High School & Teenage Trivialities 🖤

Life as a teenager 🖤

High school… It feels like a lifetime ago right?

Okay so it kind of was, at least for the majority of us reading this… yep, we’re getting on…. Well we’re not, but you know your teenage self definitely looked at 30 year olds and thought wow they’re old!

I guess our generation do have a bit of luck on our side though. The world has since been blessed with wizards who magically prevent our aesthetic ageing process… yes I have Botox, Sue me 🤷🏼‍♀️… or join me? 👏🏼 The Queen of 10YY will sort you right out🙏🏼😂… anyway back to the story!

Growing up watching saved by the bell and far too many teenage movies meant I had great expectations for high school. (What can I say Nickelodeon and Disney have a lot to answer for!!)

I always remember waking up on my first day of high school, feeling so excited for this day. I turned up to school full of confidence, about to take on the world!… I was so happy to be there with all of my friends, & the boy I’d had my first kiss with in the summer holidays who was 2 years above was going to be there too! (And when asked the question, are you a fridge or a freezer?… I would confidently let the world know I was now a freezer) Life was great!!

Day 1 – On my first day in registration, our teacher decided that we’d all have to do an ice breaker… One by one each of us had to stand at the front of the class and tell a joke. When it came to my turn I was made up. I was going to use my favourite joke which my dad had told me & it was going to be loads funnier than anyone else’s.

So I gets up, walks to the front of the class… stands there… so confident…

‘what’s the dirtiest joke you’ve ever heard?…

….‘MUD!!!’

Giggling to myself thinking everyone was expecting me to come out with something really rude… I blurted it out, (11 year old me thought it was brilliant!! 🤣🤣I honestly thought it was so funny!!)… Not one other person in the room laughed! (P.S I still find the joke funny 🤷🏼‍♀️)

Like all teenagers, it’s safe to say I had my fair share of ups and downs in high school. I think we all go through it in one way or another… including the teachers… Wow some of them were terrorised.

I’ll never forget the day a girl in my French class called the teacher ‘spoony shoes’ (meffy shoes)… if you’re still not familiar with the terms I’ll let you Google that one, Wikipedia will sort you out… but yeah this was after we’d already decorated the classroom with balloons (also known as condoms) 🙈 and she ran out crying… what a day that was.🙈

I did meet some lovely people in high school & I did have a really great best friend. But it wasn’t the great adventure I’d hoped it to be. I was what they call an inbetweener, not one of the cool kids but not a goth either. (Sorry to anyone who that offends – it’s okay it’s been 20 years – were all grown now) but yeah I think i was just a normal kid.

Things at home were pretty tough at the time. We’d just lost our home and me, my sisters, mum and dad were all staying with my auntie and her family. All 5 of us invading her home, taking it in turns each night going between the couch, the floor, and me trying to sneak in my cousins bed once he’d fell asleep so I could get a decent nights sleep.

one morning my uncle was dropping me and my sisters off at school in his van. I asked if we could leave early & if he could drop us off down the road so I wouldn’t be seen getting out of it. 🙈 All’s I could think of is I hope no one sees me. Honestly I was so embarrassed, kids get bullied for far less… so I gets to school half an hour early, crawls out the back of the van! The Coast was clear (pheww) 💁🏼‍♀️ …

Later that day in English class, I’d put my hand up to answer a question!

‘Shut up Kayleigh, you refugee!’ – the class clown had seen me.

Honestly I died inside 🙈 Me and my dad laugh about it still to this day but you can imagine it now can’t you.

It’s mad because obviously this kid had no clue what was going on in my home life and that I was in fact basically living like a refugee, he just thought it was funny to skit and show off. He didn’t have a clue that each night after school we’d be turning up at a different family members house for a bit of tea, my mum and dad trying their best to keep us fed and make sure we had somewhere to sleep, family members chipping in to help us get by. He just thought it was funny, and to be fair, his shout was 🤷🏼‍♀️😂 but at the time all’s I cared about is what people would think. I couldn’t tell my friends what was going on as I was embarrassed and scared incase they told anyone.

I’d be standing at the school gates at dinner time or going to reception hoping my dad had dropped some dinner money off. Kicking off when he didn’t turn up or when he turned up with only £1.20 (I was a chub, I deffo could have done without the dinner money, one might even refer to me as ‘the girl who was always on a diet but never lost any weight’ – I do love that one. True story though, so fair play 😂🤷🏼‍♀️)

Why is it as kids we can be so fucking selfish. We just don’t have a clue do we. I’d be moaning about having to wait around and embarrassed at what people would think, when my parents were doing their very best trying to get by, literally scraping the pennies together to make ends meet.

