See, that’s it.

Brown girls, and girls in general, have had limitations put on them since they were kids. You can’t go out. You can’t do this. You can’t dress like that. You can’t go there. You can’t eat that. Don’t stay out in the sun for too long. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And unfortunately, regrettably, I have to agree that some of these limitations are right. Maybe that’s because I’m old now or whatever, but they’re right. Our parents are right. There are some things that we should not do.

But not because we’re girls.

Because we’re kids. Because there are certain things that kids shouldn’t be allowed to do.

But there are other limitations that are because we’re girls that I don’t agree with. Limitations that are due to beauty standards and archaic notions of gender and roles within a society that no longer exists.

And the one that gets me the most are the husband limitations.

You can’t do this, but you can do it when you get married.

You can’t go there, but when you get married, you can go with your husband.

Every single one of these limitations have been put on me for far too long, since before my parents should have even thought about me getting married. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

No parent should be telling their child to wait for ten years to do something, especially when I was fully capable of doing it right then and there.

Again, maybe I shouldn’t have been allowed to, but I was capable.

The husband limitation is why I think girls don’t want to get married.

We have had limitations put on our freedom with this asterisk. This condition that if you get married, you might be free again.

But when you look at Islam, with all respect, marriage and Islam, from the woman’s side, is about submission and obedience.

And I agree. In some cases, it should be.

But women are expected to continue obeying and submitting.

And we aren’t the same as we were 100,000 years ago.

We have these limitations put on us that are the same as back then, but we’re not the same as we were back then.

Every single man or boy in my life has lost their appeal to me because, other than the very superficial protector role, they don’t really provide anything else to me.

Other than, you know, opening a jar or holding a box or stuff like that.

It’s true. I get so much more fulfillment out of my female relationships. I get so much more fulfillment for myself because when I compare myself to every single man or boy that I’ve ever met in my life, including my brothers, I’m stronger, smarter, more ambitious, driven, dedicated, intelligent, wiser, in every single way.

And it’s because I wanted to be.

But it’s also because I had to be.

When I look around at the men and the boys who are supposed to provide and protect us, I don’t see that same ambition and drive and intelligence in them.

And you’re telling me that that is my asterisk?

That is my condition?

That man, that boy, who can barely feed himself, who barely understands the world and how it works — that person is going to be my freedom?

But I’m smarter and stronger and wiser.

That’s why girls don’t want to get married.

Because we’re told that we have to rely on these men and these boys for protection and for provision.

But we see the proof all around us.

We can do whatever a man can do, and ten times better, with more emotional intelligence, with more empathy, with more care, kindness, more of everything.

So what? I can’t open a jar?

So what? I don’t care about cars?

So what? I don’t look threatening?

We’re being told that these men are going to be our saviors.

And I just don’t want that.

I don’t have to depend on a man.

Well, I’m going to have to be dependent on someone for the rest of my life anyway.

And then I’m supposed to act like he’s my freedom?

That’s why I think brown girls don’t want to get married.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

But since then, I have never had a best friend.

To me, a best friend is someone who is number one on your list, and you’re number one on theirs.

I have friends who I like the best, and yeah, it’s never been reciprocated. I mentioned this in a previous article about always being a floater friend, but that’s exactly what I am. I’m always someone’s third or fourth option, NEVER somebody who’s in the main friend group, and therefore I’ve never had a best friend.

There’s never been one person who will think of me in their tough and happy moments. No one who wants to share their life with me.

And it’s very tough because I’m really trying to reach out and make new friends, and it feels like I missed the gun at the starting line. I started too late, and now everyone else is coupled up and I’m just an island.

It’s interesting because I feel like I am a social person. I’ve been told that my presence is a pleasure to be around, that I bring the party and the vibes, and it’s always fun for me to be there. And yet, no one wants to know me deeper.

I’ve read every article, every tutorial, trying to see if there’s something that I’m not doing, some etiquette that I’m not following, some unwritten rule that I just haven’t read yet.

And yet there’s nothing I can find that I’m doing wrong that would make people not want me.

Maybe it’s the fact that I just haven’t met my person yet.

I go out and I try to meet new people, and hopefully, maybe one day, I’ll find that person.

One day cannot come soon enough.

And so here I sit, alone by myself, waiting to be called to one of the friend groups I’m a part of, and knowing that in my tough days, I don’t have that one person I can go to.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

However, I think we’ve gone backwards in the way we find inspiration since we created the “cool girl” label. It actually isn’t limited just to the cool girl label. It’s any aesthetic or concept that we’ve deemed to be “better” or what we should be trying to achieve online. But for the sake of this article, I’m using the cool girl as a reference.

When we created the “cool girl” label and applied it to someone very specific, we indicated that this is what is cool. And in order to be cool, you need to become exactly like this person. If you aren’t like this person, then you haven’t achieved coolness.

However, that’s not how coolness works.

Coolness is subjective. It’s based on taste and culture, and it’s something that you curate and develop over time based on what you like.

Unfortunately, by creating the cool girl label, we’ve basically handed people a formula and said: in order to become cool, you just need to implement this formula into your life and you will immediately get the results.

Note that I’m not including any planner that I may have because I consider journals and planner to be two different categories.

My Every Day Pocket Journal

I am a very, very big Traveler’s Factory fan. Their pocket sized notebook is perfect for every day use.

This is the journal I use when I have impromptu thoughts that I need to put down. This is the journal that I use when I am inspired or when I find something particularly interesting. Reflections when I’m out and about, thoughts on books or movies I’m consuming, or general notes during my day to day to prevent myself from going on my phone.

It’s a pretty simple set up by design to ensure that I get the most use out of it. It includes a reflection/catch all journal, a common place journal, and a sticker release notebook - which I interchange from time to time if I need another notebooks (it’s right now my Substack essay idea notebook!) If you want an in depth look into what this journal is and what purpose it serves for me, I have a separate article going into each insert.

My 5 Year Daily Hobonichi

This is a very new addition to my journal ecosystem. I used to use my junk journal as a catch all. I would include my daily reflections as well as my junk journal practice. As time went on, my junk journal became more and more cluttered, and this became a barrier for me to actually use the junk journal in the first place.

The 5 year Hobonichi is a great way to reflect daily on my life and big events. The format also works great for me because it’s one single book for an entire five years which takes up less space. I can also then compare how I was feeling and things that were reported to me at different points of the year. I’m very excited to see how I feel on important days of the year and how I grow as a person, especially on days that our anniversary of grief and hardship, or days like my birthday

My A5 Journal

This is an Dark Navy A5 leather journal from Fin Studios, in it I have my junk journal, my book of lists, my oil pastel journal, and some accessories that hold things like collectable stickers, and reflections on the letters I get from the various mail clubs I am subscribed to.

