Fragments

Lili 2:51 AM , , , , , , , No comments


how can there be so much panic in one person? how can i be scared of nothing but myself apparently?
what does my mind see, that my eyes can't? there must be something big and dangerous right in front of me, i can feel it, but it's not there, how can my body react to nothing,
i just don't understand...

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why is it, that the earth floats through space and travels around the sun but my heart is chained to the dusty lampshade beside my bed? wherefore rises the sun each and every day again no matter what happened and my mind is lost in complete darkness? and how does it come, that i can save no one, not even myself?

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i'm so tired i can't dream, i'm so hungry i can't eat, i'm so full of love, i can only hate.
it seems like i can't live, but i'm too afraid to die either.
this one wants me to lay down and never get up again, the other one wants me to run away as fast as my exhausted body parts can take me, just leave this place, these people, don't stay, never stop,
no wait, lay down, i'm gonna faint, i need to rest, i'm hungry, no i have to puke, i'm too full of nothing, give me more, give me less, leave me alone,come back, take everything away, i need more, i want everything, i want nothing, ever.

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i don't know what my fucking problem is. it feels different now. it always does. it always feels different than the time before but still familiar. like the funny feeling in your tummy is strange but you suddenly remember how sickness tastes. my body learns, and so does my mind, as soon as i accept a certain pain, i discover another way of hurting. i'm able to trick myself in a twisted, unhealthy way, when i'm struggeling to deal with that wound, as soon as i feel in control again, i find a new part to cut open.
i'm not really feeling sick right now, but my stomach hurts like the thought of him did yesterday, even though i took the pills, and i'm hot and sweaty and maybe i can just faint and everything will be black and calm.

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i'm so scared.i don't know what to do has become my first name
and helplessness my mothertounge.
i write it down to get it out of me, scrape it from the walls of my head, so i may feel alive again, like it's all just dead flowers and smeared make-up, art, melancholy, nothing more, nothing serious, totally in control.

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crying won't help, salt burns in open wounds.
some call it a desperate diary entry, some call it breathless bravery, some call it insightfull information,some call it pointless poetry, i call it a way of not losing my mind.



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How i feel now

Lili 5:26 AM , , , , , , , No comments


It’s been over 2 months.
It didn’t felt like that much time at all.
I still feel the same as before, but different at the same time. It’s so hard to explain.
What you experience at the place where I experienced my experience, is not even remotely comprehensible if you weren't there.
I know what everyone expects me to say now:
I feel so much better. Everything makes sense now. I feel like somebody finally understood what my problem was and even though I can’t be ‘cured’, I’m able to handle it now.
I’m gonna do things. I’m gonna do all the things. 
Not today and not tomorrow, but eventually. 
It will be painful and stressful and much more effort than I want it to be, but I’ll do everything I always wanted to do, because I deserve it and the demon inside of me won’t stop me. Not this time. 
It’ll make me slow down and boycott me and oh boy it’ll make me suffer. But I’ll get through it and I will do it nevertheless at some point.
I’m not healed. I never will be. I didnt even rip off all my old, blooddrained band-aids, I didn’t dare to open up enough to let every nightmare out of my system. The poisen is still in me. And it will kill me, but not today and not tomorrow.
I used to say 'i’ll do it tomorrow’, I can’t do it today’ and now I’ll say ‘I’ll do it today,’ ‘there must be something I’m able to do today’ and i will say 'yes' and do it.
i'm full of new found hope and maybe my life won't be perfect, but it is worth living and it'll be the best life it can be.

That’s what you want to read.That’s what I want to write.
But the truth is:
I’m scared. I’m so fucking scared of being alone again, of being on my own, of moving out and fail doing those small things. I’m afraid of walking into the kitchen at 2am and opening the fridge and then closing it and sliding down to the floor and just suffering from existing with this ungraspable fear and loneliness inside of me.
I don’t think  I can do any of the things other people do, i don't want to feel the way i feel anymore.

It’s so…complicated. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs at nothing, I’m crying hysterically at nothing, because there is nothing in front of me, that scares me in particular, it’s everything mushed together. 
The great big ordinary. The daily life. Life.
It would be so much easier to accept my fears, if I had to face something scary and recognizable dangerous, a dragon, a monster, an operation, a trip, something that feels…more real. 
Something that existed not only in my head.
It would be so much easier, if I could just point on the big angry dragon beside me and say: 
'Sorry I seem to be a bit messed up, I’ve got this big mighty dragon I have to fight any minute now, excuse my shaky hands and my teary eyes.'

