feels – Rosie Culture

Being Second Best

Who doesn’t like to win? We are wired to be the best we can be and it’s a very disrupting feeling to know you’re coming in second to someone – especially in relationships.

It’s a hookup culture, we know that a lot of people are hooking up with more than one person at a time. We accept it, because we’re probably doing it too. What hurts is knowing you are not someone’s number one choice.

You could get cheated on. You could be the person being held on the back burner while the person you like is in a relationship. You could be the second option when it comes to a booty call. You could be the afterthought.

All of these things and more will make you believe that you are second best. If you get cheated on, you’ll believe it’s because someone else is better than you. Someone made a greater offer, was prettier, or smarter – just overall better than you.

You could be held on the back burner, even participate in someone’s cheating in their relationship. But if you were the one they wanted to be with, you would be. There’s obviously someone else who means more.

You probably know when you’re hooking up with someone if they are also hooking up with other people. You’re not the first call, there was someone more worthy than you. But you were just more available.

Overall, it sucks to be the second option – so don’t make yourself the second option. If your crush wants someone else, let them have it. Don’t be the rag doll to be picked up and played with sporadically. It may make you feel good for a while – to have your first choice pick you first for once too – but it will only make you feel worse in the end. You’ll never come in first to these people, at least not morally. Come first in your own life and find someone who will always make you feel like you’ve won.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/128539140@N03/

PostGrad

Why Your Best Friends Are Your Actual Soulmates

How many times have we heard the Sex and the City quote: “Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with.”

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jessevaughan/

It really couldn’t be more true. I spent a large part of my young life in a relationship that I used to replace friendships. My high school friends weren’t all that great and when a boy who cared about me came along, I used it as an excuse to get out of friendships that weren’t going anywhere anyway.

It all changed when I went to college and when I became single.

Never in a million years did I think that I would have the friends I have now. They are beautiful people who are always right behind me, ready to push me up when I’m about to fall. Friends are your true soulmates because in a relationship or not, they will always be there.

I’ve found myself, as a single gal, doing things with my friends that most people do with their significant other. Going out to dinner, to the movies, and on adventures aren’t solely activities that can be done with a boyfriend or girlfriend. In the lull between relationships, friends will be there to watch Netflix with you and binge eat Dominos pizza with you because they want to. When you are in a relationship, friends will still be on the sideline, stepping in every so often.

Your friends hang out with you because they love you and think you’re a good time. They don’t have to pencil you into their schedule. There is no sense of obligation when your friends are your soulmates because you always want to see them.

You don’t need them all the time, but they’re always there when you need them. There is an amount of love that doesn’t need to be spoken, but can be felt every time you’re crying from laughing so hard or laughing after you’re done drunkenly crying too hard. Not every friend deserves the label of “soulmate”, but to those who find their true soulmates – you are one of the luckiest people in the world.

Relationships

Were You Really In Love With Your First Love?

Your first love more often than not leads to your first heartbreak. It’s a hard lesson most of us have to learn, but in the end it’s for the better.

Initially, I blamed my ex. Called him every name in the book, drunk dialed too many times to count, cried like the world was ending, and told everyone how I had gotten screwed over.

Then, I asked myself a lot of questions. Was this my fault? Could I have been a better girlfriend? Would it have worked out at a different time? Did we love each other at all? Did we like each other at all?

Most of these questions I still revisit to this day, because a year and a half of being single has left me still not sure I want a relationship – like, ever. It probably was a little bit my fault and I definitely could have been a better girlfriend if the timing circumstances were different. Although, if we had met 5 years in the future, we probably wouldn’t have anything in common and I probably wouldn’t be who I am today – which is someone I am 80% content with (there’s always room for improvement). There wouldn’t have been any of the drama to overcome and I wouldn’t be so doe-eyed and naïve, it just would’ve been different.

I think most relationships that don’t work out go like this: They love each other at one point and like each other for a while. But being in love quickly turns to just love which quickly turns to caring and comfort. Liking each other quickly turns to tolerating each other which quickly turns to being stuck.

It starts as a fairy tale romance, but year after year we ignore how our relationships grow worse and worse. Is that what being in love is like? Being a part of something so grand that begins to dull and lose its spark but we deal with it because nothing gold can stay?

In the end, I don’t know if you were really in love with your first love because it all depends on how you feel with your last love. I haven’t had much to compare it to since, but I look forward to finding out if you can fall in love more than once or if you get one shot and it’s over.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/roel1943/

Hook Ups

Being Quick To Kiss

Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/skohlmann/

When we were young and first being exposed to love, everything came so slowly. You’d see a boy or girl you liked and instantly get this distant feeling of butterflies. You’d hang out with that person amongst friends, look forward to seeing them in class, make sure everything was just right when you knew they’d be around.

Then slowly, you would hang out alone. You would break away from the crowd and sit next to each other when everyone was watching a movie together. You’d start texting a little, because knowing everything about someone really wasn’t an option when we were doe-eyed freshman in high school.