My book of lists is a great way to be creative and have fun jotting down random lists like “People I would love to see live” or “Weirdest dreams I’ve had,” but also have a space to brain dump random lists that I think of.

For my oil pastel journal - this journal is part of a new hobby that I've picked up. I wanted to do something that was a little bit more artistic than just my junk journaling. I used to be a big painter and sketcher when I was younger, however I kind of lost the love for that art form. This is a new form of art that I am trying out and developing. This is a special exciting because Monet is one of my favourite artists (i am not good yet).

My Junk Journal

This is one of my longest standing notebook or journal series. I’ve always collected things to put in my journal and didn’t realize that it had a name until pretty recently when it became viral on TikTok. This journal has changed over time.

In the past, there were two ways that I collect junk and add it to this journal.

1. Junk per day spread. I will take a single piece of junk from every single day of a month and put it onto the calendar date like below. This is a fun way to be creative with the things that I’m using, but it also makes me very mindful of all the trash that I’m using and helps me be a little bit more environmentally friendly.

2. An actual junk journal spread. Because I have a daily journal, I don’t limit one junk journal to a year like I used to wear in the past so I’m able to create spreads without worry of having to fill up a journal in a year. This is especially important because I don’t always have time to junk journal so I want to keep this practice very stress-free. I keep all of my daily ephemera in a folder so that I can split up my junk journal spreads into days and experiences, but also colour.

3. This journal was actually not just limited to junk journaling. I sometimes used to write my thoughts and reflections in this. I will also used it as morning pages from time to time. Morning pages isn’t typically a regular practice of mine, so it’s nice for this journal to be a sort of catch all for any extra needs that I might have.

It used to be a hardcover for years but i felt this wasn’t the best format for a junk journal. It was too many pages so the book would get bulky and the spine would split which prevented my from journalling as much as I wanted to. I’ve now transitioned to a smaller kraft notebooks which I’m really liking.

My Learning Journal

Even though I’m out of school, I try to keep learning in order to continue to grow. Some of the ways I learn is taking courses online or going to different talks and classes locally.

I used to have a separate notebook for each class I would take or each topic. However, I found that I never wrote enough to fill an entire notebook. This is why last year I transitioned to a single learning notebook. Whenever I go to any sort of class I will take this with me and take all of my notes in this single journal. This allows me to know exactly where I took the notes and not running around, trying to find the exact notebook that I took notes in the last time.

Because there’s a mix of topics and classes that are in a single journal the way I index each class needs to be very purposeful and a parent so I can easily flip to the different topics. At the back of my notebook I have a little index with a each topic and the colour that each topic is associated with. Once I’m done writing in my notebook every class, I will use that same colour of my liner to highlight the ends of the page. That way I can easily reference what topic I’m looking for and what colour it is associated with.

My Travel Journal

This is also one of my babies. I’ve always been very passionate about travelling and seeing the world and have been journalling about my travels for almost as long. I have a pretty extensive set up to get the most out of travelling and journalling live.

The cover itself is a Traveler’s Factory regular sized brown cover. It’s the limited edition Tokyo Station one I got from my travels in Japan. Inside are a couple accessories and one single insert for the current vacation I’m on. Once I’m done with the journal and have come home from a vacation, I will archive the journal to keep it safe.

If you want an in-depth look into my entire travel journal set up and what I take on each vacation to make the most out of each trip take a look at this article where I go very in depth.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Affiliate disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I only share products I genuinely recommend.

You can take all the quizzes. You can read lists of steps from articles. You can go into people’s comments and ask them for advice.

I myself am a very reflective person, and the access to all this information on social media and the internet has only made it so I can reflect and understand myself even more.

However, what happens is that we have all of the problems and all of the reflections that go along with them, but we have no way to act.

You’re so good at having life changing realizations and knowing how to move forward and set goals. But we are very, very bad at taking accountability and actually following through on those actions because all of these articles and quizzes and discourse online are very hypothetical or abstract. There are usually no tangible actions that you can implement into your own life.

Everything is very generic, and therefore we are very bad at actually implementing the advice and realizations we have. And therefore, we don’t act on them at all.

You can read 300 Substack articles in a week and still have made no progress because we have not been given the tools of action alongside the tools of understanding.

Things like “take risks” and “don’t care about what other people think of you” are so very abstract that there’s no way to actually apply that to your actual life.

Like, what does that mean?

What taking a risk means to me might be completely different from what taking a risk means to you.

And that’s the problem I have with all of the overconsumption of self-help content. There’s no way to pinpoint exactly what you should be doing in the midst of all of the information overload that you have.

What would be more beneficial is being able to look at an article or a piece of advice and say, okay, these are the next steps, and this is how I can apply this to my life.

For the taking risks example above, how I would interpret that is:

What is something that I could do in the next week if I wasn’t worried about what other people would say?

For the second example of not caring what other people think, a more practical way of framing that for myself would be:

What is something that I would like to do that I’m worried will be made fun of by other people? What are the pros and cons of doing this, and do the pros outweigh the cons?

For examples like this, it’s impossible for you to actually not care about what other people think 100%. But it’s more about reframing the things you’re afraid of.

Maybe that’s what we’re missing.

We have become very good at understanding ourselves. Maybe we just need to get better at doing something with that understanding.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Basically, the creator was talking about how in the 90s, shows that centred around friendship, like Friends and Seinfeld, had characters who all had their own apartments or were, at most, coupled up in apartments.

Even then, as a show continued, characters grew up and moved into their own places, which was an example of the housing situation of the time.

Was it unrealistic? Yes, of course.

Rachel or Joey being able to pay rent as a waitress or out of work actor in an apartment in New York City is obviously impossible, and yet that was what was treated as possible and realistic.

A generation later, we have shows like New Girl that are representative of that new generation. Here, the housing situation has changed.

I keep a journal. I have photo books. I take videos and catalogue them in ways that I’ll be able to look back on easily.

But one of the ways I also memory keep is by bringing art home.

My walls are filled with different art prints, postcards, and ephemera that I have found throughout not only my travels, but my day to day life.

I was always obsessed with museums and art as a kid, and looking at my walls now, that love for museums and art displayed in such a way is exemplified in the way I keep my room.

You can look at the wall of my room and see the places I’ve been and the things that are important to me because I like to be able to look up and have this very quick snapshot of the things that are important to me.

