Yesterday in art foundation Silas was speaking about someone’s film and he called it ‘a solo romance’. I was so shook cos that is the loveliest phrase I have ever heard in my life.

I think a solo romance is like complete peace with love for yourself and also the absolute doubt u can feel for yourself. Like not just loving yourself but like a step further. Like u have moments of doubt and sadness about yourself but then u have moments of clarity and love for yourself. Like think of a romance story like the notebook lol; there’s ups and downs but you’d still say it was romance. I don’t think it’s necessarily being single either like i reckon you could have a solo romance in a relationship. Like it’s not a ‘men are trash’ phase, it’s just a comfort with urself whether ur in a relationship or not. I think a solo romance is when ur happy with yourself but not all the time. Cos obviously if you loved urself all day everyday that would be different to romance. Like that’s just pure self love. Which would be nice but not realistic to have forever.

I don’t think I could be in this solo romance if it wasn’t for complete low points I’ve encountered. Last year was a low point but that’s only cos I really wanted a boyfriend (I would never have admitted I wanted a boyfriend to anyone. sorry 2k17 Molly for outing u). But every time in my life that I’ve gotten close, not even close but like potential for a boyfriend I’d freak out. I think it’s cos of my solo romance. Now I realise if u want something that ur desperate for, u should never have it because you’ve put WAY too much value on it and it will never live up to ur expectations.

I’ve always put a lot of my own value on whether boys fancy me or not. So as soon as I got confirmation that a boy did fancy me, I would think I was valuable and then I’d fuck off. I’ve always needed the security of someone thinking that I was this amazing unobtainable thing. I don’t think that was a fair way to treat not only the boy who fancied me but also myself. I was acting as though the idea of myself was better than my actual self and I believed that. I honestly thought it’s better that they see me in a light where I’m virtually holy so therefore I never pursued anything cos i thought if they ACTUALLY knew me, they’d be disgusted. But that’s ridiculous because why hold any part of yourself up to that standard and consequently make ur actual self feel like shit.

I’m glad to have labelled this relationship I have with myself because I’ve always had periods of being happy with myself but then it ends and I’m like who am I?? but now the low points don’t detract from how I see myself cos low points are expected in any romance, including my solo romance.

I still don’t know wtf I’m doing completely no idea. If I were to visualise it it’s like I’ve just thrown everything up in the air and instead of it crashing down on me it’s just lingering in the air, like that’s how I visualise my life rn. Whereas, I used to visualise my life as me standing in front of a massive massive forest. Idk why lol but anyway it’s definitely nicer with the stuff up in the air than the idea of walking into a huge forest.

I’m still growing out of needing a boy to fancy me but I am growing out of it. I think my life has undergone huge changes recently, and even though some of the changes are bad and stuff I can’t control, it makes it easier to change parts of my life that I can control. Having control over some stuff and no control over other things is part of the solo romance. If u feel stuck in ur life, look at things that u can change. I realised this obsession with boys was something i could and should stop. I’ve always thought it was part of who I am but it wasn’t. It was a stupid choice i kept making and so now i’ve cut it out, I don’t fixate on boys anymore and I’m so PROUD of myself cos it’s taken like 5 years for me to realise the problem and stop it. I know this issue i have/had (still getting out of it) might seem stupid but it occupied my whole mind. I remember having a dmc (lol) with Anna once and saying that 80% of what i thought about was boys. And I wasn’t even really obsessed with the boy. like with the majority of boys i’ve had things with, I was just obsessed with the IDEA of them. Like that’s an unhealthy obsession so I think i’ve done well to end it.

Some people might see this label of a solo romance as pathetic, like i’m just settling with being average, but I do feel a sense of accomplishment for how far i’ve come and being fine with the mistakes I’ve made. Before i never had any regrets and i think that was quite naive of me. It was quite reckless and not in a good way. I don’t have loads of regrets but just a few things I know I should have handled differently and that’s a much healthier outlook.

I think I just wanted to say this so that I could document my change cos it’s the change that i’m most proud of. I also wanna thank silas for giving me a phrase ‘solo romance’ cos i do think it’ll define the next bit of my life. 

p.s I cannot tell u how many times I typed ‘oslo’ instead of ‘solo’ and believe me I am NOT having an oslo romance