in case I gain weight again. Part of me wants to lose more weight, part of me wants to gain to get my butt & boobs back. Everyone says exercise helped their body image, but for me it just made me more neurotic about choosing & following physique goals, and whether or not I’m using correct form when lifting weights.

I started the body dysmorphia workbook but I stopped reading at chapter 7 where the actual therapeutic assignments begin, because I’m terrified that if I quit hating my body I’ll get fat. I dont meet the DSM criteria for body dysmorphia anyway because I don’t actually have a distorted view of my body. I know it looks objectively healthy, fit, normal, attractive. But I hate it anyway because it’s just not good enough. People say to focus on what activities your body can do, rather than how it looks, and my fitness level has increased so much over the past year. But whenever I try to be proud of my abilities, my mind just focuses on oh you’re not lifting heavy enough, you’re not running fast enough. I constantly feel too fat and too skinny and too muscular and too weak, all at the same time, and I wish I was just a brain floating in a jar!!!

I’m annoying because:
-I will argue with a brick wall. I’m a contrarian to my core. And I will like hear myself doing it, not even fully agree with what I’m arguing necessarily, but by then it’s too late and the gears have shifted. It’s also a bummer bc I’m really good at it and no one ever wants to partake in a good old fashioned debate with me bc I always take it a little too far. I like to win with my intellect and sharp wit. But I think what im actually doing is seeking connection through impassioned conversation. Idk I’m working on not doing this. But maybe I should be a lawyer
-Not good at letting things go. Especially if I have an expectation of anything and plans change (autism probably)
-Also I am just like a loud person. One of those voices. Can’t help it.

Ok your turn

I’ve had this friend with benefits / situationship since late last year that’s become emotionally overcomplicated (many such cases). This guy and I both caught feelings but were both too neurotic to actually cross the border into dating.

Further complicated by the fact that he’s been seeing another woman since a bit before we met and I’ve been watching their relationship develop via the accumulation of feminine detritus in his apartment. He’s always maintained that he’s just seeing other people but my suspicion is I’ve become the other woman in someone’s serious relationship. Unfortunately this activates the biologically humiliating side of my brain that wonders what she has that I don’t, or if I just got there a little too late.

Over the past two months we’ve broken things off and resumed contact a couple of times, first time he texted me a few hours after I’d left his apartment saying he just wanted to end things. A few weeks later he messaged me asking to talk. I agreed, and when we saw each other he confessed he couldn’t stop thinking about me, wants to fully commit to being with me and only broke things off because he figured I didn’t want the same thing. I admitted I felt the same way and we agreed next time we saw each other we would figure out to do about our relationship.

During this conversation there was still a pair of some bitch’s ballet flats in his entryway and an entire clean-girl skincare regimen in his medicine cabinet. Which I chose to overlook because apparently I am willing to believe a man describing our hypothetical life together while sitting among the evidence of his actual life.

We talk again the next week and he does a full 180, has feelings for me but basically isn’t willing to commit to anything. So we had breakup sex and then I told him I can’t do this anymore. Being stuck in a casual relationship where we were both openly pining for each other was killing me.

We didn’t talk for a few weeks, then last week he messages me again. Against my better judgement I agreed to see him. I went over to his apartment yesterday and I’m fairly certain this woman has moved in. Bunch of new furniture and art up on the walls. We didn’t talk about where things go from here but it felt so good to see him again that I was willing to pretend this reunion wasn’t happening in what increasingly resembles a shared domestic space. Then I lay awake half the night thinking about it.

All my friends have told me repeatedly to cut this off because it’s a waste of my time and he’s stringing me along because I’ve allowed him to for the past ten months. Unfortunately I have a weak moral constitution and poor impulse control so if left to my own devices I fear I will resign myself to other womaning and squirting a bunch of this girl’s facial cleanser down the drain every time I shower at his apartment.

Anyway please bully me out of this before I become the kind of woman who gets cheated on by proxy and takes it out on a stranger’s toiletries.

There has to be Shower Music. I do not shower without Shower Music.

We “dated” for a month and then he ghosted me but one day on a date I had asked him his highlight and lowlight of the day. And he said his lowlight was lifting something kinda heavy at work and his highlight was having McDonald’s. Idk it makes me sad but also laugh a little?