It’s almost like my walls are a museum of where I’ve been, what I’ve loved, and who I’ve been along the way.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Also if you’re looking at the picture above super closely - yes that is a deflated balloon from the Sabrina Carpenter concert years ago, no I will never take it down.

I think some of that is definitely intentional by the unislamic men who want to exercise control over women, but it’s also bled into so much of the broader discourse around faith.

I’ve tried to understand where some of the well-meaning people are coming from. Islam was a religion that gave women rights when they had none, especially in the area, and made it haram to restrict those rights from them. So, to some people, the question becomes: why do we need feminism at all?

Some see feminism as only its most radical and extreme form. They see it as a movement that demands the complete destruction of Islam, rejects religion entirely, and pushes women away from the roles and values Islam has given them. And if that is what you believe feminism is, then I understand why you would push back against it, even if it is an incorrect take.

Others are more traditional, and their critique doesn’t necessarily come from a religious lens so much as a cultural one. They come from a culture where women speaking up was extreme. Where asking for more was seen as ungrateful and selfish because what women already had was supposed to be enough. Where questioning the way things were done was seen as stepping over a line, and stepping over that line deserved some kind of punishment.

And then there are the people who simply don’t want progress.

The dawah bros and their likes who claim feminists are just trying to squeeze more mehr out of men. The people who think women should be grateful for what they have while simultaneously rejecting the rights Muslim women are supposed to have in the first place. The people who will tell you that women already have enough while ignoring the women who are being denied the very things Islam has guaranteed them.

Some of these perspectives could probably be changed with honest conversation and education. Others are more stubborn in their worldview and will stick with what they believe no matter what you say. And others actually do understand what feminism looks like, understand what women are fighting for, and simply don’t care.

But despite all the discourse surrounding feminism and women’s rights, whether well-intentioned or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I am a Muslim feminist.

And the motivation behind my feminism isn’t self-involved. I’m sure there are inequalities in my own life that I will fight for, but those aren’t the reason I am so staunch in my support of the feminist movement.

It’s the Muslim women in Quebec who are restricted in their careers. The women in Sudan. The women in Gaza who don’t have access to basic necessities like period products. The Afghan women whose rights and opportunities are being taken from them. The women across Europe who are trafficked and sold. The girls across the world who are forced into child marriages. The women. The women. The women.

What I think the Muslim discourse around feminism forgets to take into account is that not everyone in the world is Muslim.

Yes, Islam has given women rights that were revolutionary for their time, and rights that I believe every Muslim woman is entitled to. But we do not live in a world where everyone follows Islam, and we cannot expect every woman on earth to receive her rights simply because Islam has established them.

And just because someone is not Muslim does not mean they do not deserve rights.

What about the Muslim women who don’t receive the rights that have been promised to them? The women whose rights are restricted by tyrannical regimes, families, communities, cultures, or people who have decided that their own interpretation of Islam gives them permission to control another person?

All of these women deserve their rights.

So how can I not fight for them?

Islam may have guaranteed my rights, and I have the privilege of having a family and living in a country that does not restrict me from exercising many of them. I am incredibly lucky in that regard. But there are thousands, millions, of women who will not get those same rights without someone fighting for them.

And unfortunately, they may not get them in my lifetime. So until they do, a feminist I remain.

And to anyone who calls me an extremist or a misandrist, who calls me unislamic or a slut or anything in between… shame on you. Shame on you for not fighting when there is still so much fight to be had. For not caring. Shame on you for not fighting for them because if the situation was reversed those women would surely be fighting for you.

Because there is nothing more unislamic than seeing other people suffering and deciding to do nothing because the idea of something doesn’t fully connect in your head.

Who cares about the labels? Who cares whether the word feminist makes you uncomfortable? Who cares whether someone thinks it sounds too Western, too radical, too political, too anything? Stop letting semantics distract you from what is actually important.

There are women who are suffering. There are women who are being denied things they should have. There are girls who are being told that their futures belong to someone else.

And if feminism is the word we use for fighting for them, then I’m a feminist.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

I saw this interesting video about MLM romances and why they are so popular amongst female audiences. It was an interview with Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, and they believe that since the genders involved in these relationships are not their own, female audiences are free to resonate with either character in a relationship without feeling restricted.

I feel like this is true as I read comments on here or even think about one of my favourite ships from 9-1-1, Buddie.

Gender envy is real.

The idea that two people can be in a relationship and be equals, who will not be expected to sacrifice parts of themselves for the sake of the relationship or their partner, is so real. It’s love for the sake of love — pure and free, with no preconceived notions, expectations, or doubts about motivation.

I also think so many women would love to be in this type of relationship, with this kind of love, with the privileges that only exist if you were a man.

That’s why I believe lesbian or WLW relationships don’t have the same appeal.

Someone will still have to get pregnant. Someone will still have to sacrifice their career in order to take care of a child. While it is not at the same level as heterosexual relationships, there is still an equal sacrifice required.

A relationship between two men requires none of that sacrifice. They are equals on similar footing. They can rely on a surrogate or adoption or anything in between. The option to have an unequal sacrifice is nonexistent.

There’s also so much more freedom in being a man. You can do what you want without being criticized for the way you walk, the way you talk, or the way you exist.

Female audiences can project themselves into these men and see a reality where they are not as judged as they are in our current world.

Maybe that’s part of the appeal.

It’s not necessarily that women want to be men. Maybe they just want to experience love without having to carry all of the expectations that come with being a woman.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

I turned 25 earlier this year, and while my 18 year-old self would think that it’s super old, I still maintain that I am very young, have no idea what I’m doing, and still have so much to learn. But I do have to admit there are things that I’ve learned that I think my 18-year-old self would’ve found very valuable and assuring.

The following picture is of my pocket journal that I keep with me and a little scribble I did on my 25th birthday of the top 25 lessons I’ve learned. These were off the top of my head but I found most of these are beneficial reminders. This is by no means a complete list and I’m sure there are some lessons that I’ve learned that are probably more important than these, but at the time my birthday these were the ones that I could not only remember, but found to be the most pertinent for my situation.

I held off on this purchase for a really long time because I’ve been trying to practice mindful consumption. Did I really need this notebook or was it just the viral Louise Carmen trend influencing me?

However, I realize that no, in fact, it was not a trend forcing me because I did have other journal notebooks that I was using, and there was an actual use for this daily carry.

Which resulted in me buying another Traveler’s Factory notebook to add onto my collection! This is actually another conflict I had. Do I go for a Paper Republic or Louise Carmen? Those are definitely more luxury purchases and I would be using it every day however, I still couldn’t justify the price, especially since I love Travellers Factory so much.

