As grown women, it’s likely that we’ve experienced more than one kind of break-up. The dissolving of a romantic relationship is heart-breaking. The blow-up of a friendship, especially with another woman, feels soul breaking. 

When we open ourselves up to other women to be comrades, confidants, and soul sisters, we entwine our roots ourselves. We take a different kind of vow together. We are there for one another no matter what. And when that unravels, the loneliness hits us differently. 

Growing up without a sister of my own, I never knew how much to give my female relationships. It was a balancing act to learn. And what I learned is that I over gave. 

As an over-giver, our boundaries are flexible. And we show up for our partners and friends first before ourselves because we crave connection and a sense of belonging. As an over-giver we go through life, whether intentionally or unintentionally, developing limiting beliefs, shaped and molded by society, our environment, parents and friends. The standards of what we should and shouldn't be, what’s worthy and acceptable are shaped by everyone around us. 

Gratefully, as we age and evolve so do our beliefs about ourselves, relationships and boundaries. During a coming-of-age experience, I found myself in the throes of a toxic conversation with a woman I cherished. We were dear friends and we invested a lot of energy and time in one another for years. 

And that moment I knew, the accusation I was under wasn't about me. Once I was able to recognize this, I took a step back entirely from the interrogation and was able to watch it unfold through a lens of compassion and empathy. Now, my problem-solving mind immediately wanted to help, but I had to remind myself that this wasn't about me; it was about her. She needs to move through her story and her beliefs in her own time.

We can’t control how people treat us. We can control how we respond to their treatment and this opportunity was a true testament to how I responded to being poorly treated by a friend. 

If someone is a genuine person, they’d have our best interest at heart. Arguments happen in every relationship. When we feel we’re being attacked for who we are or what we’ve accomplished, it’s time to reflect and make a different choice. 

Tips to Help You Stay True to You While In a Relationship:

Pause vs. React: It's in the pause, we find peace, compassion, and empathy for self and others.

Life is Happening for you, not to you: What is life trying to tell or teach you? Ask yourself why is this triggering you, is this really about you? How can you handle or diffuse this situation?

Don't take things personally: What others do and say has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Once you fully accept this, you can be at peace with who you are in your natural, vulnerable state – you.

Don't Play Small: As you grow, you outgrow – family, friends, and most of all, yourself. Playing small at the expense of others is a huge disservice to you and your creator. Don't let your light dim for others to shine. You have a fire burning inside, let it roar!

Love Yourself First: The amount of abuse you are willing to tolerate for self is the amount you are willing to accept from others. But why does it sting when others say it, not when you say it yourself? We tend to hold others to a higher standard and value their feedback, thoughts, and opinions. We want to feel validated, and worthy and if another calls us out on our lies and excuses, then it must be true. We aren't worthy. Let's learn to flip the script. See others’ lies and beliefs from a different perspective. It's not me. It's them. However, we have to take responsibility for how we see, love, accept ourselves. Our worth isn't found in others, it's found within. Know who you are and whose you are.

Boundaries:

Know your worth and respect and what you're willing to accept or compromise.

Ask yourself if this relationship is worth saving, weighing the pros and cons.

Every person is entitled to having a bad day. If there are more bad days than good ones, perhaps you’ve been shown, their true colors, and heart. Perhaps they’ve been this person all along, only you were too focused on meeting your own needs that you were blind to see the lack of respect and boundaries you deserve. 

It’s possible that we’re over-giving without even knowing it. The next time you recognize the feeling of exhaustion or defeat take a moment to question if you’re being met halfway.

The constellation noise chimes on my phone. I roll over and stretch to read what is prompting the buzzing that woke me mid REM sleep. His name lights up my vibrating screen, and my heart skips a beat. Who am I so excited to see calling me at 2:34 am? None other than a fuck-boy.

Fuck-boys are discussed almost as much as zodiac signs today. We hear about fuck-boys acting up on Twitter, we snicker at fuck-boys during class, and most of all, we fall for fuck-boys on the reg. I don’t think I ever denied it happening to me. I don’t think I didn’t believe in them. I definitely saw them, and understood how horrible they were. But I never realized how lucky I was to refrain from falling for a fuck-boy until recently.

I guess the guys I spend my time around are pretty polite. And I hadn’t fallen for a guy since I ended things with my ex (who wasn’t even close to fuck-boy status, THANK GOD.) So I guess it was just about time. After 22 years of living fuck-boy-free, I finally endured what everyone else seems to be complaining about. I fell for a fuck-boy. And nothing was ever the same.

Everyone has casual sex today. Everyone has some sort of friends-with-benefits type of relationship at some point. While decades ago, it was taboo for women to be so open about sex, to have too much sex, and to admit how much they enjoy/want/need sex, today it is not. A guy might call a girl a slut or whore, but these words don’t mean anything to us. Girls are no longer fazed by these insults. Girls are fine with having sex with no labels, with going through a variety of guys. Girls are just as quick to have a regular drunk hookup. So what has this done to guys? The fact that women are so okay with being who they are and doing something they enjoy has ultimately made men upset, of course. Because for whatever reason, guys always need the upper hand. And sex was their upper hand, but not anymore.

In order to gain back their power, men need to make women feel terrible. They need to feel wanted because men are brats. What guys hate to admit is their love for clingy girls. Guys want attention almost as much, possibly even more than girls. But they can’t say it. Enter: fuck-boys.