And they would understand and nod and maybe smile or in the best case scenario say: 'Oh I had to do that myself, I’ve got a bit of time on my hands, let me help you.'

 But there is no dragon or event, there is just boredom and emptiness everywhere. 
Nothing makes sense to me. Why would I want to move out and go to university and force myself to find the courage somewhere in me, scrape it from my insides, to get a job and do the groceries and got to bed early and to leave the bed again and eat? 

 It’s all so pointless. It’s so exhausting and I just can't do it.
‘Oh, that’s just depression talking out of you right now, life’s not that bad.’
Thanks. I know. Everybody knows. No matter what happens, if someone broke my heart or I can’t understand humanity and why we all have to fight eachother, everybody always answers ‘It’s just the depression, it’s not you talking, your mind is not in the right place’. 

What does that even mean? 
Does this sentence change everything? 
Am i better now that I know that’s just an illness that clouds my judgement? What if my mind will never be 'in the right place'? Does this make everything i think worthless?

 Maybe you are wrong. Maybe all of you are blind, because you can’t see what a shitty place this earth is and how absurd our behavior is.
Nobody seems to get that. Everyone is so busy thinking about their love life or their job or what to do tomorrow and i‘m sitting here like a stranger. I can’t relate to any of those thoughts.

I’ve always put everything off. I’d find friends next month, I’ll start studying next year,i'll shower tomorrow, I’ll leave my bed later- I hoped that inbetween now and then something great would happen. 
The magical moment. 
The stay in the clinic seemed to be that magical time where everything would be okay and I’d be so much better after that. I thought I’d go in there, broken, tired,almost dead, and come out newborn, full of energy and motivation, with a new mindset and positivity.

 It obviously didn’t happen. 
I didn’t even expected the full recovery, I just thought maybe I’ll learn some new technics to calm myself, just anything to cling on and not to get blown away by desperation
. 
Yeah.
And here I am now. 
It’s not the same at it was before. I’ve lost hope. 
There’s nothing to look forward now. 
That was my chance and it didn’t bring the change I wished for
.
I know this blog post leaves such a bad taste in your mouth, at least it does in mine, but I don’t want to pretend. “Tumblr” - here used as a representative of the spirit of this generation - states things like:
’Go get help,tell them how you feel, ask for help,show them who you truly are, seek help and that’s the first step of recovery, you’ll be okay!'

 Maybe that’s right. But it’s only half the truth. 
Of course, getting your diagnose and treatment is a big, important part, but it’s not a guarantee for anything. 
You can take meds and see a therapist every day and still feel like shit and not get better. Some of us will never get better, because some mental illnesses are chronic and not just temporary.
Most of the time you won’t find a trauma that caused that crack in your brain and without an actual reason it’s hard to find a solution. 
You can treat the symptoms, but without eliminating the trigger, you’ll never be "free”.

It sounds harsh and like something a frustrated teenager would write, but i'm not frustrated nor a teenager anymore. 
That’s the way it is,at least from my perspective. You can sugarcoat it, but that’s just lying to yourself.
Sometimes all the help you get just isn’t enough.
You have to be strong enough and motivated enough to fight against it every day,you have to find the will to not give in and find happiness in in the small things of life, find every day something that makes you keep going - or you just give up.

I don’t know what to do now.
What’s expected of me, what I want and what I need, are three different things. 
I don’t feel better and I’m so fucking afraid of keep on living, I have no clue what to do or how to handle anything -

But I guess I’ll just carry on with life.

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Ship yourself with yourself - Or things to remember in maritime metaphors

Lili 10:55 AM , , No comments

You are the captain of your life,
not your boss, or your father, your husband or your girlfriend, not your therapist.
You make the decisions, and you’ll make great ones.

You are the compass,
you know what’s right for you, you’ll find out what you want
and discover your own way eventually.

You are your own anchor.

You are the only one who can bring you down. 
You can control whether you let life weight you down or make you float.
You decide whether you move on or stay.
You have the choice where you settle down and for how long.

You can leave and move on. 

You hold the peace you crave and the happiness you deserve within.

You are able to calm yourself down and snap out of your nightmare,

come back to reality or stay in your happy place.


You are your lifesaver.
You are the person who’ll fight for you and save you each time again.
You will spend the rest of your life taking care of yourself.
You’ll be okay.


