on being a ~chalant~ woman

first post, have never felt less neurotic

what i feel like while posting this

I recently read a Substack post by a writer I like, titled “the nonchalance epidemic”, and it resonated with me so powerfully that I’ve decided to finally put on my big girl pants and post on here myself. She wrote, “it sucks the life out of you, this unspoken agreement that nothing can be too important” and it occurred to me how much of who I am is limited and has been washed away by trying to appear casual. I am not nonchalant in nature, I am passionate, and excitable, and I care very deeply about many, many things. I often feel a hangover of embarrassment after spending time with groups of people I don’t know very well because I assume they’re all thinking how deeply unchill I am (a bit narcissistic of me, I’m aware). Sometimes I even daydream about being perceived as mysterious and aloof. I’m neither of those things and trying to be isn’t going to make me more interesting or appealing to anyone, least of all myself.

So, here’s the first of what may be many posts detailing just how immensely chalant (how is that not a word?) I have always been. I wrote this, as well as a long stream of consciousness to follow it, at the beginning of this year, in an attempt to follow through with a New Year’s resolution about ‘being myself’, and ‘putting myself out there’. Obviously that didn’t materialise, but now, inspired by

kitty

and the many impassioned women writers who came before, I’m posting it to my 2 loyal subscribers- thank you to my dear uni friend

Sylvie Yee

and my dad.

For my entire life thus far, or at least the decade and a half of it that I can actually remember, I have been ruled by a series of obsessions. By this I am referring to far more than just an all-consuming love of One Direction from age 12 through 15, a genuine belief at 14 that if I watched every second of Troye Sivan’s YouTube videos and commented on each and every one he would eventually notice me and we would mutually fall in love (only slightly hindered by his coming out), or at 15, an undying Tumblr-fuelled infatuation with every single word ever written by John Green. These, I would consider relatively developmentally normal, albeit causes for some embarrassment later in my teen years. The many other obsessions that I can recall range from a plethora of parasocial relationships with celebrities, YouTubers, writers, musical artists, historical figures, fictional characters from tv shows and film, to months of researching moments in history, sociopolitical events and controversies, serial killers, and cults, etc, the list is indefinite. The thing that connects all of them is a paralysing feeling of shame about just how all-consuming each one becomes, and a subsequent complete inability to shut the fuck up about them. Seriously, no matter how hard I have tried to keep my frenzied thoughts to myself, I have never had any control over them and will compulsively tell every single family member, friend, flatmate, therapist, and boyfriend I’ve ever had about as many facts, details, or myths associated with whatever current passion I am absorbed in. This isn’t helped by my predisposition for yapping, I have had some positive and a lot of constructive feedback from everyone in my life since the day I learned to form sentences about how I do just talk an excessive amount.

It’s not that I genuinely believe that the constant stream of consciousness coming out of my mouth is remotely interesting or valuable to anyone around me, often I feel the complete opposite and am willing myself to please just STOP TALKING, but especially when it comes to a current obsession, I haven’t mastered that kind of self-control yet. However, while bothering the people in my life with every minute detail of what I’m currently enthralled with is something I do believe I need to get a handle on, I have resolved in this, my 27^th year, to shed some of the shame I have carried regarding this specific obsessive-interest-based personality trait of mine. And more importantly, lean into the joy, fulfilment, and even education they often bring me.

So, I think writing about each of my obsessions in a more public place than my many diaries and notebooks could be a really viable and constructive way to express and work through the details of them, hopefully thereby limiting my need to share everything with the people in my immediate vicinity, while still honouring this part of who I am and the things I love. Also this way, if someone finds me irritating, or naïve, or too opinionated, or any of the other adjectives used to describe people (mainly women) who are anything but nonchalant, they can just choose not to read or subscribe to my writing, and I never have to know or worry about that while I try to go to sleep.

Incoming: lots and lots of posts about Ireland. Which, as we all know, is to bisexual women what Japan is to straight men.

Ro x