One day, you’d kiss. And that would be it. You wouldn’t kiss and immediately expect more. There was no need for going any further because the feeling of one kiss made your head buzz with a feeling of satisfaction.

Now, no one is going to walk you home from the bar at 2 AM just to give you a kiss and say good night. You won’t hang out with a boy or girl for weeks, making sure that everything is perfect when you know you’re going to run into them amongst friends. Because you’re going to go on dates and dates end in being kissed and being kissed leads to so much more. Or you’re going to meet them drunk and reveal everything to them in one night.

Everything happens so fast. It’s not always a bad thing, though. Not every person you meet is relationship material. It just seems that if you’re not moving too quick to put a silent label on everything, then you’re moving too quick to make sure there is anything but a label on it.

Relationships

Summer of Feels

Picture by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9619972@N08/

It’s summer and everyone is tan, everyone is “bikini ready”, and everyone is wearing their cutest outfits. Cue the feels.

When summer break starts, you’re either going home, to a vacation spot for the summer, or staying at your university. In any of these options, you’re going to make a main group of friends that you hang out with consistently all summer. And let’s face it, summer is never as exciting as we want it to be.

All year we think about the fun in the sun opportunities that await us, then end up overeating on our couch and watching reruns of Boy Meets World. At school, we go out and drink at least four times a week. During these outings, we’re consistently meeting new people. And that is not always the case during summer.

So, when you’re hanging out with the same people all the time, you’re going to build friendships and relationships that you normally wouldn’t have. That boy you’ve known for a year now suddenly seems so much more mature and good looking than he did when he was funneling a beer in your living room last November. Hookups happen, and after those hookups happen you realize you don’t have too many options for more hookups – so you continue it. Then you catch the feels, you spend all this time with someone in fun and intimate situations and you end up thinking that this is real. This could be a relationship. Come September, you’ll have a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Now take a step back. Because come September, you’ll be greeted by all your old friends and flings. You’ll be going out four times a week again and meeting a new hottie tottie at the bar every week. Now that summer fling doesn’t seem so appealing, they seem clingy. You both lost your tan, you’ve gained your relationship gut, and stopped dressing up to impress each other.

Enjoy the feels, but leave them in the sand and sun. Start your school year flirty and single, because soon enough the temperatures will drop and you’ll need a cuddle buddy. Cuffing season is always a winter away!

PostGrad

Your Go-To Graduation Soundtrack

Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gadgetdude/

Well, sorry to remind you all, but graduation is just around the corner. If you’re graduating, these songs are going to mostly make you sad with a little bit of happy. Just a warning though – if you listen to these songs with your friends while consuming alcohol, you are going to cry and it is going to be a mess.

1. Good Riddance – Green Day

Come on, you can’t listen to this song without the past four years flashing before your eyes.

2. Friends Forever – Vitamin C

You’re going to cry even if you’re sober and listening to this with your friends.

3. Vienna – Billy Joel

In general, I’m just a huge fan of this song. But it also reminds you to enjoy your youth.

4. Unwritten – Natasha Bedingfield

This song was performed at Degrassi’s prom so like how can you not love it?

5. I’ll Be There For You – The Rembrandts

The perfect theme song from Friends!

6. The Climb – Miley Cyrus

*feels*

7. True Colors – Cyndi Lauper

Trust me on this one.

8. Soco Amaretto Lime – Brand New

It’s all about those times you sat on the roof or porch of your house during the day and got drunk with your best friends.

9. Swing Life Away – Rise Against

“I’ve got some friends, some that I hardly know, we’ve had some times I wouldn’t trade for the world.”

10. Breathe – Anna Nalick

Seriously, breathe, you’re gonna be alright after you graduate!

11. All The Small Things – Blink 182

It’s the little things that count the most.

12. What’s My Age Again – Blink 182

You can never have enough Blink 182

13. Drops of Jupiter – Train

Sing it loud and proud with your best friends.

14. Give It Up – The Format

(Same lead singer as FUN so seriously listen to it.)

15. We Are Young – Fun

Cause we’re young.

16. Photosynthesis – Frank Turner

“So I guess I can confess that I am starting to get old…”

17. Time After Time – Quietdrive (Cyndi Lauper cover)

It’s a classic!

18. Brat Pack – The Rocket Summer

All about kicking back with your friends.

19. Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus

Even though we aren’t teenagers anymore…

20. American Girl – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

“She couldn’t help thinking that there was a little more to life somewhere else. After all, it was a great big world with lots of places to run to.”

21. Free Falling – Tom Petty

I guess you could listen to the John Mayer version, but like Tom Petty…

22. Started From the Bottom – Drake

Now we’re here!

23. Closing Time – Semisonic

Enough said.

Comment your graduation songs below and I might add them to the list! Now the next time it’s sunny and warm: get your friends, get some alcohol, and get drunk and cry on your porch happily/sloppily.