And you know what, you might not be the sea,
but you actually have an influence on the world around you,
you are not a victim of destiny.
You can change your circumstances
as well as you can change your attitude towards them.

No matter what, you’ll be part of the sea,
calm or angry,
deep blue, deep thoughts,
light green, light heart.

You are allowed to be different every day,
to be unpredictable,
you have the right to change.
You are independent and you don't owe anybody shit.


You are powerful, 
you have the abilty to make other ships sink, 
you can even drown yourself, 
but every day you chose to let them swim
and bring them to save haven.
Keep swimming.

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Life lessons

Lili 1:53 AM , , No comments


1.Don’t let yourself be fooled by the outside of things
2.Odd feelings in your stomach might be right … or just food poisoning
3.Never give up, unless you reached your destination
4.The truth is out there. And so are all seasons of the x files.

5.Time is irrelevant until you have nothing else left or everything but time
6.Read, listen to music, watch movies, or don’t. I don’t care, but it’s a good way to kill boredom
7.Useful advice won’t be given by your closest friends, but by strangers who judge without loving
8.Say it. Now. And then again. Better say it too often than never at all.
9.Trying is the first step, succeeding a whole other story.

10.Help whenever you can
11.Eating will keep you alive and kill you at the same time. So does breathing and sleeping.
12.Remember to change the perspective

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Give it up (for)

Lili 9:58 AM , , , No comments

Here’s to
the fucking darkness
that it might finally overcome me
and smother me
under it’s heavy wings.

Here’s to the fucking heartbreak
and lovesickness
the unsaid words and this one word,
 too much,
overkill,
 i wish i could take it back,
all the words,
every honest thing I’ve ever said,
which you twisted
and turned
and shouted back at me,
the sharp edges of every letter cutting my face
until I cried tears of blood-
liar.

Here’s to everything left
and to nothing,
all my ‘i love you’s',
 cried out loud in the wind,
shattered and lost,
never replied,
I don’t even know if you received them.

Here’s to my sadness,
my bitterness,
my never ending darkness,
here’s to fuck everything,
 fuck you,
fuck,
fuck me ,
please. 

I remember your wide arms
and soft hands
and hot mouth
and heavy breathing.
Picking nicknames for us like flower petals,
growing roses on asphalt
and talking in the light
of blooming flowers of fire in our veins.

Here’s to screw forgiveness,
screw the past,
screw you,
I wish I didn’t,
here’s to unrequired love,
ignorance
and fucking pain.
Nights in the bathtube,
sailors of the sky,
‘love you to the moon and back’,
'I’ll name a star after you',
the star is dead and the moon never cared anyway

Here’s to drawing red lines
with a black pen
on white arms
and ripping off
thousends of band-aids
of hairy skin,
ripping it from my skull,
my heart,
while trying to forget you,
not even forgetting you,
overcoming you,
not even overcoming you,
 trying to cope with your non-existence.

Worse -
you are still there,
but not here with me,
you still exist,
but without my warm body
next to yours,
you still live,
but not for me.
Here’s to just trying
to keep on living,
breathing hurts like a motherfucker
.
Here’s to never.
Here’s to never love.
Here’s to never loved you.
Here’s to love you
Here’s to you
Here’s to never
again.

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Anakin Skywalker – the slave,the victim, the killer and the offender

Lili 2:35 PM , , , , , No comments



Anakin Skywalker, later also known as Darth Vader, is one of the most popular anti-heros in popculture and one of the protagonists in the biggest science fiction saga ever by George Lucas.
His development from the innocent boy Ani to the ruthless dictator Vader is the core of the six Star wars movies. Without paying attention to existing flaws in the script, especially in the 3 newer movies I’ll try and break down for you the complex character that is this man with the many names.

Defining his personality and grasping his identity is quite difficult, partly due to his extreme metamorphosis during the saga, and partly because Anakin has an unsteady self-perception and always changing image of himself.

