I’m sick of the clean girl aesthetic, and why are twenty-somethings wearing business casual to brunch?
It’s me, I’m the twenty-something who wears business casual to brunch. In my defence, good tailoring is timeless, and brunch is the most versatile meal of the day. But other than that, I’m pretty much all over the place. Being chronically online means being bombarded by aesthetically pleasing time-stamped morning routines, spotless apartments and enviable careers. If you can’t work out, read, journal, have a matcha and layer twelve skincare products on your face by 8 am, don’t even bother trying. This piece was originally born out of frustration with my generation’s lack of messiness (it might also be in part the product of almost all my friends having corporate nine-to-fives whilst I wake up at noon, live off toast and agonise over cover letters and my next silly little Substack piece). As a kid, I was always proud when adults told me I was mature for my age (oh the trauma), but as an adult, I panic looking around me. Why is everyone in such a rush to grow up? What happened to making mistakes? To wearing questionable outfits and dating questionable people and saying to hell with it all every once in a while? As a member of the Soul Cycle cult, I was still deeply offended when a friend recently told me they couldn’t come out on the weekend because they had an early morning Pilates class booked on Sunday. I go to run clubs and wear SPF, but I’m worried about the predatory effects of wellness culture on our young! Nobody drinks or smokes or goes out anymore (I’m being dramatic, I know, but go ask your friend who’s protecting their peace when was the last time they made a drunk friend in the bathroom). A lot is said about the negative effects of these things, and I’m not recommending binge drinking and chain smoking, but all the positive social effects are being forgotten. How many friendships were forged by the oversharing after too many glasses of wine? How many conversations sparked by bumming a cig? I’m notoriously enraged by our hyper-individualistic culture, and whilst we should all be looking after ourselves, today’s wellness culture might take it a step too far (but like pop-off capitalism, anything to make you a better consumer, I guess).
My childhood best friend called me neurotic
My childhood best friend (hi Clara) came to visit me last week. We’ve known each other for ten years and have been around for almost every questionable phase. A friendship built on a lot of honesty (delivered with kindness) and love (but never pity, as we witnessed each other’s lowest points) meant that this week was one big therapy session. As we reminisced on our childhoods and how different we are from those twelve-year-olds, we laughed at how much things had changed. It’s a little disorienting, she told me, commenting on my lack of plan and general chaos, especially in comparison to who I was in school. You were pretty neurotic, which, yes, I agree, but I was also curious. What do you mean by that? I prodded. You were very together, but you were also a really nervous child. I often feel like I’m competing with my sixteen-year-old self (a fact I’m very much embarrassed by, rest assured). She was super productive and involved in a million extracurriculars. A great student, friend, daughter, I knew who I was and what I wanted and felt like I was on track to get it. What I sometimes seem to forget are the frequent all-nighters and general ever-present anxiety that permeated that period of my life. If pleasing everyone came at the cost of my own sanity, so be it. I might have seemed like I had it all figured out, but that was mainly fueled by an overwhelming fear of disappointing others.
I brought up the HBO Girls Renaissance in Therapy
Like the rest of the GenZ-ers who were left floundering after finishing Sex and the City, I have recently started watching HBO’s Girls. I had some cultural awareness (I’m not an animal), mostly in the form of a trending audio of Lena Dunham saying she might be the voice of a generation, or the let’s make fun of the girl who took a risk and put herself out there creatively meme (Marnie Michaels they could never make me hate you). Watching Marnie’s neurotic antics, I cringed with painful recognition. In a recent interview with Slate, Williams reflected on the Gen Z reception of her character, and how it has differed from how people viewed her when the show originally aired, stating that a lot of people don’t want to be seen becoming something, they just want to be it already. I had to resist the urge to text my therapist the link, cancelling our next session because that’s enough self-reflection for the week. In a way, it was comforting to realise that [part of] the reason why so many people hated Marnie was because of that unflattering (but uncannily accurate) reflection. Whilst the lucky folks with a developed pre-frontal cortex might roll their eyes at my naiveté, I tried to strip back some of the negative connotations with the period of my life I’m labelling work in progress.
Who am I when things aren’t going according to plan?
The theme for this year was getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. For the first time in my life, things were not only not going according to plan, but I wasn’t even sure what the plan was anymore. I had to sit with boredom and re-evaluate my choices. I was out of school, unemployed, and single, and therefore had to find validation elsewhere (and this is why I am now training for a marathon). As someone who’s always placed a lot of value on concrete measures of success, in anything from the obvious, such as good grades and a high salary, to the ridiculous, such as a quick pace doing Zone 2 cardio and a low number on the scale, I struggle to figure out how to measure myself in this uncertain phase of life (please, tell me it’s a phase mom). I’m trying to recognise the wonderful things that come out of being bored, being messy. I’ve been told that having your life figured out is overrated (by people who, objectively, have their life figured out, so I’m not sure how much to trust them), but I’m trying to slow down and enjoy (and document) the process of becoming.
dude you have no idea how much i relate. it's like reading my own thoughts lol. same boat, very much. and also been on a girls kick. oh marnie. - fellow WIP
It’s a phase ❤️