A couple of years later, we’d just had to leave another home, (I liked this one, this one had a palm tree in the garden which always made me think of holidays… it had nothing to do with the cute neighbour honest👀…)

I still had the keys to this house, and my friends at the time were looking for somewhere to go hang out… It was empty but it was the ideal situation for a ‘sit off’… so I did what any teenage girl would do, and invited everyone back there. 💃🏼

(Can we also just touch on how ‘f’d up’ it is that random people go into shops for kids and buy their ale for them? Like complete strangers & KIDS!!! The world has gone mad!)

Any way the ‘sit off’ was a BAD MOVE… one of the neighbours found out and grassed us in to the landlord. He turned up with his daughter (she was a couple of years above me in school) and kicked us all out, . 🙃 silly girl kayleigh. SILLY GIRL!! I was mortified, and it was all my own fault… (why did I ever think we’d get away with it)… My dad didn’t even go mad at me, I was embarassed and he blamed himself for it…That part really does get to me. 💔

The thing about my parents and most peoples parents I imagine, is that they will do anything to see their children happy, whatever it takes. Even if means sacrificing everything they have, even if just for a day.

I’ll never forget my 16th birthday. I was one of the oldest in my school, and one of the girls in my year had just had a sweet 16 (American style) birthday party. Because of this my parents thought they had to live up to this expectation, and paid for me and all of my friends to go and see Jay-Z. It was amazing, my friends thought it was amazing! We got a boogie bus there and back and yes I had the best time and am so thankful!

But could they afford it??… Hell No?… so why did they do it?… because they felt they had to. Looking back now I completely get why they felt that way, and it makes me so sad to think of what they were really going through whilst doing their best to make it look like they had it all together… I guess that’s the problem though with societal pressures. Had they not felt the pressure to conform to these standards, they would have been able to pay their rent that month, and we might not have lost the house..

It was the same with Christmas presents, birthday presents… you’d wake up on Christmas morning to a house full of gifts and a couple of weeks later they’d be sat in a window in cash converters!! (I still hate that place)…. but they just couldn’t afford it. Times were hard!

I don’t even have kids but it’s so easy to see how parents get caught up in the trap of their children having to keep up with the latest trends,… Kids these days are walking around with the latest iPhones and balenciaga’s like they’re a bag of 10p sweets we used get from the half way shop. Honestly I have no clue how people afford it & it makes me so sad to think that many really can’t…. it’s like one big rat race!!

Now before I finish off on my teenage memories, I’d like to share with you this next situation. I think many people experience an element of this in high school, and after speaking to different people it seems it happens a lot more than you’d think.

I’d love to spread some sort of awareness on this because quite frankly it scares me to think how many people could have fallen victim to this and many probably did and still do to this day. So here goes…

I was sat one evening on MSN (the Facebook of our generation)… when a boy who lived around the corner, who was also in my year in school messaged me out of the blue. He started flirting and trying to see what I was about, saying he liked me blah, blah, and then asked me to go around to his.

Luckily for me I was very shy with boys, and although I was made up that he said he liked me, I didn’t have the courage to just go around to his.

Why luckily you might ask?…

Well the reality of the situation was that sat behind that screen, where this boy was messaging me from, he was not alone.

Some of my ‘friends’ at the time thought it would be funny to see what kind of reaction I’d give. They were sat in his room, messaging me, pretending that he liked me, asking me to go to his, suggesting rude things and laughing with each other that I believed them.

Now Luckily for me I was never ‘that type’ and my gut served me well 🤍 (I will forever thank my gut for guiding me out of bad situations!)

But it just makes me so sad to think of how many other young girls in my position would have had the same thing happen to them, and have been taken advantage of in that situation…. feeling insecure and then happy that a boy actually liked them. To fall for it and start to engage all for it to turn out to be a joke / game. And potentially even worse, actually turn up at the place, be taken full advantage of and be made a laughing stock the next day.

I’m not sharing this information to expose anyone, heck it was high school and some days were a real life episode of mean girls and others your group of friends were your soul sisters, it happens to the best of us. We ALL experience a element of this, and there’s certainly no hard feelings, we were just kids!!… I just hope that by sharing this information, it’s a conversation you pass on to your own kids, nieces and nephews, to educate them and prevent from being the cause or the victims of situations like this… High school can be tough as it is, and no child (yes teenagers are still children) should have to deal with that.