I got the blue Traveler’s Factory pocket journal which I keep in my bag on a day to day basis. It usually stays in my bag so that I don’t misplaced it and then forget it at home when I actually need it. Also, because at the time of purchase I have other forms of journals that I use at home. In recent weeks though, I’ve actually switched from my main Leuchtturm journal to another jun journal, which means I’ve been reaching for this carry a lot more often and I’ve been enjoying it experience a lot.

The purpose of this carry was to allow myself a space to jot down notes and reflect when I had spur of the moment thoughts without having to reach from my phone. I’ve always found that. I personally tend to reflect more and really digging into my thoughts when I’m physically writing and have to think about the things I’m writing instead of just typing as I go.

Here are the inserts that I have included in this journal! For reference, all of the regular notebooks are kraft notebooks I’ve found on Amazon or the one insert that came with my journal when I bought it off the TN website.

Commonplace Notebook

I have been seeing this format of journal for a really long time and I thought this was a perfect opportunity to try it out. I am someone who gets inspired very easily. I constantly have screenshots and random one liners in my Notes app of things that I want to remember. They were never really organized, and I never went back to look at them because they were just put into the void.

This journal’s purpose is to take things that inspire me whether it is quotes, or passages from books, or lyrics, or anything in between, and jot them down in an organized system so I can actually flip through and find inspiration when I need it.

I found this to be a really great practice because a: my camera roll is no longer filled with random screenshots. I have no context and b: because it’s a physical book I actually do find myself flipping through and reading what I wrote and what inspired me and it often triggers new reflections for me which is very handy!

I do have a legend that comes with this. I’ve created little symbols that associate with different topics that I find myself wanting to drive down this way in the margins find notebook I’m able to quickly find topics I’m looking for.

Reflection Journal

This is the place where I keep my reflections. I used to have a main notebook as mentioned previously that was a mix of a junk journal and a daily journal where I used to keep my reflections. However, that format was getting very cramped for me and I wasn’t using the notebook at all because the amount of pages felt huge and unachievable to complete.

This is now my primary form of reflecting and memory keeping on a daily basis. In this journal, I will jot down any sort of reflection I have. Sometimes it is just memory keeping on things that I enjoyed throughout the day or food that I really liked. Sometimes it is lists like we top 25 lessons I’ve learned which I posted earlier. Sometimes it is very deep existential thoughts that I have, some that I actually convert into articles.

Sticker Release Notebook

This is something that will come in and out of this car based on what I need in the journal. I am a huge junk journaller, and therefore, I am constantly finding scraps to bring home to put in my junk journal. Most of those scraps can go into the craft folder I also have in this journal, but sometimes I find stickers or other sticky pieces that I want to bring, but would not last on my way home. This includes labels on cups or stickers on bags.

My two options are to either take the sticker off and hope it doesn’t stick to all of the pages in my journal, or bring the entire cup with me all the way home, which is not usually optimal. This sticker release notebook is perfect because I could take the sticker and put it on the sticker release pages and it will be in great condition for when I choose to add it to a junk journal spread instead of trying to pry it off of a random page.

If I have space for this journal in this car, I always keep it in this third notebook is a revolving door. In place of the journal sometimes I have work notes, or a little notebook for reviewing books and movies if I’m in a particular period where I’m consuming a lot of media.

Substack Idea Notebook!

This is a very recent addition to this carry and I’ve replaced the sticker release notebook with this notebook as of late. I’ve recently begun posting articles on Substack more frequently and have a lot of ideas circling in my head for what I can post next.

I tried Notion and my Notes app to see if those would work better, however, I still by myself trying to find a place to write articles outside of my reflection journal that wasn’t online in an organized way. Therefore, this notebook came to be. This is a place for me to jot down all the ideas I have for articles and start to dig into those ideas as well as organize what articles I will be posting when.

I add a little calendar and jot down what articles I want to post on what date and plan out pretty far into the future. This is a format that works very well for me because I find that if I have a list of ideas with no deadline they will just stay ideas on the page whereas if I give myself a date for when I need to create this, it allows for me to really hone in on specific ideas and opens me up creatively. This is not the same for some people as they feel like having specific ideas on specific days actually limits their creativity.

I know that I personally am very flexible and if an idea isn’t working for me at a specific time then I just change it out. I’m not afraid of crossing things out and adding sticky notes to make more space

Accessories!

In this carry, I have two different accessory inserts:

1. The first is the TN zipper pouch where I have some ephemera I really like and some pictures of my family, as well as some spare stickers that I might not necessarily use, but I like to hand out to people that I meet.

2. The second is the TN Kraft folder where I have spaces to keep ephemera that I collect throughout the day and other random bits and bobs that I like. I really like adding personal touches to this area of my journal so I have added some stickers and doodles to make it a little bit more me.

3. I also have a matching TN pen loop that I add my favourite pen to!

4. On the top I have the TN Brass Clip to keep my pages flat since I keep the journal stuffed lol

Overall, in all of my leather journals, they don’t have a lot of charms and details on the outside because I truly don’t believe in going out and buying charms specifically for the sake of decorating a journal. I much more like the idea of collecting charms as I go and adding them to my journal because they’re special and it was like they were meant to be there. All of the terms I have on all of my journals are things that I’ve discovered out in the wild and decided to purchase or terms that I already had in the form of jewellery that I no longer wore and added it to the bands (like the charm on the front of this journal!)

This is a really treasured carry for me because it has a lot of of my shots and ideas that I don’t really put elsewhere and it feels very mean in the sense that it has so much of my heart and my soul in my mind in between these pages. I try not to limit my creativity on these pages and keep it as a source of inspiration for whatever thoughts may find me.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Affiliate disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I only share products I genuinely recommend.

Technically, I knew that other people struggled with their hijab. I knew it’s not always natural to people, and that is their test, but it was never something I dealt with, alhamdulillah.

I grew up in a very white-dominated town, so I was always one of the only people of colour, and somehow I still left unscathed. Almost all of the judgement I felt was never because of my hijab or the fact that I was Muslim, but more to do with my culture and ethnicity (unfortunately). I generally felt very safe in my hijab and with how it fit into my life for almost the entirety of the time I’ve worn it.

So it’s very interesting that I’m coming into this period of my life where I’m meeting a lot of new people and expanding my world, and this is where my insecurities have come in. I still don’t think I would say that I’m struggling with my hijab, but I’ve definitely felt a shift in people’s perception of me because of my hijab that didn’t really exist in the past (or maybe I somehow just missed all of it because I can be terrible at social cues sometimes).