 He has a huge self-hatred (which leads to frustration and anger towards others) for not being perfect, for not being able to reach the high expectations other have of him. He seems very confident, almost arrogant and self-absorbed but at the same time is always seeking the constant reassurement and approval from others, always has to fight for his right to be treated equally and with respect.
He’s got a certain self-awareness of knowing he shouldn’t feel that way, he shouldn’t feel that doubtful and at the same time he shouldn’t always ‘want more’( let me just add this quote: 
‘I want more and I know I shouldn’t’).
He is very aware and almost paranoid about what others could think of him, he jumps to conclusions and is very impulsive, in combination with impatience he’s basically a ticking time bomb.
 He is passionate, even obsessed about certain people, very headstrong and stubborn, he is selfish in a way that he wants to protect people at all costs, even if that involves hurting them.
 He is honest and straightforward, he may have a lot of flaws, but being manipulative or dishonest was never one.
In some sources I read are statement about signs of mental illnesses in his behavior, borderline or symptoms of being a sociopath, but in my opinion he isn’t ill, all those horrible things happen because of desperation and pain, not because of a mood swing and he doesn’t enjoy doing those things, he feels remorse for the things he did. His motivation isn’t lust for power but appreciation, need to be needed and fear of loss.

In his life he took many roles, some of them he portrayed better than others, some of them he wore over years, others just for a short term of time.

In the first movie he’s a young boy, a son and a slave. 
Three roles that he didn’t chose, but accept. He’s a fixer of things, maybe not only lifeless objects and robots, but also metaphorically speaking.
He meets Qui-Gon-Gin and Obi-Wan-Kenobi, two Jedi who visit his home planet and are looking for help for their spaceship. One of his character traits is helpful- and kindness, he is willing to help even those complete strangers by entering a dangerous, deathly podrace. You already see how confident he is and how much he believes in his abilities. You could even say, that he’s not that selfless, because I always dreamed about being part of a podrace, but he never had the chance to until now. He sees his chance and ignores the fears of his mother.
He stops being the kid nobody really cares that much about, as Qui-Gon later analyses his blood and the midi-chlorian count of over 20000 could mean that he’s someone special,  the one who could bring the balance to the force.
We can see a parallel to Jesus, a boy who’s born under mysterious circumstances, never had a father, grows up in a poor household and with hard work, turns out to be the chosen one.
This is his opportunity, the unimportant little boy could be someday a mighty Jedi, he could have a future outside the slavery.
He leaves his mother with this great responsibility of knowing that he’ll be powerful and important and at the same time with a feeling of being lost and insecure.
Anakin is unsure about his potential and his powers, as already stated, he’s aware of him being suddenly ‘the chosen one’, he feels the power and pressure as well as the Jedi’s doubts and suspicions, but at first doesn’t take it too seriously (remember the scene with Padmè and the apple ). 
He is gifted and bored, he overestimates his abilities and this self-assureness makes it impossible for him to be humble,open-minded, self-controlled and to think rational.
At the same time he’s afraid of not being powerful enough to save everyone, especially his mother and wife, which made it later easy to convince him to join the dark side, after the chancellor seems to be willing to share the secret of life and death with him.

His biggest flaw and most important part about him is that Anakin feels everything intensely and his feelings always guide him. This leads to a weakness of fearing to lose his beloved ones, attachment-issues that cloud his judgement and spontanous, impulsive behavior without thinking about the consequences.
He has no control over his emotions and their sudden change, the most dominant one’s are anger, fear, frustration and love.
His life is the constant battle to balance the positive and negative feelings.

 How his inner demons finally seemed to have overcome the good parts in him is very obvious portrayed, the darkness spreads from his inside to the outside, his emotional change within the movies is reflected by the progressively darker clothes which leads to the popular known Darth Vader costume.
With unstable feelings come ambivalent relationships: the Jedi who switch from being his unreachable dream to being his destiny to being his family and finally his enemy, his long-term friend or even brother Obi-Wan, the lack of a father figure, his actual family in form of his mother, his first and only love Padmè Amidala, , and of course his children Leia and Luke.

Let’s start from the beginning. The Jedi and their code.
Loyalty is a very dominant part of his personality, but so are trust issues and once he feels betrayed by someone he trusted, he cuts all the strings and immediately turns against them.
 A good example is, how he reported the Chancellor to Mace Windu once Darth Sidious’ true identity was revealed, however when he saw Windu’s intention to kill Palpatine he switched sides, killed Windu and by submitting to the Sith lord, he became a slave again.
With the same kind of sudden change of heart he throws Palpatine - a few movies later - in the reactor shaft to save Luke’s life.
As a Jedi his duty is to protect others, which he takes very seriously and a step too far.
Anakin’s priority is always to save someone he loves before saving himself or many strangers.
This keeps him grounded, focused, as long as he has the purpose of protecting someone he sees a light that guides him.
At first it’s his mother, then Padmè, in the end Luke.
Every time someone he felt responsible to protect dies, a big part of him dies with them and he loses his self and the “good” path a bit more. After the death of his mother he loses his temper and brutally kills the Tusken.
When he believes that he killed Padmè, he feels like he has nothing left to lose and turns to the dark side, which leads to the fight against Obi-Wan that almost kills him.
Actually it does kill the part of him that’s left after his mother and his wife died, it kills Anakin and marks the rebirths of him as Darth Vader. Anakin comes back years later, after he meets his son and his compassion and need to protect his loved ones awake again. More about this later.