Your teenagers years focus so much on ‘fitting in’, wanting to be liked and what other people will think etc… it’s like one big bubble that you think you’re going to be stuck in forever. Then you leave school and realise that none of it ever even mattered. It all just becomes another memory, another past experience.

Chances are after high school, you’ll never see the Majority of these people again (except the odd drunken night out, where’ll you reminisce on the ‘good old days’ be best friends for the night only to go back to your normal life the next day and never speak to them again). You’ll continue to be social media friends and clap them from afar because you’re all adults and nice like that 👏🏼 and really the majority of those people will be very much like yourself, very different from high school and actually turn out to be really nice people.

I’m not embarassed to share this with you. It is what it is, and yeah okay the old me would have died at the thought of exposing this information (especially not anonymously). In fact me 7 days ago would have… True story😂 (shout out to my friends for encouraging me to put it out there!)

In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you, and my teenage years were a big part of that, so there you have my reason for sharing.

If anyone else has been impacted by anything in this blog, I’d love to hear from you. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me & share your story 🤍

Until next Time…

Shits about to get interesting 👀😂

Much Love

Kayleigh X

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A Preview 💭 Life at 30 – Still Figuring It Out

Thirty Something Truths

A tale by me 🗣

Because I wish somebody would have told me that it was all going to be okay.

& that not being married with kids, owning your own home, or having a career you love by 30 does not mean that you have failed in life.

(Although that can be how it feels at times)

And if you do have all of the above and you’re happy then I’m happy for you too and Touché. 👏🏼

But I’m just here to speak for my experiences and make sense of my realities.

So for the rest of us:

Life is not a ticklist.

It is yours to be lived 🤍

And how boring would it be if everyone travelled the same path.

There is excitement in detours, embrace them.

You may not always understand the reason, and they may lead to some dark woods at times, but in time you’ll see why things had to happen a certain way to get you to where you are today. Every sun sets to rise again.

& the lessons learnt along the way have made you into the person you are today. They make you YOU!

Take it from me, a thirty something year old woman, who (still) has none of the above, whilst being surrounded by many who do, however this does not make me a failure.

All of our paths are very different & mine has been an interesting one at times to say the least.

& I’m grateful for my journey & excited to see what’s next in store for me.

I remember being 17 years of age, in love with my first boyfriend, thinking my life was already planned out for me & that I’d be married with 3 kids at the age of 25, and they would be my forever. (I even had names picked out… Brooke & Summer… the OC and One tree hill were clearly the only shows worthy of watching… and chris brown’s ‘forever’ would be our wedding song) – what can I say I was clueless 😂 – except them shows and chris brown are still pretty cool.

I remember looking at 30 year olds, thinking they were real adults… Old… life’s sorted, they have it all figured out. I always imagined my life would be very similar to my parents.

Honestly, I couldn’t have got it more wrong and I’m so glad I did.

I don’t think anyone ever does ‘have it all figured out’ by the way. It’s a myth.

That’s the beauty in this thing called life.

It’s full of surprises 🤍 for all of us.

So what should you have by 30 you may ask? Well for me it goes like this:

Memories which you will cherish forever

lessons learnt through a lot of (repeated) mistakes.

laughter and tears (life’s about balance after all)

The best friends / family a human could ever wish for (by now you should have learnt to remove the dead wood – if your people don’t support you then they’re not your people)

Confidence in who are as a person (because if you can’t be yourself, who can you be)

A kind heart (because the world doesn’t need anymore shitty people)

A voice (use it!)

Maybe some crappy tattoos in there too (except if you’re anything like me you’ll wish you hadn’t – listen to your parents people – they’re older and wiser 👀)

So yeah I hope you enjoyed this first draft.

It’s not perfect but then again neither am I…

There we have it… my first ‘truth’

I look forward to sharing my many mistakes and experiences with you 🤍

Much Love x

Real Talk… Reflections… Relationships and Situationships

So when I started this blog, I had all intentions of speaking about my experiences when it comes to relationships, (mainly) situationships and dating experiences.

Being single for almost 9 years certainly gave me enough content to provide you with endless stories.

The good but mainly bad and just damn right ugly situations to be fair.

But recently I’ve realised that all of that stuff is completely irrelevant now?