What I’ve found as I go into the world and meet all these different people is that when you wear the hijab, people will perceive you as a stereotype. And all of a sudden, instead of just being your own individual who has your own wants and needs and desires, you are a representative of Islam for everyone. That is a tough burden to carry. Instead of being a person of flaws, you feel obligated to operate with a sense like everyone is watching every move, and then judging your entire ummah because of it.

I think that is a difference I felt when I started wearing the hijab and only stayed in my hometown. Almost everyone that I knew knew me as an individual before I started wearing the hijab. They knew who I was and what my dreams were, even if they weren’t my friend because it was such a small town. So when I started wearing the hijab, I wasn’t this stereotype, because I was already a fully fleshed-out human being to them.

This is something that I don’t really have anymore because I’m meeting people as a hijabi first.

This is especially prevalent when you’re on social media. I’ve sometimes commented on posts or even posted my own videos on TikTok, and the amount of condescension that will come from people replying to me or commenting is absolutely fascinating.

I think it’s so terrible that people will look at a single 15-second video of you or a one-liner that you’ve posted in reaction to a post and think they know exactly who you are and where you’re coming from.

I’ve had some really condescending comments towards me about how I’m trapped, and I don’t know myself or what I actually want, and that I need to “free myself” from my hijab and my religion. As if to imply that I have a low IQ and can’t think for myself.

You don’t think I’ve done my research and figured out what my hijab means to me and how it fits into my life? You think somebody forced this decision on me?

This is not me taking away from the thousands of girls out there who are forced into this decision, both here in the West with extremely uniformed parents and families, or those girls who live in countries with Islamic governments that force hijab on girls. Hijab should always be a choice, as it is written in the Quran, and doing anything else is not following what Islam is.

But look at my life that I’ve posted online. Look at me travelling by myself, going out, having all these great experiences, and still making comments about how I don’t really know myself. It is absolutely disrespectful. It has genuinely made it hard for me because all these comments become a lot.

And also—even if I wasn't travelling the world and doing all these incredible things, it's still wouldn't give you the right to judge me and my intellect.

There is also the conversation about Muslim men.

Out of all of the people who have made things difficult for me as a Muslim woman, Muslim men have genuinely been at the top of that list. I’ve never had someone police me more than a random Muslim man that I do not know. I’ve had comments on the things that I wear, the way I wear my hijab, and the way I talk or walk or laugh, and it is absolutely ridiculous. If there was ever any concern over me and who I was, I’m sure my family members would have spoken out. But if my father sees me coming and going and has absolutely no issue with me, and is actually encouraging me to live my life, then who are you to try to manage me?

Muslim men also fall into this trap—though I wouldn’t say it’s a trap if they are willingly entering into it—of putting Muslim women into a stereotype and only allowing them to operate within the confines of a persona that they have created for us. That is genuinely one of the hardest things for me: going volunteering in my community and having to interact with men who are absolutely disrespectful.

It’s very sad that I’ve had interactions with people from different cultures and religions and received less judgement and friction from them than I have from people of my own faith.

And I feel very bad for people who are at the very beginning of their journey and then find this absolute wall that limits them and actually scares them away. It is a very big struggle to be a hijabi. I know this is my test from God, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it is difficult.

And the unfortunate thing about struggling with your hijab is that when you talk about it to other people, especially people who have not experienced this, their first inclination is to assure you that you look really nice in your hijab. As if people cannot possibly conceive the idea that there could be another struggle with the hijab outside of aesthetics.

Like, I know I look nice in my hijab. I like how I look. But that’s not the point of my struggle. Of all the things that I struggle with in terms of hijab right now, at this point in my life, my appearance is at the very bottom.

I struggle more with finding materials of hijabs that I like than I do with how I look (Vela is expensive y’all!!).

The struggle is more about the way you are perceived, and the way people act around you and how it changes when you are a hijabi vs when you are not.

And unfortunately, because we can’t have these conversations without it becoming about aesthetics or rules, no one is able to speak up and have a community gather around them and support them.

As a community, we need to do better about talking about mental health and all the invisible struggles that we experience as Muslims. Because there’s no one else that will support us than each other.

Or, at least, that’s how it should be.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

but here’s the thing: october 7 did not occur out of a vacuum. people did not wake up that day and decide to randomly commit acts of violence.

because the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians started in 1947, not 2023 and the conditions that the Palestinians suffered thorugh were just as heinous then as they are now. the Nakba began in 1947 involved the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, with more than half of the Palestinian population displaced during 1947–48.

this is ongoing. the suffering of the Palestinian people is ongoing. the crimes committed against them are ongoing. their resilience is ongoing.

but it did not start on october 7, 2023.

the issue with solely commemorating october 7 is that we forget about october 6. and october 5. and october 4.

we forget the days before and leading up to october 7, when Palestinians were still getting shot at, and kidnapped, and raped. when their land was still getting stolen and when their aid was being restricted. the West Bank was still restricted and Gaza was still under blockade. When land was still being taken. when movement was restricted.

october 7 matters. of course it does. it is important to remember october 7 because it is another day of the genocide. they deserve to be remembered.

but so do the people who suffered the day before.

and the day before that.

and the day before that.

remember october 7. just don’t forget october 6 while you’re at it.

three years is a long time. but seventy-nine years is even longer.

we may get tired of seeing their videos. tired of donating. tired of sharing. tired of talking about Palestine. tired of trying to figure out what else we can possibly do.

but it is much more tiring it is to spend decades trying to protect your home and your land while watching them disappear. to wake up knowing no one is coming to save you. to live through one day of violence only to wake up and do it all again.

so keep supporting the accounts you see. keep listening to Palestinians telling their stories. keep interacting with their posts and pushing their voices further than they would otherwise reach. keep donating when you can. keep talking about Palestine even when the algorithm has moved on to something else.

keep them in your prayers.

because this cannot become something we only remember once a year.

keep them in your prayers. may Allah protect them and restore their lands. Ameen. from the river to the sea.

remember october 7. but please, remember october 6 too.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

There will be periods in a year where I will be able to go through books like no other. 10–12 books in a month is not surprising to me.

What is surprising is the immediate switch into being able to read nothing at all for some periods of time.

And I genuinely didn’t really have an idea as to why I would get into these slumps.

I knew it was because I just couldn’t find books that stimulated me enough or interested me enough to actually pick up the book and read, but I couldn’t figure out why it was.

People are recommending books all the time. BookTok seems to never be going away. So why is it that in these periods of time I can’t find something to read?

And then Annabella Sasha, a creator on Instagram, articulated it so incredibly well.

