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Dear (insert name),
I didn’t believe in love at first sight until I saw you on Tinder. Unlike the twenty-or-so good-looking people I had swiped right before you, I felt butterflies in my stomach when I came across your selfie. Something felt different. Although I’m unsure whether this odd feeling in my stomach was because of you or because of my strict fresh-pressed juice diet, I knew from the get-go that you were special. Now, two weeks since I sent you that coy greeting on Tinder, I am so happy to say that you’re the first person I call when I feel like hooking-up. It’s scary for me to say this but … you’re my main hang.
Looking back, our first date feels as though it was just yesterday. I remember feeling lonely after making gluten-free pain au chocolate at the local café that day. After my then-main hang failed to respond to my text, I decided to hit you up instead. To my content, you responded promptly to my proposition of Netflix and Chill. You took my breath away when you opened the door to your apartment; the interior was so familiar that I thought I might have hooked-up with your roommate before. Thankfully, the similar decor was just a coincidence. I want you to know how much I still think about that day. It was so good – the “chill” part, that is.
I’m so happy to be in a low-key, casual, non-committal partnership with you. It’s amazing to be with someone on the same wavelength. We’re both smart, progressive people. Unlike those who opt for traditional dating and committed relationships, we consider cost-benefit analyses and the low risk, low investment model of hooking up. With the Canadian dollar at the lowest it has ever been, it is imperative for people to be more financially conscious. Can you imagine being someone whose idea of a date is dinner and a movie? The cost-benefit of that scenario is so skewed, not to mention how much time that date would take up. All we do is buy someone a drink at the club and bam-shabam! We’ve sealed the deal. The cost of our “dates” is one drink and maybe an hour at the club, followed by a night of fiscally responsible hooking up. I cannot imagine life any other way, and I am so glad you feel the same. We are definitely what people mean when they say, “meant to be.”
Stability is so overrated. We both want freedom, we want excitement, we want new. And can you imagine the FOMO you’d have otherwise? There is a never-ending stream of singles to choose from. I cannot imagine being with one person for a long time rather than cycling through lots of suitors quickly. That sounds so stagnant. But I’m so glad I’m at this temporary pause with you. You are the perfect person to be temporarily stagnant with.
I know we’re not, like, together or anything but it felt weird to just not say anything so I’m writing you this letter as an indication of how much I enjoy your companionship. There is nobody else I’d rather lie in bed and look at my phone next to at this moment. It’s like I was playing a game of darts at the new craft-beer-exclusive pub down the street; I kept throwing darts and eventually one stuck. That dart is you. You stuck. I can’t see you becoming unstuck anytime soon. Would it be optimistic of me to say that I can still see us together at the end of next week? I know that’s a long time, but that just goes to show how special you are to me. None of the other people I’m flirting and hooking up with right now make me feel the way that you do. I hope that makes you feel special.
This letter really isn’t a big deal and it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to, obviously. I’m having a great time just being what we are right now. (Do you want something though? I’m totally open to whatever. It’s chill. I’m cool. If you do though, shoot me a text and let me know. If you don’t, you know. Whatever.)
Anyhow, swiping right on you was the best decision I’ve ever made. Happy Valentine’s Day.
With like,
(insert your name)
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“I’m not a feminist.”
I was shocked to hear the words leave her mouth; I almost didn’t even believe it.
“I can’t tell, are you joking right now?” I asked.
“No. That’s just never a word I would use to describe myself.”
Hearing my mom tell me she didn’t relate to the term “feminist” was a blow to my whole understanding of society. For my entire life she has been the driving force that has taught me that women deserve equal rights when compared to their male counterparts and that I should always take care of myself and never rely on a man — or anyone else for that matter. And she is the one that is always the most disturbed and angry when she finds out I’ve faced sexism in the workplace. Yet for some reason, she wouldn’t call herself a feminist.
My parents, like many other students’, grew up in Canada in the ‘60s and the ‘70s. While they are both racialized individuals and these decades of their youth made headway for movements in civil rights, their greater understanding of things like gender and women’s rights, on the other hand, is slightly tainted with memories of what would have then been considered extremist activism.
Second-wave feminism was sweeping the nation at the time, and if youth were not actively involved in the movement (for a variety of reasons), they were often taught that this was something negative and over the top. Especially for people that were already being treated as pariahs for their skin colour, going into the street and talking about abortion and marital rape just brought up more opportunities for people to mock and abuse them.
The pivotal moments in my parents’ youth were restrained for various socio-political reasons. And because of these reasons, they now struggle with grasping the meaning of these terms in our modern society.
The actual semantics of the word “feminist” have gotten a horrible reputation over the years. And contrary to many a belief, some sampling in a Beyoncé song isn’t going to change everyone’s minds. Often I feel that my mission as a feminist is to overthrow the opinions of the people closest to me in age range, because they “are the future” and we should be focusing our time on them. But the harder mission may be to work with the people who raised me, and to educate people that I feel already know what’s going on, but don’t quite have the history to know what it means in our day and age.
The pivotal moments in my parents’ youth were restrained for various socio-political reasons. And because of these reasons, they now struggle with grasping the meaning of these terms in our modern society.
When trying to create a society that is truly intersectional, I often forget the important role that age plays. While there are many older citizens who do not stand up in arms in our present-day activism simply because they’re assholes, there are also many who weren’t raised to have the same knowledge and understanding that is being promoted to us today.
When we’re looking to talk to people and to promote diverse causes, it’s important to remember that age is also a point of privilege and the terms and ideas we’re bringing up may take more effort to understand. My mom is a feminist, but she refuses to call herself one because of the time she grew up in. Here’s to hoping our current efforts towards education in feminist activism can start to turn back time.
Photo Credit: Diana Davies
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