And even though at the time, each situation on its own was a massive deal for me (its kind of who I am as a person, and I guess I feel things quite deeply anyway) and yeah granted there was a lot of hurt along the way, but there was also a hell of a lot of fun times along the way too.

Looking back, with the knowledge and wisdom I have now, I do think each of these experiences is pretty normal for people to go through, maybe not all in one lifetime but maybe so…. And in my case definitely so… But I don’t know I think I’m just kind of over it…🤷🏼‍♀️

When I reflect on many of the experiences that I’ve been through with my dating life, in hindsight they all seem pretty normal?

Especially for a young girl navigating through her 20’s anyway? 

• We’ve all been in love right?
• We’ve all had our hearts broken right?💔
• Been cheated on?
• Been in toxic relationships🧪
• Fell for the boy next door?
• Had a rebound?
• Went through the mad phase? – if you’ve not done this, me and my anxieties applaud you👏🏼
• Kissed far too many frogs?🐸
• Been stood up?
• Been left in financial difficulty (taken out loans / credit cards for people etc)
• Been taken advantage of
• Been manipulated by narcissists
• Ghosted?👻
• Had the stalkers
• Fell for the wrong guys/girls
• Dated the Bad Boys
• Dated the ‘Player’ type
• Been the cool girl? – P.S its never cool to be this girl.❌
• Fell for your friend with benefits / even had a friend with benefits
• Dated the ‘nice but not for you’ guys
• Had many funny / awful dates stories & also been the awful date.
• Turned up to a date only for your date to be sat with the boy you kissed the night before? (AWKS)🥴

Im sure there’s many more to add to that already extensive list but yeah I’m sure many of you have had these experiences too… some even may add failed marriages, custody battles, holiday romances to this too…. unless of course you managed to skip the character building stage and found your ‘one’ pretty early in life? – or maybe none of this even interests you and your happy being independent and carefree for the best of your life… that is also okay. (And a lot less stress I imagine)

There really is no right way or wrong way to do life, but I’m actually thankful for many of my experiences.

Don’t get me wrong there’s been some pretty tough times over the years with a lot of the above, many nights spent crying yourself to sleep, spending hours and hours on the phone to your best friend trying to make sense of the situations, wondering what’s wrong with you or why it went wrong, having the worst anxiety over these people knowing that they’re probably speaking to / seeing someone else, comparing yourself to the next girl… again this is another list that goes on!!

But again, its all pretty normal stuff believe it or not… Its a part of growing… of living and of learning.

Everyday we are all dealing with our own emotions, situations, and demons in our own brains, and it will often be completely different to what we were dealing with a year ago, and completely different to the next persons.

And okay many peoples experiences may be relatable, but not one person is living the same life as another. 

Its what makes our experiences unique and this thing called life crazy and exciting at times.

ones thing is for sure you learn a lot from each situation.

And okay in my experience it may have taken a good 4/5 repeated attempts at the same situations to actually learn from it but hey we got there in the end!!

So yeah I guess my original purpose now all seems pretty irrelevant.

And yes okay I could sit here and give my advice on every type of male characteristic…

Except maybe the ‘Mr Perfect / Soulmate / Husband Material’ ones…. But hey ill most certainly welcome that type and conclude this with ‘ lived happily ever after 👰🏽‍♀️💒🤵’

But again my point with all of this is that it all feels pretty irrelevant now.

And who am I to give my advice on these people?

These were my experiences, just because that happened to me doesn’t mean its going to happen to you to.

And even if it does, is my advice actually going to be beneficial anyway?

We all ignore red flags, and do what we want to do, yes we may ask for advice but being honest how often do we actually take it?

Its always so much easier from the outside looking in, but when emotionally involved in a situation, 9 times out of 10 you’re not going to listen to anybody, whether knowledgable or not.

You’re going to make your own choices and mistakes and you’ll learn from this anyway.

Its a part of growth, and its actually pretty amazing to see how deal with and get through the bad times.

This is what makes the good times even better.

So yeah, if anybody actually wants to hear the details of my mishaps, experiences with these types of people, life lessons learnt etc please do let me know and I’ll happily speak about this kind of stuff….

And if not….

Well… its been a pleasure 🙂

Thanks for your support 

XxxX 

To maybe be continued 🤪… I’ll let you decide. 

Zero Motivation – Zero Inspiration

The past few weeks I’ve felt completely unmotivated, both in my personal and professional life, and even with this blog.

