Hey all, I had a bunch of coffee and a lot of thoughts so I’m just gonna drop them here. Not tryna be eloquent, my thoughts are all over the place, and there's no real point to any of them, but putting it all down is rlly therapeutic to me. That’s what this space is for, right?

-I wish I had more queer friends here. It’s a desire I can’t even really explain/justify. In some ways it doesn’t make sense to choose friends based on the only shared quality being the people you find attractive/sleep with. It makes sense of course, in a situation where you feel marginalized for being a queer person, although here I’m not really experiencing that. That’s actually another interesting thing I’ve been thinking about recently. In high school I assumed that I wasn’t experiencing discrimination at all based on my sexual orientation. And of course, I wasn’t. And I knew about microaggressions but they didn’t apply to me, you know? But idk my queerness was definitely invisible. It’s not something I ever hid but it also never came up. Was that an issue that I was assumed to be straight by people I had known all my life? And that brings me to the more pressing issue of family. I remember talking to Z about this over winter break. My dad doesn’t know I’m bi. Or my brother. My cousins should know by now but I’ve never told them, they never asked, and I think they still (hilariously) assume I’m straight. What Z and I were talking about is the way that sexual orientation is so linked to sexuality and how that’s something that you don’t really discuss, straight or otherwise, with close family members. Anyway I guessed I’d just not make a big deal out of it and if/when I ended up dating a girl I’d bring it up at some point. It wasn’t a priority to bring up because I had been single or with a boyfriend. Now though, I’m stuck. I was briefly in a “relationship” with a girl I’d been crushing on for ages, but it ended quickly and didn’t amount to anything. I’m currently “seeing” a new girl right now, and it has the potential to be something more, but again it’s not really real. So these relationships are happening, but since they’re not actually “real”, they’re not something I feel the need to discuss with those close to me. I don’t even really talk about them with the friends. I’m just in this weird kinda place where in some ways, there’s nothing to talk about, but I think it might be nice to have someone who has had experience w girls who I can talk to. Idk though. Like this school is amazing. It’s so queer, and the more time I spend here, the more people I realize aren’t straight. And that has the potential to be comforting to me but at the same time, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m “not queer enough” to fit in with them. And I love the friends I have here, they’re great, but it feels like sometimes they get uncomfortable when I talk about girls. One “doesn’t want to know the details”, one assumes I’m interested in getting with a queer mutual friend just cuz I ask about her, one asks me if my attraction is 50/50. It’s nothing outright, this whole situation just seems to have all these undercurrents I can’t name or place that make me feel uncomfortable. It’s a really gross, nebulous feeling that creeps up around the edges whenever my sexuality comes up. And maybe it’s not even that I’m bi, maybe it’s just the fact that college relationships are weird and the ones I’ve had hardly count as relationships.

-On the topic of college relationships, what’s with this desire to be “chill” about everything all the time? Like commitment is such an abstract concept and no one wants to talk about their feelings. Miss Palmero would have a lot to say on this subject.

-I gave my number to a guy after a concert I went to on monday when he found me on twitter and asked if I was “the gorgeous girl standing in front of him”. Of course, that was flattering and pretty smooth, so I’ve been texting him, half cuz he seemed pretty cool, half because I like the attention/flattery. The convos have been hilarious (he’s an english/philosophy double-major who thinks he’s going to be the next James Joyce) and I’ve been telling everyone about them as a not-so-subtle brag. His flirting attempts that are comments on my appearance have got me thinking though. When I was 15, my pubescent self-esteem was so low that I got caught up with the first person to show interest in me. That led, as you know by now, to trauma that wasn’t my fault of course, but that could’ve potentially been thwarted had I not depended so much on some stranger to define my self-worth. In the years since, my self esteem has reached new highs. Which leaves me intrigued when this rando tells me I’m gorgeous and asks me if all the girls at my school are as pretty as me, saying “I’m just being honest”. Of course, the compliments themselves are a bit of an ego boost, but the way he says them gives me the sense that he thinks he is doing me some kind of favor, telling me something I’ve never heard before. The whole “you don’t know you’re beautiful” kinda bullshit. Cuz I do, you know? Makes me think of that post abt girls on the internet responding “I know” to people messaging them telling they’re attractive who then react negatively w something like “lol ur not all that bitch”. Idk none of this is revolutionary stuff, just interesting to think about. I guess I'm just glad to be in a place where I'm not reliant on people like him to make me feel worthwhile and attractive. Cuz then there's this whole sense of obligation to this person. They find u attractive so you better get on that cuz no one else will. Idk. Loving yourself is so important. I always try to tell my sister she's beautiful so when some guy tells her that it's not the first time she's hearing it. And that she doesn't owe anyone anything. Ever.