So a true fuck-boy does not only fuck girls. No, that’s too simple. Instead, he’ll lead her on to think he wants more. He’ll be charming and sweet, bat his beautiful eyelashes and cuddle you really tight. He’ll ask you questions like, “Why do you only hit me up when you’re drunk?” and say things like, “You never text me during the day.” When he’s doing the exact same thing. Why? Because he wants you to start acting like you want a relationship. He wants you to think he’s interested in you like that. So you’ll drop your other hookups, decline potential partners, and dedicate all your time fantasizing about him. He gets more attention, and you never get a date. Meanwhile, he’s off kissing other girls, and you’re at home, shaving, excited to spend a night with his half-hard dick and alcoholic breath, all to Uber home early in the morning before he has work.

You’ll continue this for a few months, dry texting conversations, “wyd” text messages, and best of all, 2:00 am booty calls after a night of drinking. You’ll keep thinking he’s truly interested in you. That soon enough you’ll be in a relationship and everything will be fine. But you won’t. Fuck-boy will continue living his life for himself, he’ll continue with the mixed signals. But your heart will skip a beat every time his name pops up on your screen. Then you’ll see him kissing another girl. And your heart will break.

What the fuck happened to me? You think. You started this with zero intentions of a relationship. You were having fun; you KNEW this kid was a douchebag! How could you be so dumb?! You think. But the fuck-boy knew how to get to you. He knew how to crack your walls down so you didn’t just view him as a fuck buddy.

Acting like a fuck-boy has actually nothing to do with sex. Fuck-boys have their own issues with self-esteem and need to fill a void by getting attention and validation from girls. With every simple fuck-boy move they make and get away with, they feel better about themselves. What fuck-boys don’t realize is how this affects girls mentally. If I see my fuck-boy flirting with another girl at the bar, or in a relationship with someone new on Facebook, my first reaction is Why not me? What is wrong with me? But that’s our first problem. We blame ourselves when these boys are doing this to legit everyone. You think that maybe if you looked different or acted different he would’ve dated you. But that’s not the case. These guys cheat on every girl they date, and every girl they interact with gets played the same way.

Worse than that, after realizing a guy’s a douchebag, we think we can be the special girl that changes him. We’ll think irrationally and give so much and are willing to go crazy lengths for validation from these boys because we think we’re so close to dating them, when we aren’t a second thought in their mind. People don’t change and fuck-boys don’t discriminate. They’ll treat every girl like shit until the day they decide to get it together (if they ever do.) It doesn’t matter how pretty, smart, or talented you are, the only person a fuck-boy truly likes is himself.

I must be getting old because it took me at least three weeks to finally understand what a VSCO girl is. By old I mean I’m several years out of high school. I didn’t think I’d lose the ability to keep on top of Internet trends this quickly, but oh well.

After watching hundreds of VSCO girl stories on Snapchat, I have concluded that VSCO girls are middle or high schoolers who wear enough scrunchies to cover their entire ponytail and both arms. They own several Hydro Flask water bottles each, and they save the turtles by using reusable straws. They also say “sksksksk” and “and I oop.” I had to ask my high school sister where “sksksksk” came from because—just what??

While a little trend like this is fun for a while, it will likely fade away. The one part I hope won’t fade is their effort to save the turtles. I strongly believe we should make little changes in our lives to reduce our impact on the planet.

VSCO girls have made reusable straws and water bottles cool, and everyone in school has to have them. We’ve all jumped on some product bandwagon to keep up with the cool kids—admit it. I still have a pile of Silly Bandz from middle school.

Making these products the cool things to have is a great step. I love that everyone wants them, but VSCO girls have some flaws that are countering their sustainable efforts. I’d like to bring up some suggestions to build on what they have started.

First, reusable straws are something VSCO girls are doing right. Using them instead of disposable straws prevents small, unrecyclable plastics from entering our ecosystems. The next step is to reduce the number of single-use plastic cups you use and avoid Styrofoam at all costs. Yes, you can recycle plastic cups, but limiting your use of them reduces demand and production. Styrofoam is often not recyclable, so I prefer to keep away from it completely.

Second, Hydro Flasks are another great way to reduce your plastic use. Refillable water bottles were one of the first environmentally-friendly products to become widely used, and I love seeing so many people embracing it. When I see a VSCO girl with more than two or three Hydro Flasks, I start to cringe a little.

A 32-ounce Hydro Flask is around $40. I recognize that Hydro Flask is a company trying to do good and put their profits toward nonprofits helping parks, but you are better off only buying one Hydro Flask and putting the money you save by not buying three more directly toward nonprofits.

Lastly, a big part of helping the environment, is not overconsuming. This goes for scrunchies too, unfortunately. I know how fun they are. I have a handful myself. But to help the environment, we need to reduce how much we consume.

I’m not saying a few scrunchies are single-handedly killing turtles. It’s having too many scrunchies and supporting unsustainable and unethical production facilities that has a negative impact. This is the case for any product, but fashion producers are some of the worst.

Only buying what you need and trying to purchase from companies that operate sustainably and ethically can help. Brands like Marine Layer, Everlane, Krochet Kids and Nisolo are great places to start, but there are quite a few others out there.

The VSCO girl trend has made sustainability mainstream, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. While VSCO girls saving the turtles has become a bit of a joke, the whole planet could benefit from these little changes that are easy to implement in your daily life. If it takes some high schoolers with an obsession with scrunchies to encourage people to take action, then so be it.