I had so many ideas of what i wanted to do in terms of plans, lifestyle, goals and even topics I wanted to discuss on here…. Then all of a sudden the world opened up and it’s like everything’s taken a back seat and been put on hold again and if I’m honest I’m really struggling to shake the feeling.

I feel like I’m back to square one of not having a clear career plan, not knowing what I want to do, and not having any ‘go’ in me to do anything about it.

I feel like a have complete brain fog with so many things.

Has anybody else felt this?

I feel like because we’ve been locked up the last 12 months, as soon as there was a glimpse of freedom I’ve literally ran with it and done so much in terms of being out and being social, eating and drinking, and to be honest I feel like it’s all been too much and it’s only a couple of weeks in.

I feel like everything I’ve been working towards the last 12 months has been dumped to one side and been detrimented. I feel awful physically with too much eating and drinking, to the point where I hate myself and don’t want to be seen in public and feel so under pressure to look a certain way, and wanting to look that way also.

Does anybody else have these thoughts? Is post-pandemic anxieties a real thing??

Throughout the pandemic the quiet time and alone time has brought me so much growth and after just one month of starting to get back to normal I honestly feel panicked by everything.

Is it normal to feel this way?

I’ve longed for the world to get back to normal for 12 months and now its here I’m going into panic mode.

I feel like I need more time to get back on track. And the more I think about it, the more ‘off track’ I feel.

As an introvert I really value my own space, self-care time, and quality time I choose to spend with the people I love much more than being surrounded by strangers just to be social. I like routines, schedules, early nights feeling healthy and being in control of situations. However the past few weeks since the reopenings, i’ve completely lost sight of all of this and as daft as it may sound I feel exhausted. And its only been a month.

Has anybody else felt exhausted / unmotivated recently?

A bit of a random post and completely off subject but my purpose with these blogs was to be completely transparent and honest in the life of a normal 30 year old and sometimes we don’t always feel ‘on top of our game’ or at our best, so this is me right now, unhealthy, unmotivated and off track.

I’ve massively fell off the wagon with food, drinking, lack of motivation, uncertainty with what I want to do in life and have found myself really beating myself up and hating myself for it.

And okay maybe I shouldn’t be so open about this type of thing, I’m aware it can bring with it a lot of prejudgements but I think many of us go through elements of these feelings at times? Or maybe we don’t? And maybe its just me and my little brain thinking we all do to make me feel normal about it all? Or maybe this is all just my anxieties caused by too much alcohol at the weekend? Who knows?

But I’m only human right?… And its okay to have these thoughts every now and again? Just not okay to not acknowledge or deal with them?

So this is me putting it out there, being honest but also being aware that it’s time to make the necessary positive changes. I guess I’m writing this to keep myself accountable also and get myself back on track.

And also to let anybody else who feels this way that it’s okay. Allow yourself to feel, relax and recharge… And when you’re ready to you’ll figure out a way / put a plan in place to start over again.

This pandemic has put a strain on all of us, so let’s not be too hard on ourselves now!

How do you cope with set backs?

I really need to start practicing good habits again, and get back into a healthy routine, and start working on my goals again.

Healthy body and healthy mind really is a massive thing for me. The two really do go hand in hand.

Does anybody else feel like this works for them too? Having a set plan to stick to and keeping yourself accountable?

I’d love to hear some top tips for getting back on track, goal setting and working on these.

I’d love if you would share your best practices which you have adopted to build healthy habits, routines, career plans and goals.

Thanks for listening

Much Love

Kayleigh xxx

Catfish & Social Media

Okay so first of all lets start with the facts:

What is a catfish?

A catfish is someone who uses false information to cultivate a persona online that does not represent their true identity.

what is cat fishing?

Catfishing is a deceptive activity where a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking platform, usually targeting a specific victim.

In basic terms:

A catfish is someone who fakes an identity in order to manipulate another person, for financial gain or to cyber bully an individual. – Yes this is a real thing, and yes it happens.

In fact a recent stat has shown that romance scams (cat fishing) are now bigger than online shopping fraud. It’s a real issue.

In 2020 over £68million pound was lost by victims as a result of romance scams (cat-fishing)

Now you’re probably sat thinking okay so where’s she going with this???

Has she been catfished? etc…

Not exactly no… (in fact not at all no)

However the reason for me touching on this subject is because the term ‘CATFISH’ gets thrown around these days like something stupid, and not with the correct connotations.

& yes I’ve been on the receiving end of this, hence my reason for sharing.

