"nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"

8 hours of sleep every night. A ketogenic diet every weekend and intermittent fasting always. Don’t forget those two litres of water — never flavoured because sugar ages you. 10,000 steps before noon and yoga to boost immunity. Eating fruit with pesticides? You don’t know what you’ve just done. A balanced diet is key to weight loss but inject yourself with diabetes medication for faster results.

So, I’m scared to smoke cigarettes because of the wrinkles. The carcinogens don’t bother me nearly as much — who cares about cancer when you might look 50 at 20? Drinking Coke makes me feel deserving of capital punishment and don’t get me started on whole milk. (The influencers don’t do pasteurised anymore, haven’t you learnt anything?). There’s certain expectations to being a woman and you either follow the rules or you don’t matter at all.

Women’s bodies are scrutinised until they’re deemed worthy of acceptance, because life only functions if we’re desirable. It’s a basic necessity, a requirement that regulates us so we don’t dare to leave cellulite untouched or acne uncovered. Masses of people flooding comment sections, letting young girls know that their skin texture is visible and why they’d even think of leaving their house like that. Society keeping us in check because women liking themselves is a thought too unpalatable — who would fund the $625 billion dollar beauty industry then? What happens when we decide we’re more than our appearance?We are taught from everybody around us that we only matter when we’re seen. That we are only important in our desirability to men and as soon as that subsides there’s nothing left. Society, we are told, is not broken — it is us who needs to change. Because whilst men are afforded complexities to their character, women do not exist beyond their bodily frame. I mean, how can we?

So, the dieting begins and now we know what it means to have a dermabrasion. Our identity rests on our ability to have supplements and insert a millimetre of filler into our faces. As long as we remain beautiful we are tolerable — we are nicer, funnier, better versions of ourselves. We are listened to, understood. The hair appointments and green smoothies and botox deemed necessary for our survival, because the moment we stop there’s consequences. Otherwise the comments start and we become invisible, only to be seen as human the moment we put out makeup back on.

But wait, there’s also a correct way to be beautiful. Inject yourself with as much Ozempic as you’d like, but don’t make it known. That’s a cardinal rule. Because you’re cheating the system now, aren’t you? You’re doing it all wrong and that’s another thing you should be shamed for — not the toxic society that has perpetuated these norms in the first place. So eat your veggies in public and make that doctor’s appointment in private, and if you can’t afford the jab just buy it on the black market. Easy enough, right?

It’s an ongoing list of rules that grows longer by the day, contradictory in nature and fervent in its attempts to control women. A cycle that never stops. There are rules to our existence.

I don’t care if vanilla perfume makes me more desirable to men.

I can never seem to escape the TikTok videos spritzing a gourmand eau de toilette, promising that upon purchasing I’ll be irresistible — edible even. That all I need to do is speak slightly softer, stop swearing, react gently to conflict. And then I’ll finally be ready for the attention that is waiting for me, attention that I’m suddenly now deserving of. Social media posts which feel so incredibly dystopian, telling millions of girls that they’re only loved if they become somebody else. Because being their actual selves is unacceptable, off-putting and never enough.

It makes me sad to think that beautiful women — made beautiful by their hobbies, the way they love, their passion for life — are forced to conform to the rigid confines of a superficial and authoritarian society. A society with rules that only apply to us, that are specifically curated to ensure we don’t recognise ourselves beyond our physicality. I think I’ve just about had enough.

So as I navigate my early twenties I am trying to look at my life differently. I tell myself I am more than how I am physically perceived — I am somebody who has just moved to the other side of the world, who is adventurous and fun and has no idea what she is doing sometimes. I can speak (almost) fluent Spanish and I love writing more than I know. I cry too much at romantic comedies and I only drink coffee with vanilla syrup.

I am starting to think about what I want, beyond what society demands from me. Because the rules that are implemented are rules which can never be fulfilled, as you are left chasing an impossible ideal that shifts with every passing moment. Heroin chic, clean girl, cottage core. When are we going to stop assigning labels and care about what actually matters?