Getting Over You (and Me)

 
This past year, from the beginning of January, I have been trying to get over this guy.

   First let me make it clear that we never were going out. Nor did we have any romantic relationship.  But I loved him.  Really, I did. And I'd been happy pining away, imagining things up until my friend called me and told me he got a girlfriend.  I was devastated is putting it nicely.  I went from hysterically laughing to sobbing to screaming to sobbing and laughing and repeated this all night.  I called my friends and sobbed, lay on the couch and sobbed.  Sobbed and sobbed.  It was horrible. I'd never felt so heartbroken.
  Some might say it's easier to get over a "crush", something that never really happened.  I've never dealt with a break-up (based on the fact that I've never dated anyone) but from my experience, trying to forget about something that never happened is really really difficult.  There's no closure, no goodbyes, no nothing because most of the time, the second half of the "relationship" has no fucking clue.  I remember my mom saying; "Eva, it's not like he cheated on you.  I mean, I understand that you liked him, but I mean, c'mon!"
  But in my mind, it was like he'd abandoned me, cheated on me and then left.  In my head, we were soulmates, he DID like me, it was a fact.  I'd basically created this whole romantic novel/movie in my head.  There was a backstory, a plot; boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy doesn't realize, boy has mind blowing experience where he realizes that him and girl are meant to be.  Boy finds girl, boy and girl fall in love, the end.  Simple enough, right? WHY COULD'NT HE FOLLOW MY PLAN?!
  When we create this perfect relationship, this holy thing that envelopes us in passion and yearning, it truly feels real.  When the time comes that we have to face reality and break it off with this fantasy it's not only losing that perfect ideal but it's also losing a little of yourself.  I felt so confused because I had built myself around this crazy fairytale, and now I was forced to face the stark reality leaving me to ask myself "Who am I?"
  Now, getting over this boy was hard.  I truthfully don't think I'm completely done with that part yet. But I do know that I've refound myself. It took A LOT.  I went on a 6 week trip to Israel all summer, I tried to push myself, find my passions, get good at things, and yet every once in a while I'd feel this twinge, have a thought; "You weren't good enough.  You'll never be good enough."It's hard.  Because sometimes, I agree.  But, I have been lucky enough to find a part of me that combats these negative thoughts with positive ones.
  I know I'm not done yet, I still can't see pictures of him and his girlfriend (whom I still despise) without cringing and wanting to cry, but it's gotten better.  I've moved on.  I have other pots on the fire. At this point, I know not to upset myself.  I hope that soon I'll be able to see him and smile and say "So, how's life?"

Read More

Trending Interent Topics: Sexism and Rape Culture (trigger warning yo) (Part 1)

     So like lots of teenage girls, I'm online a lot.  Tumblr is my go-to website *click here if you want to check it out*  and I follow lot's of blogs that are very vocal about feminism, equal rights, basically everything I believe in.  One of my favorites is sexistfacebookdudes, which calls out social networking accounts that are either a threat to women or making offensive comments towards us as a whole.
     To be 100% truthful with ya'll, I knew some stuff about feminism and I identified as a feminist but I hadn't even known about some of the CRAZY bull that is online.  One of the things I saw was a website called creepshots (BEFORE OPENING WARNING: NSFW, TW: RAPE, NONCONSENT), a blog that posts pictures of unknowing women and sexualizing them.
     Basically this is a scenario of how lot's of the pictures on there get taken.  You go out in a pair of yoga pants to get yourself an iced tea from the Starbucks in your neighborhood.  After you get your drink, you are probably going to go back home and shower and then go to work or something.  As your waiting in line, a man standing behind you is like "that bitches ass is fine imma take a pic and post it online".  So your butt gets posted online for thousands of people to see, and the caption says "Mmmm some sexy ass wakes me up in the morning".  You don't know about this picture, but lots of people are seeing it and using it as a sexy picture.
     Thats basically what the blog is, pictures of women without their consent online with captions like "She's not asking for it, she's begging for it." Feminists on Tumblr are pouncing on this gross blog and theres a petition to get rid of their social networking accounts (Facebook is down but Twitter and Tumblr are still around).  You can sign the petition here.
      I knew that there were creepers, but I was really surprised at the idea of this blog.  I guess you could call me naive, although I had never thought of myself as that.  I was outraged and freaked out and actually a little scared to wear a sports bra to the gym, or wear my shorts out even though it was super hot outside.  At first the idea is disturbing by itself, the fact that these women are unknowing, but after lots of thinking, these kinds of blogs actually communicate a lot more about modern technology and its part in society then they seem.
      Blogs that post pictures of women being sexualized without the women's knowledge are extremely different to porn, or at least in my opinion they are different.  Many women in porn find it empowering, or even they don't, they always know that the video or photograph is sexualizing them and they are okay with it because they are, more or less, in control of the image and how they are portrayed.  The pictures posted on blogs like creepshots are different because these women don't even know they are being photographed.  The defenders for blogs like creepshots think that someone not saying no is the same as someone saying yes.  Women shouldn't have to turn around to a stranger and say "Oh hey btw you cannot take pictures of me", it should be an unspoken rule.  The idea of not saying no being yes supports rape culture, the idea that women not having consent over the sexuality and their bodies is normal and completely okay.
      This of course brings in a lot of other  issues, like celebrities.  Would it be less immoral for someone to zoom into a picture of Janet Jackson's nip slip, or Britney Spears without underwear? This is when the line gets a bit blurred.  On one hand, these celebrities did not say yes, but on the other hand they are fully aware that pictures are being taken and that they are constantly in the public eye.
This line has become even more thin because in the day and age, we are always being watched.  Almost everyone has a camera on their phone, and anyone can take out their phone and snap a picture of stuff.  This is an upside and downside to modern technology,  on the upside we can use this technology for good and to inform (Part 2 of this article will adress this), but on the downside it also means that people can overshare and share things that aren't even rightfully theirs.  What do you think about all of this? Part two will be here soon!

Read More