As you’re probably already aware, the word catfish is also a label used by certain individuals to criticise another individual for their looks (ie. looking different to their photographs – and yes many of us are guilty of a slight filter, me included)

Many individuals who use this term, often cyber bully’s (the real catfishes), set up fake profiles, to hide behind screens, and use social media to terrorise individuals about their looks, their livelihoods and often their families.

Our generation has witnessed many lives which have been taken as a result of cyber bullying and the mental health issues connected to social media, and yet there are still individuals out their contributing to this madness.

I struggle to understand how certain individuals make use of their valued time, by bringing harm / torment to others in this way.

But the truth is… it still happens.

So lets be real and talk about it.

I recently did a poll asking what pressures people feel from society and the highest responses were:

⁃ To look a certain way (more beautiful, some even used the word ‘perfect’)

⁃ Pressure from Social Media

First of all… I think its important to identify that Social media is a highlight reel of peoples lives.

And the majority of what you see is edited, filtered, staged and posed.

We follow influencers, models and icons in awe of their style, looks and figures and yes 99% of these images which you see will have been edited in some way, so I think its always important to be mindful that what you see online is not always a true reflection.

Many individuals choose to only portray themselves living their best lives and sharing best images, with a full face of make-up, in their best outfits, after selecting 1 photo from 100 potential photos which have been taken. (Okay so maybe not everyone… but a lot of people do this, myself included on occasions – and you can guarantee each of us has criticised every photo, identified every flaw, and are aware of all of our bad angles – before taking on the criticism from anyone else)

Moving on to the real elephant in the room and the main issue here…FILTERS

We all feel the pressures ❤ … Do not be a troll… Do not criticise… This is social media and we’re guilty of this!… We love you KOKO!

And okay yes, we can all be guilty of adding a filter or an edit every now and again… (me included)… its 2021!

Filters on apps such as snapchat, face app, instagram and many more create a more beautiful version of ourselves and our features.

These are unrealistic creations and the image displayed by these apps causes us to be unhappy with our real life image and complexion.

Filters are enhancements, it is what it is, and unfortunately as a generation we’ve become accustomed to this.

And yes although I am guilty of participating in this culture…I agree that it is problem…. It is not a true reflection… it is not real life.

Does that make me (or anyone else for that matter) a CATFISH?…. Depending on who you ask Maybe so??… I’m a big girl, I can take it.

But the questions is… why do we do it?

Why do we edit / filter ourselves?

I obviously can’t answer for everyone, but I know for myself it is quite simply because it makes me feel better about my appearance, more in line with the social media standards and more accepting of myself. (We all have insecurities)

Yes this is vanity, and I agree that the world would probably be a much better place without it.

But again…. It’s 2021 and this is the world we live in!

If only we could strip it back and become happy with our true image, the unedited unfiltered version of ourselves.

If we could ban all filters and be more authentic.

I’d love for this to become the new normality… for people to feel happy and confident in their own skin, myself included.

Should we start a movement?…

Are we Brave enough?…

@thirtysomethingtruths …. My Reality Vs. Insta….. Unfiltered V.s FaceApp

And if were not brave enough, does this mean we should be criticised for it?… I personally don’t think so.

Should we be mindful of it?… Most definitely

Now lets talk about another form of enhancement…. Make-Up!

Because lets face it, we all look different, with and without it (Yes… Guilty 🙋🏼‍♀️)

It doesn’t matter if you’re Hayley Bieber, Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid… even the most beautiful people in the world look different with and without make-up. Now this does not mean your face is not beautiful without it, it is… but make up enhances our features, which in turn does make us appear more beautiful according to social standards. The art of contouring and highlighting creates the illusion that our noses are smaller, jaw lines more prominent, cheek bones appear enhanced and lips appear fuller…. These are just half of the tricks in the book, and I think its important to recognise that people do not look like this 24/7.

In normal everyday life, If you catch the majority of us emptying the bin, nipping to the petrol station or running into the local shop (with the hope that we won’t bump into anyone) there’s a high possibility that we do look like the walking dead… (I’ll throw in after a workout there too, because if you’ve seen me leaving any gym class, then you’ll understand).

Add in the fact that we’re in the middle of a national lockdown, and I don’t know about you guys but I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve actually worn normal clothes and worn a full face of make-up.

So if you see me out and about on one of my 3 walks a day, or running in and out of Tesco then yes… guaranteed, I for one, will most definitely look different to how I look with a full face of make-up (Guilty 🤷🏼‍♀️)

Does wearing make up now make someone a catfish too?…

I don’t know about you guys, but I look like a real life Morticia when I wake up in the morning, but I choose not to display this on my social media…

Why?…. because no one needs that kind of fright first thing of a morning… so that is my kind daily gesture to you all.