We are treating books and literature, and even media at this point, like it is fast fashion. A trend for a season to be consumed and then thrown away.

Here for a good time and not a long time.

And I’m not saying that this is okay for clothes, because I definitely think that we should be mindfully purchasing pieces in our wardrobe that will stand the test of time, that we will be able to use for a long time and not have to throw things out every couple months to redo our entire wardrobe.

But it has become so normalized because we view our wardrobe as this act of self-expression that is so influenced by trends and micro-trends.

The reason I find it more concerning that books have become this fast fashion trend over wardrobe is because your fashion trends will always change. That is very natural. With the decades, things change, and so people will end up switching out their clothes, of course not to the degree that they are now, but the clothes that we wear are still serving the purpose that they are meant to, which is to be this method of self-expression and, of course, to cover our bodies so we don’t get arrested.

Fast fashion in the terms of books and media is more concerning because when we treat books as a way of just consuming to be performative, or just consuming for the sake of consuming, we are no longer using books and media for the purpose that they were meant to serve initially, which is to feed our minds and our souls and to make us grow.

And before you argue that there are different types of media and not everything will make you grow, I strongly disagree.

Whether you read nonfiction or you read the smuttiest of romance books, you will be able to learn from every single piece of media that you touch. Whether it is about history or it is about empathy and relationships and emotional connection. Reading and books and any form of media in general is supposed to teach you something. It’s supposed to make you grow and expand your horizons.

And when we treat it as some sort of micro-trend, it’s no longer doing that.

Because we’re just reading the same type of words, just regurgitated onto the page for the sake of publishing a book. That is what it feels like sometimes.

There are authors out there, especially in the YA, fantasy, and romance genres, cranking out books year after year, recycling the same five tropes in order to quote-farm and sell more copies without ever doing the due diligence of investing time to plot and character development and connection between characters.

Annabella also goes on to talk about “undeserved dialogue” quite a bit, which I really resonate with.

What you call undeserved dialogue is basically when one of the characters says something that does not fit the context of the story or the relationship, and it feels like the author has put in the dialogue just in the hopes that somebody will take a picture of the page and post it on TikTok with some sort of romantic music on top.

It feels very ingenuine because instead of developing these characters to the point of possibly adding this dialogue that would make sense and would actually make you connect with the story, you’re just stuffing these books with random tropes and quotes that don’t even make sense.

It feels like books have just become another thing that people buy and another thing that people are trying to sell you instead of something that you should be mindfully looking into and consuming.

It has become fast-fashionized.

I would highly recommend that if you’re interested in this topic, go and look at Annabella and all of the other videos that she’s put out about these topics, because her perspective is so insightful and she’s really able to articulate a lot of the issues that she finds in this new wave of reading and consuming media. And I wholeheartedly agree with basically everything that I’ve ever heard her put up there.

But all of these thoughts have really summarized a big part of why I get into these book slumps.

Because I’ll get recommended these romantasy or YA books and it feels like the same book over and over and over again.

And I’m not saying I’m above reading a fun sports romance every now and then. Do they all somehow feel the same? Yes but they know what they are and own it. They’ve become my little palate cleanser rather than something I spend all my time reading. The problem is many books have become this recycled trope vomit on a page and yet they act like they are the pinnacle of literature

This is not to give any hate to people who enjoy this stuff.

But when I have these goals of reading all these different books, I have the goal because I want to be able to expand my horizons in a way that reading the same book over and over again just never will provide me.

And when I do encounter these books that feel the same as any other one, it just demotivates me from even continuing until I find something that might reignite that spark once more.

That being said, I think of myself as a pretty diverse reader.

Some of the genres that I have enjoyed in the past year include romance, of course, murder mystery, thriller and crime, literary fiction, YA, nonfiction, historical, biographies, fantasy, and more.

I have a friend who jokes that there’s not much that I won’t read.

But to be honest, like, I am very picky.

If I am going to spend my time immersing myself in this world and picturing these characters and their relationships and the experiences that I will share with them throughout the course of this novel, I want it to be something that I can fully dive deep into and that I actually believe instead of having to suspend all form of disbelief and logic in order to try and enjoy something.

Because at the end of the day, I’m not a book influencer.

I’m not getting paid to review or give my opinion on these things.

I am reading simply because I like to read and because I want to grow.

And I don’t want to waste my time on something that’s been done 100 times before.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

I used to have this friend whose friendship lasted over 10 years. Unfortunately, we gradually lost touch. The sad part was that we still used to see each other, and the “falling out” of our friendship actually never happened.

I saw our friendship deteriorate in front of my eyes because we were growing out of each other. What we needed from each other and the support we provided had become obsolete, and we were both moving onto bigger and better things.

I saw this friend slipping away from me and realized that it actually didn’t bother me that much. The purpose that this friendship had served me was now in the past, and if I continued to hang on and clutch onto a friendship that served neither of us anymore, then I would just be wasting my time. This feeling sucks because how can I let go of a friendship like this? It feels so cruel!

I don’t have any ill feelings towards her, and I do wish her the best whenever I see her come across my social media. But that friendship was only for a time and a part of my life that has since passed.

It is very strange to see someone live a completely different life that you know nothing about, especially when you thought that you would be part of their life forever and they would be part of yours.

But you also know that it is for the best, and you keep it moving.

The things she taught me and who I became because of her will stay with me forever. And our friendship, while it is not the same and never will be, isn’t nonexistent. It is just existing in a different form.

I know that if I see her on the street, or if she reaches out, I will always have good feelings towards her.

But overall, she’s no longer somebody in my life.

Short one today!! Hope you enjoyed!

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

My life is full of joy and experiences that I might not always remember and it's important for me to acknowledge that.

a moment i want to remember
played in our corporate softball tournament for the very first time. hitting the ball for the first time was exhilarating.

something that made me think
i went to this panel discussion on truth and reconciliation day about our responsibility as people who have settled on colonized land and it really made me ponder how we benefit from other people struggles and what we can do and support on these people, even if we are being forced to become complicit in their exploitation (an article to come, i hope!)

what i’ve been reading
read I Who Have Never Known Men (which ended up being my 52nd book of the year!) and really enjoyed it!

what i’ve been watching
went on a little binge this month! watched the newest season of Adults (love!), NSFW, and a little bit of the latest season of Silo! All great watches!

somewhere i’ve been
dropped by at my local Fall Fair. it’s an event that has taken place in my town for almost two centuries so it's very important to the people in my town. However, it is now become something that only high school students really go to so we hadn't been in a while. I decided to drop by and look at all the submissions and all the different vendors and it was a great experience to connect with my town in this way again.

