Julia Speaks

A guest post by the OG Julia: Lillian

I ended a relationship recently, and at some point along the way my darling friend and surrogate sister Olivia – everyone’s favourite ass-kicking, blog-writing, movie star Amazon warrior princess – wrote a blogpost for me after a Homerically long London-to-Los-Angeles facetime sesh one night: The Julia.

I shared it on my facebook wall and this shit blew up.

More than a dozen friends across multiple continents got in touch with me in the days following to be like, “That piece was REAL TALK, I am Julia too,” or “I dated a girl like that and this resonated with me,” or my favorites: “This article inspired me to drop a selfish fuckboy/have more self-respect/go out into the world today and just generally slay everything I touch.” Friends of friends who I don’t even know personally were texting the link to each other. Even weeks later, everyone I meet up with keeps asking me about it – it’s a great story, but what happens to Julia in the end?

There’s a context here that as the disseminator of this brilliant ode I feel a little obligation to provide.

Julia is the beautiful, eternal, utterly fabulous conceptual product of a night spent drinking stiff martinis and talking about ancient relationships two years ago in the bar of the Ace Hotel with one of our guy friends. Julia is the one that got away. As your girl Olivia puts it: “the woman who truly has her shit together […] the woman that was the fantasy to be with, but the ultimate risk, because she makes the man feel like he isn’t needed.”

But full story: it’s not exactly that simple. No one is that one-dimensional. Hi, I’m Julia and I don’t really have my shit together. I have hustled incredibly hard and been exceptionally independent, I do what I want and say what I feel. I’m strong and ambitious and complicated and deeply wild. I have a dope career and a nice home and an interesting life and the most beautiful exciting friends, and on most days, I am so ineffably happy with who I am and what I’m about – art and ballets and Boiler Room and symphonies, clients and contracts and pilates and sociology, flights and hotels and boys and parties, bougie restaurants and divey basements and LSD and fashion week, Shanghai, California, Dubai, New York City, beauty, pleasure, newness, grime and gluttony. Julia is a BAD BITCH with her own self-made happiness and an undrying well of self-respect. 

But thing is, I’m a good girl too. I read the newspaper and I cook sad little dinners for myself when I don’t have plans and I text my mother every day. I sleep with a little stuffed lamb that I’ve had since I was 9 every night. I listen to Classic fm like an old lady. I eat chicken nuggets in bed like a child. I get lonely sometimes just like everyone else. I cry when animals die on TV, even animated ones. I mean fuck, especially animated ones. I cry when I get hurt. I cry when I miss someone. I cry when a man betrays me. But only to myself of course. Because Julia’s the baddest bitch, right?

She totally is. But like I said in the beginning of this story – she’s a concept. I am quite tired of people wanting to be with the concept of me, and not the real woman attached. I am tired of being a checklist or a fantasy or a trophy to men who just think they want me – Julia is the woman you should want, the other half of your globe-trotting power couple, the full package wifey who crushes it daily, makes everyone happy, cashes in the money, then cooks a four-course meal in high heels; the woman who is with you because she really wants to be with you, not just because she needs you – which honestly is profusely more real and valuable. Seems simple, yeah? 

But the truth is actually even more simple: a lot of men have egos with a fragility that is proportionate to its size. What a hilarious mindfuck of social conditioning right? Women get hit on literally all the time, even like walking down the street, but straight men don’t, so the ones with a propensity for insecurity will literally do the dumbest most pathetic shit.  Burning their own house down and fucking their own shit up, JUST to get that ego stroke, that self-esteem boost, that validation. And while, conceptually, Julia is the girl they should want and would like to want, and maybe even convince themselves they want…. they aren’t really on a level to want her. Actually, what they want is someone who strokes their ego in a more basic way, even if it’s just in the background. Something a little easier and a little thirstier: the needy girl who just isn’t the one – but makes you feel like she needs you. 

Too bad women don’t actually exist in such a dichotomy. Because here’s the catch, like I said – tough badass Julia who takes no shit is also soft and sweet and shy and capable of back-breaking compromise, gentle and loyal and adoring enough to make you feel like the motherfucking king of the skies. Surprise. It just takes a little of your patience and determination and devotion to lock it down and get it right. Nothing worth having comes too easy. And as for Needy Girl? I’m sure she’s really stronger than you think, too. Her power and self-worth might be diminished and buried, but I still bet it is there somewhere inside and probably deserves to be utilised as more than just an instrument of making a fuckboy feel better about himself at night. 

Understand this also: there is only a thin line between ‘needy’ and ‘crazy’. You don’t get to complain about a girl being crazy when truth is your ego was attracted to her neediness. Because ultimately it is not really about needing and wanting, to the men who might be reading, if you take away one thing let it be this: the only distinction that matters in women is whether or not she is capable of making herself happy. She might be sweet and hot and fun, she might be a dream… but if the answer is no, that she can’t be alone, that she relies constantly on other people and things for happiness without the ability to make her own—then she’s a princess, not a queen. And being with her in any capacity will only ever make you a servant to her needs, eventually you’ll see. Only being with a queen makes a man a king. Only a woman capable of making herself happy can ultimately make you happy too. 

So, to all the Julias. Remember the same goes for him. There are boys and there are men, and giving a boy your heart to stand on will not make a man out of him, only a taller more overgrown boy. Be careful with the guy who has not yet learned this. Be careful with the guy who tells you how much he wants you but says he can’t figure you out, the one who says you’re ‘hard to read’ when what he really means is your independence threatens his confidence in your feelings for him. Beware the defensive-aggressive escalation tendencies. Beware the insecurity. (You will see it when he raises his voice to you in restaurants or demands your empathy without having the emotional intelligence to be able to give it back.) Beware a man who can lie while he laughs. Beware a man who says he wants a peaceful ‘drama-free’ relationship but is actually the most dramatic boyfriend you’ve ever had.

Or actually, don’t. Forget that. Don’t be too careful. Don’t hold yourself back. Go for it anyway if it’s how you feel. Be raw and honest and kind and real. And let yourself break and let yourself heal. Because this is the end of the story, this is what happens to Julia: after the martinis ran dry and the night grew long and our friend’s tale was done – i.e. it didn’t work out, he lost her, broke her heart, always regretted it, 7 years later, etc. etc… we looked her up and stalked the shit out of her socials. And I know an Instagram profile viewed through the blurred mirrored edge of a martini glass is not a scientifically citable reference, but damn. This girl was bad. A queen and a half. With a smoking hot husband and a dope ass job. She was one of the most fucking beautiful women we’d ever seen and her life looked fabulous and cosmopolitan and fulfilling and fly.

Julia doesn’t always win the guy. 

But I promise you, my darling, she wins at life.