But on a serious note… Can we please get rid of the ‘catfish’ catcalling / name calling / trolling or whatever you want to call it for non-genuine cases of ‘cat-fishing’ (as listed in the first paragraphs above)… its unnecessary, a waste of valuable brain power and energy.

Use that stuff for something more useful… spread some positivity out there instead.

The world needs far more of that than the negative stuff 😘

So a couple of things to take away from this:

1. Cat fishing is a form of manipulation, a false indentity used to target a victim.

2. Be mindful when using social media that a lot of what you see is filtered / edited and you are beautiful in real life as you are, unfiltered.

3. If posting a nice picture makes someone happy then let them post that picture without criticism. If you don’t like it, dont be a troll… use that thumb to scroll past it (respectfully)

4. If you see me around my apartment, in tescos, in the gym, or at any other venue other than my work or a social gathering, DO NOT BE ALARMED 🙂

5. Catfishing is a real thing – Use it to spread real awareness by alerting your friends on dating apps etc, to be careful to not fall victim of romance scams.

6. Let’s try to be more unfiltered… more authentic 💛

Thank for listening….

Goodnight x

Have you ever been called a catfish?

The beginning: Puppy Love 👩‍❤️‍👨 – An overview of my first romantic experiences 🤍

So by now a few of you may have read my first blog post about how I’m not quite where society tells us to be in life, and based on feedback I’ve decided to give this thing a real shot and share some truths of my life so far. So thank you if you have read it, and if not I hope you enjoy reading this one.

I’ve been battling with myself over where to start or what direction to take this and then I figured ‘F’ it. My purpose for this blog was to share my Truths so here goes… the Beginning.

I’m not sure about you guys but I feel like I discovered boys from a pretty young age.

It was Valentine’s Day, year 3 (primary school), I went into my school tray (if you didn’t have one of these, did you even go to primary) to find a purple glitter wiggly worm, a multicoloured heart bracelet, a rose and a packet of love hearts, along with a love letter. ‘Will you go out with me?’… So romantic, who could say no to that?… it was the wiggly worm which did it for me 😍(is it just me or do they look a bit like a willy) 🙈

Not one to turn down a present, of course I said yes & this person was now my boyfriend. And I think it lasted a good few weeks (about average for all of my future boyfriends, we really set the tone here Chris! I guess consistency is key after all)

But yeah anyway back to the story… so after Chris, I then went out with his best friend (I know, I know – bad move, but hey I was like 7/8 at the time, leave a girl alone, and ‘Going out’ consisted of spending break times chasing each other around the playground playing tick – the good old days)… They both turned out to be gay 🤷🏼‍♀️ true story!!… you get where we’re going with this don’t you!…. lovely guys by the way. Now, they knew how to treat a lady!.. Although one of their sisters does like to remind me that it was my fault he turned out gay 🤷🏼‍♀️… again I’m sorry!! I was the least girliest girl after all!!

The following year i had my first real ‘puppy love’ experience… some would call it a crush.

I’ll never forget the day I went in to school, tired from being at the pictures until after 10pm on a school night with my dad (this made me cool & even cooler that the film we went to watch was a 12 (rating) – I was 9 at the time – Rock and roll lifestyle). Obviously I bragged to my friends that I was sooo tired from going to watch a 12. ‘Can you believe they let me in for a 12?’ (Made up weren’t I)

And then it happened, the cute boy in my class asked about the film… ‘it was the new bond film, The world is not enough, it’s so cool! You should watch it.’… James loved the bond films, James was cool too… He’d watched it! And that’s when the crush happened!! 👩‍❤️‍👨 we became friends.