something i’m learning/i’ve learned
something that i just learned that changed my life is that you can copy something on your iphone and without having to do anything else, if the phone is still open, you could paste the exact thing onto your macbook. i did it by accident the first time and was blown away.

a small joy
despite all of the traffic now that everyone is back to school, I am really enjoying my drive to work because you got to see some of those fall colours peek out!

a question i’m carrying into october
A question that I've been really battling with over the course of this month and even in the past couple months that I still am nibbling on is what makes someone charismatic and successful? What elements of a person will make other people more prone to give them opportunities and how does this person act that makes it so that everything seemingly goes their way? I've been really battling with this because of dynamics I've seen at work and also in my personal life that have made the idea of charisma a really interesting one.

pressed between these pages
tangled is one of my favourite movies of all time and because of that i've always desperately wanted to go to the toronto water lantern festival and never had a chance. it's always at this awkward time of going back to school and readjusting to the flow of life and i always miss it unfortunately. i forced my family to come out with me this year and it was an incredible experience of getting to be surrounded by the city and do this mass reflective exercise with the people i love.

until next month, i’ll leave these things here—pressed between pages.

—

What are some things you want to remember from this month?

Leave a comment

Something you could sit down with at the beginning of a month, or halfway through it, or on a random Tuesday when you feel like you have approximately 47 thoughts floating around your head and nowhere to put them.

So, here it is: The Pressed Between Pages Journal.

A little monthly collection of prompts, thought starters, reflections, and things to notice — made for those of us who like to write things down, even when we don’t quite know what we’re trying to say yet.

October: The Art of Returning

There are some things we leave only to find our way back to them later.

A book we loved as a child. A place that still feels like home. A version of ourselves we thought we’d outgrown. A habit we abandoned. A person we lost touch with. A prayer we stopped making. A part of ourselves that was quietly waiting to be remembered.

Maybe returning isn’t always about going backwards. Maybe sometimes it’s about coming back with new eyes — noticing what feels different, what still feels familiar, and what we didn’t appreciate the first time around.

This month’s journal is an invitation to think about the things you’ve returned to, the things you’re longing to return to, and the things you might be ready to find your way back to.

Because sometimes, there is something waiting for us in the places we’ve already been.

This month’s journal is filled with questions to sit with, little invitations to pay attention to your everyday life, and a few things to cut out, keep, or press between your own pages.

You don’t have to complete it in order. You don’t have to answer every question. You don’t even have to write in it at all.

Maybe you’ll spend an hour with it. Maybe you’ll answer one prompt and leave it on your desk for three weeks. Maybe one question will follow you around for a while before you finally figure out what you wanted to say.

That’s kind of the point.

I don’t want this to feel like another thing you’re supposed to do. I want it to feel like somewhere you can go when you want to slow down for a minute and pay attention to what’s happening inside your own head — and around you.

So grab a cup of something, find a quiet corner, open a blank page, and see what comes out.

The October Pressed Between Pages Journal is below. ♡

Because of this, I never really felt out of place. My Islam was never something that needed an introduction.

Fast-forward to now, when I’ve grown up and started interacting with communities that are no longer the ones I grew up in. I’ve met new people, and they all come from different walks of life and different upbringings. And I’m not just talking about the non-Muslim people I know.

Actually, no, this is specifically about the new Muslim friends that I’ve made.

Because what happens when you meet new people is that they all have different priorities, values, and tolerances. It’s difficult to navigate when you’re making friends in any situation, but especially when you prioritize your faith in such a way and it holds such an important part of your life. You have this other level of compatibility that you’re trying to understand.

I’m not saying that all of my friends are religious or that every single person I meet needs to be Muslim or engage with faith in some way. I definitely know people who are not religious at all, whether it’s at work or in my personal life.

However, when I am operating as a Muslim who takes my faith seriously in my day to day life, and it is continuously present throughout my day, you need to understand how compatible you are with other people who may or may not be religious in order to see how you will operate within the framework of that relationship.

The complicated thing is that the prioritization of faith does not automatically make you a better person. This is something that has challenged a lot of my views and the way I was brought up. Because in my community growing up, if you were religious, you automatically had to do good to those around you. Otherwise, your Islam did not qualify in the way you were presenting.

But as I’ve grown, I’ve met people who do not pray or fast who are some of the most generous people I know. People who pray and fast and yet would not save you even if it cost them nothing. I really struggled with this because you never know what is in people’s hearts. You never know if someone will judge you, lead you astray, or put you on a path that you never wanted to go on. Someone’s level of faith is one thing. But understanding how they will perceive you because of your religious beliefs is another thing entirely.

I have met people who will not hang out with me because of how religious I am. And I’ve met people who thought I was not religious enough and therefore cut ties with me because I “did not have my priorities in order.” So navigating the world becomes this very interesting balance of finding the people who prioritize faith at roughly the same level as you.

And I say faith because I have some friends who are not Muslim, but are religious in other ways. And because we take our individual faiths seriously in the same way, we are aligned in our friendship.

In my journey to understand how to find this balance, I came across the term “halal-haram ratio.” I honestly thought this was a hilarious term. But it was also very eye-opening because that is literally what you’re searching for. Your halal-haram ratio.

Google describes it as “an individual’s personal balance of religious observance, lifestyle habits, and tolerance for acts that may fall outside traditional Islamic orthodoxy”I find this pretty accurate read on what my interpretation of this term is. Google also mentioned that it is typically done for matchmaking or finding romantic relationships but I find that you can use this scale for all relationships in your life. But I think you can use this scale for basically every relationship in your life.

And, somehow, in my research for this article, I also found a conversation card game where you can apparently pull questions to ask someone about this when you’re getting to know them for a romantic relationship which I found very funny.

But it also made me think about my own ratio. I’m not saying that I indulge in haram acts. But I do practice in a specific way, and I have parts of my life that might seem less than perfect Islam to some people.

I like to travel as a single woman all across the world, sometimes staying in hostels where I have to share a co-ed room. I go to concerts. I don’t typically dress in skirts and dresses in my daily life. And my aesthetics do not exactly align with the perfect halal Muslim girly uniform.

None of these things mean that I take my faith any less seriously. But they do mean that I might not fit into someone else’s idea of what a religious Muslim woman should look like. And that’s where the whole thing gets complicated.

In my journey to find my own place on this scale and understand how to evaluate other people and our compatibility, I also came across the question:

Is it even important to know where someone else falls on the scale?

To that, I say yes and no.

