The Julia.
One of my closest friends is a straight up Hussey and my sound board on the hotline bling. She is wickedly beautiful, smart, entrepreneurial, a style guru, speaks multiple languages and is loved by all that meet her. We are both only children with very absent fathers and bonded immediately when we realized we were the exact same age living in the big city of London with our own companies. One aspect of our lives that we always found it hard to wrap our heads around was relationships and men in general. We found that we had a similar scenario repeating itself. We would meet a guy, have the greatest time with him, he would seemingly be so happy with us, then disappear only to reappear once he is in a relationship with a woman that was vastly different from us. Then the subtle signs of him trying to get back into our life would surface in the form of texts and phone calls and then the obvious "I miss you" would leak out of his mouth even though his simple and pretty girlfriend was on the other side of the room.
We had to investigate why this kept happening to us, so we called in my best male friend. He told us the story of Julia. The woman whom he was head over heels for.. while with his girlfriend. The woman who had her own aspirations, her own style, was unapologetic and loved to experience the wild, indulgent, exciting aspects of life. The woman who truly has her shit together. So much so, to the point of seeing her vulnerable is so rare it's overwhelming to be the cause of her hurt yet endearing to see her be human. Julia was the woman that was the fantasy to be with, but the ultimate risk because she makes the man feel like he isn't needed. He left Julia and broke her heart.
It clicked for me and my girl then. We were Julia. We are that woman that is so focused on providing for ourselves, working hard for our dreams and living our own fast paced life. We seek love and affection but will not sacrifice our momentum to entertain and stroke a boy's ego. I would see it happen to my girl over and over! A man would be totally transfixed by her in every way, then freak out and one month later he has a girlfriend who was a typical "beige cardigan" type. We would be out at an event only to see her phone buzzing with messages of, "I miss you, can I see you again? She just isn't like you.."
I am an absolute sucker for being in love. Just one big hopeless romantic on this keyboard. But I am a wild at heart, gypsy-esque, outgoing woman who never asks a man for anything because I'm too damn proud. I stand behind my words when I spell out that I do not need a man. But there is a difference between needing one and desiring love. As a Julia, it is obvious to most men that I do not need them, and they feel that. The weaker men run away from it because they need the ego stroke to feel validation, whereas the real men lock it down because they understand that a woman capable of taking care of herself is a powerful partner to have. The latter is a very, very small pool which means that we keep dating boys. Ultimately... it is so discouraging!
Just because Julia is a strong, enigmatic creature of the city, does not make her heart any more hard. When she is hurt, the experience only makes her hustle harder. That is her form of revenge and dismissing yet another boy who will never be as good as her. Through his acts of insecurity and selfishness, he lowers himself on the scale of being a true man while simultaneously pushing her up to reach her stars. Because she is a strong, independent woman who doesn't sulk over men, but uses it as fuel to climb and leave her mark.
We were on the phone together recently for a solid three hours. We came to this conclusion as we both had just finished yet another dating escapade with our "men". We would rather be self made, hustling, successful, smart, hot ass women well into our thirties and single than sacrifice a part of our intelligence for a man who would provide us security at a cost of settling. It's hard, because we want a man to support us and all our endeavors and wild antics. But as long as we have each other, our vintage furs, and money in the bank, we remind ourselves every day that life is not worth settling for. Especially when it comes to the man who shares our gorgeously designed flat.
"Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with."