So not long after this James split up with his gf, (I did get a heads up, his best friend told me he was splitting up with her and was going to ask me out – it’s how we did things back in the day) secretly made up & also a bit sad for the other girl, the next day he asked me to ‘go out with him’ (that meant be his girlfriend for anyone who didn’t know – still in yr 4 primary here people, and he did wait a day like a real gentleman after all) of course I said Yes!… OVER THE MOON! My little heart was made up ♥️

So after this, as kids we kind of switched boyfriends and girlfriends a lot between my friendship group. It was kind of a flavour of the week type of arrangement, too many triangles, but my heart at this point always belonged to James. My mum even made me get him a Christmas present one year. I took it into school & then later that evening he knocked on my door with one for me too… I think his mum felt bad for me. 😂 However I cherished that roll on perfume and the lip balm that came with it too. In a green box from boots with a silver bracelet. It was my favourite present!! And after Xmas I wore it every single day for school, forever grateful that the one I ‘loved’ had gifted it to me. Honestly, I wore it like a trophy! 😂

Next we had the school trip to France – I was now going out with one of James’ best friends, and James was with one of my best friends… We were at a street market in France, and the boys decided they’d buy the girls a present. Except rather than each buy for their own girlfriends, they decided they’d buy a present for each others girlfriend (again palpitations here… James wanted to buy the present for me 💃🏼😍😂) so cute, oh so cute!!… and yep soon after, because of this, we were back together again. Young loves dream!

We were real cute at this stage… but then back in the UK, towards the end of the year, during a study session in a classroom full of people watching revise-wise, it all came tumbling down.

We sat there with our hands held under a jacket so no one could see, (our other friends did the same too) the light came on, and the teacher annihilated us!! When I say us, it was just me and James who were caught, took the wrap didn’t we!… The teacher shouted at us in front of the whole class for holding hands & I (being who I am as a person) went beetroot (my face was purple with embarrassment)… So yeah we were caught, told it was naughty and I then cried… Not cool!… I even went to the school later that evening on my bike to apologise to the teacher for holding hands, and promised that I wouldn’t do it again, and that my grades really mattered to me. 🙈😂 I have to laugh now… it was like I was in a nunnery being punished for my sins 😩😂 we were just kids holding hands. 🙈 My boyfriend dumped me after this, he found out I’d rode to the school to apologise… did I tell you i weren’t cool?

Then high school happened. And that was a whole other shit show for me… I’ll save the main details of that era for the next episode 💃🏼 But I may aswel finish off the tales of the puppy love guy in this one…

So that classic thing happened which you see in movies… we got to high school, he was in the cool crowd… I weren’t. We literally had zero interactions from the day we started senior school until the famous ski trip which we went on in year 10. So here it is the final chapter on that episode.

I honestly couldn’t believe I’d made it onto the trip. My parents were really struggling at the time, I remember getting buses with my dad, walking for miles to this ski shop in the middle of nowhere to go and rent out the ski wear. My dad hoping they’d take a cheque (knowing it would bounce)… still hoping I’d get to go on the trip and that he’d somehow figure it out. He knew I desperately wanted to go on the trip. I wish I’d known how badly they really couldn’t afford for me to… yet he made it happen. That part hurts my heart the most. Another thing we’ll touch on in later blogs however for the purpose of this story we’ll get back to the ski trip.

It took us 2 days to get to Italy, we slept on a coach, and took turns swapping seats so we didn’t get bored and had someone new to talk to… I somehow ended up next to James at one point and this would be the first time we’d spoken in years.

We bonded over football, he let me watch Max and Paddy on his portable DVD player, I even had his LFC pillow. Butterflies were a real thing… A few hours later once I’d drained the full battery on his DVD player, (oops) I went in the bag under my seat for a drink. My dad had been to Aldi the night before and packed a load of sweets and drinks. The bag had been rolling around on the floor under my feet, and me opening what I thought was still water, opened the lid on the bottle…. of course, the inevitable happened, (it could only happen to me)… sticky fizzy strawberry flavoured water squirted everywhere!! & I mean everywhere…. All over me… all over James LFC pillow (which he’d now have to sleep with for a week)… and his portable DVD player. I’ve never wanted to disappear so much in my whole life! A part of me actually died inside. There I was completely uncool again!!James didn’t even go mad about it, he was a nice guy really, I just knew that it was back to loserville for me 😞😩

My only other memories from that ski trip were of the boy who broke his leg and the day I landed in a snow plough and stood up to people laughing at me for having 2 circle shaped snow balls dangling from my groin area. (I had a hair attached to my pants – somehow it managed to happen, I still haven’t been able to erase it from memory)… oh and they gave me angel wings to wear that evening at the awards ceremony too for ‘embarrassing moment’ of the trip, just to top it off.

After that trip it was easy to let go of the idea of my first crush… there comes a time in every girls life that you’ve just got to accept the reality, & that sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.

So there you have it – my puppy love story.

I hope you enjoyed the read.

Sharing this has been an experience of its own 🤍

Look out for my next blogpost at http://www.thirtysomethingtruths.com