I definitely have friends, like I mentioned, who are not religious at all, and I get along with them great. They actually hold really important places in my life. But you have different friends for different reasons. And while a big chunk of my friends are not religious, I also think you need a good chunk of people around you who align with your values and will help you grow and push you to do more in a way that is positive in your perspective.

You need friends who have roughly the same halal-haram ratio as you. Because sometimes you just want someone who you can vent to. Someone who can be present with you and just exist with you. Someone you don’t have to withhold different parts of yourself from or censor yourself around because you’re worried about being judged or worried that you’re nagging them. Sometimes you just want to be able to say, “This is something I’m struggling with in my faith,” and know that the person on the other side understands the context without you having to explain your entire worldview first.

And I think I’ve successfully found people who fit this ratio.

And the funny thing is, I think I would still be friends with them whether or not we were aligned on the scale.

But it’s comforting to have friends who are in the same place as you. People who understand the things you’re trying to balance. People who can grow with you.

Because maybe the goal isn’t to find people who have the exact same halal-haram ratio as you.

Maybe it’s just to find enough people who understand yours.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Typically, I’ll have a podcast or an audiobook playing in the background so I have some sort of background noise. Sometimes it’s a movie or a YouTube video or something that I can watch as I go.

Recently, I had a junk journal day where inspiration struck me in a way that meant my regular task wasn’t enough. I then lugged all of my journalling supplies down the stairs to the kitchen table, where I could spread everything out and take stock of what I could use. It took me a couple of trips up and down the stairs, and by the time I got everything I needed, I realized I didn’t have my laptop and I also didn’t have my phone.

Because I am extremely unathletic, I was so out of breath that I decided I could make do without some sort of technology.

What ended up happening was extremely revealing.

I started out as I normally do, spreading out all my junk and thinking about what my spreads could look like, and I realized I was fidgeting already, looking for my phone as if I was trying to get a quick fix.

And it seemed so insane to me because I was doing something analog and I was still looking for my phone.

I kept thinking about how I could’ve been listening to this podcast or watching this movie while I did this, and I had a realization: I was addicted to technology.

Which sucks because I am a pretty analog person. I try to stay off my phone and have periods of time where I’m not using any technology, yet this was still happening to me.

I decided to push through and continue on my spreads for the rest of the couple of hours.

Once I got over the initial hurdle, it was so refreshing to be without my phone or laptop during this time. I felt like I could actually exist in silence and actually think for once.

There were so many things that I hadn’t thought of for a while, some ideas and inspiration I had that I wouldn’t have had if I was watching Star Wars or listening to The Good Dirt.

It made me wonder why this was, because I have analog periods. But I realized it was because those periods are usually crocheting or reading a book, and those activities take up my entire brain power. I am counting rows and stitches or analyzing information that I’m reading.

Junk journalling is very different in that sense for me.

For me, junk journalling is really about turning your brain off and just wasting things where they fit. There is no rhyme or reason. It is just vibes and no thinking needed.

I realized that we don’t have other times where I can shut my brain off and exist in my thoughts.

I’m always listening to something. There’s always something in the background — on my walks, on my drives to work, even in the bathroom.

Being able to sit with just me and nothing to give me a shield to avoid all those random thoughts in my head was very scary, but also really illuminating.

There were ideas that made me uncomfortable and thoughts that I hadn’t confronted in a while, and I realized I’ve been holding them in for a really long time. That probably wasn’t healthy, but I just never had a chance to look those ideas in the eye and process them.

I was able to listen to the birds chirp and feel the hum of the house as everyone does their daily tasks.

I can’t lie, I was itching for my phone at the end of the couple of hours. I wanted to see who texted me and do a little doom scroll, but I technically had a great experience that was very needed for me.

I am planning on keeping the rest of my junk journal sessions in complete silence, in hopes that as I continue on with this, the itching for technology will become less and less, and I’ll be able to exist in my thoughts without getting as uncomfortable.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!

Almost every single conversation I’ve had with a man in recent history has been me initiating the conversation. It is genuinely so infuriating to have to carry a conversation and not have any questions reciprocated.

Are you guys allergic to asking someone about themselves?

Is it not masculine to care about what other people think and get to know the people you’re talking to?

Because that is genuinely what it feels like.

And I’m realizing, after talking to some friends, that they genuinely don’t have conversations with each other either. It is like they have lost the concept of conversation in its entirety.

Which makes me feel better and also worse.

Yes, that means that it’s not just me that you are unable to talk to, but it is also very frightening that you can’t talk to anyone.

I just had a recent conversation with a guy over text where he asked me to introduce myself as if I was in an interview. He then proceeded to ask me what my “requirements” were for a future relationship.

Now, I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t actually have a checklist of things that I want someone to have. It’s more of a vibe that I want in terms of compatibility. Honestly, I just want someone nice who respects me (but that’s looking harder and harder to achieve).

This is not something new that guys have been asking, but I find that when they ask me to start, they are most likely trying to figure out what I want so they can change their own response.

I very respectfully told him that if he wanted certain information from me, then he also needed to give something back and perhaps initiate the conversation instead of putting the ball in my court every time. Generally, one of the most respectful texts I’ve ever sent to a dude.

And he proceeded to get angry at me and called me “childish.”

For what exactly? For properly communicating? For wanting something more than the bare minimum? For not wanting to talk to a literal wall?

I’m not sure.

Honestly, I am very grateful that I uncovered the red flags before I invested so much time in him because what kind of person lashes out when they don’t get exactly what they want? Oop—most guys, actually.

Because I lied.

This is not a conversation I had with one guy.

It was actually a conversation I had with multiple dudes.

Maybe the insult was different, but the reaction was always the same. Guys want to put you in your place and get mad when you don’t follow.

It feels really impossible sometimes, but I am trying to stay strong in my boundaries and give dudes three chances to respond in a mature way—to reciprocate conversation, to actually show some interest—and then I unmatch.

Because genuinely, why am I wasting time? I’m not in the business of doing charity. Like, someone else can fix you and invest the time, but it’s not going to be me. I’m not looking for a project.

Part of me really starts to dig deep into why this is. Is it that there are so many conversations happening throughout the day that you get text fatigue? Is it that they’re just not interested? Are some people just really bad communicators over text?

I don’t know.

And it is really, really frustrating because I’m trying to put my best foot forward and I end up with nothing. I don’t think I’m asking for that much. I don’t need an interview. I don’t need a perfectly crafted opening line.

I just want someone who is curious enough about me to ask a question.

So this is my callout to the universe:

Please send me someone who will at least have a solid conversation with me for more than two minutes.

Low bar, I know.

If you’re still here thanks for making it all this way! I would love to hear your thoughts!