Personal safety has been on our minds a lot the past few weeks (months/ years?). From when my mum first warned me about changing out of my tutu after World Book Day to texting a friend whenever I get home from a party. It’s just something that early on we are made aware of and forced to change our behaviour accordingly. It goes without saying that it totally infuriates me that we are constantly having to make sometimes big, sometimes small adjustments throughout the day, every day of our lives to keep ourselves safe. But, until our culture/ SoCiEtY – we must.

It’s getting colder, our nips are getting pointier and omicron is making us want to omicry!! But one thing that will remain, without fail, for the duration of all these trials and tribulations? A constant, in a world of uncertainty...ghosting. The haunting feel of the double tick, the “seen” greyed out wording thrumming in your face. It makes you want to spoon out your own insides. Social media and yes, dating apps too, definitely have a part to play in the lack of accountability we have for other humans’ emotions. Everyone’s disposable in a digital world. It’s made us all so damn casual about being ruthless.

The friend zone. You can hear those words in the deep, gravelly tones of Morgan Freeman’s voice echoing around your tiny, little brain. It’s the place nobody wants to be, because when you’re in the friendzone, it’s a solo kinda zone…. It means that one person has feelings for somebody that has their literal tongue down the throat of Kat from the lacrosse team and you’re standing watching them in the kitchen at a house party, whilst making your way through the family sized pack of kettle crisps, plotting your revenge, ya know. (too specific??)

I had a theory that we develop the ick when our attraction for someone has already started to wane. And the “ick” element we’ve zoned in on becomes the perfect fall guy, the reason why we simply CANNOT be touched / hand held/ sniffed by our beloved. Beyond the more pivotal reasons that we tend to break up with people like different priorities, moral codes, a preference for real life murder documentary series over romcoms etc. My theory about attraction wasn’t far off but turns out the smaller ‘ick’ things are kind of linked to the bigger ones too.