What we see here is, that he’s loyal to people before concepts, values revenge over justice, he may have the best intentions but  he can’t see the ‘big picture’ and his heated temper and burning love for certain people is a threat not only for him, but for others and his beloved one’s as well.
After suffering from nightmares about his mother’s painful death he takes Padmè from the safety of Naboo to make sure that Shmi is okay, later he’s willing to sacrifice everything a Jedi stands for, just to save Padmè’s life, even though it isn’t actually in danger at first.
You can basically say, he’s always on a mission for someone but never for something.
This attitude isn’t compatible with the moral concept and ideals of the Jedi, they see him as their savior, but also as a risk, he feels isolated from the other Jedi and not respected or even welcome. In the third movie, he believes that Obi-Wan was holding him back from reaching his true potential and that the other Jedi were jealous of his power and purposely trying to hold him back, too.

Something that might have contributed to his trust issues is the lack of a father figure or the constant change (death or leaving) of it.
At first it’s Qui-Gon-Gin who takes care of him, then Obi-Wan, who’s actually never willing or able to step into the footsteps of a father, but takes the place of a good friend or even a brother, later on it’s Palpatine who fills in the gap of a seemingly loving and caring father.

One of my sources called palpatine the ying and 
Padmè the yang of Skywalker’s life and I’d like to use those terms for describing their relationship. 

Padmè and Palpatine are opposites in every way, he’s male, old, ‘ugly’, manipulative and a sith, she’s a young, beautiful, honest woman with the aspiration to change the world to the better.

Both influence Anakin’s life, Palpatine as already mentioned and Padmè as the ‘Angel’, the girl he had a crush on for years, the woman he marries and who carries his children, one of the few people who seem to take him seriously, he can be himself around her, she doesn’t care if he’s a mighty Jedi or just a boy and loves him unconditionally. 

Something he has only experienced once in his life,his mother’s love kept him grounded and ‘soft’ while the world around him was hard, he made it through slavery and as a young adult survived a war, imagine how much worse he could have gotten without his mother’s care in his childhood.
How to take care of a child was something he never got to try, he meets his twin son and daughter when they were already grown-ups.

Luke is one of the most important people in his life, because he is the one who awakens the Anakin-part in Darth Vader. After thinking that he had lost everyone he cared about, Anakin was out of control, nothing could hold him back or keep him grounded, he has never gotten the respect and admiration he thought he deserved. 


‘Revenge of the Sith’ marks the death of Anakin Skywalker and his rebirth as Darth Vader, a cold-hearted, calm, emotionless and most importantly fearless killer who’s hidden under layers of black clothing and a mask, which makes you easily forget, that under all that robotic equipment is still a human being, a father, a widower, a surviver.


(Excursion: Like Stiles (coming soon, in my bed and the blog post haha...ha...) he chooses to be a role (Vader), he’s not able to live any longer as Anakin, he creates the new figure, that suits his new personality traits better, he lets Anakin die in the lava and with him all the memories and experiences, he separates himself from his old self to cope with the lost he experienced in the last few years. But in contrast to Stiles he can’t accept his weakness and kills himself, almost literally. He chooses to be someone else, to not take responsibility, he flees.)

As already mentioned earlier, Anakin needs people to attach to that keep him focused and himself.
Vader wanted the dominance of the empire and not until finally meeting his son and ‘defrosting’, his priorities changed again, Anakin came back and he was able to snap out of the circle of anger and sadness.
In the end, his compassion and attachement to people over concepts saved his son and destroyed the republic, he was able to let go of his fear (of death), could let go of his need to control everything and eventually brought the balance to the force by not only destroying ‘Vader’, but all the Sith.

Think about it, some of the first words of Obi-Wan to Luke, that Vader killed his father, were actually true. And so are those: Anakin killed Vader. And as paradox as it sounds, the reason he joined the dark side in the first place – searching for a way to save his wife and unborn children – were his savior in the end.
Without Padmè, Luke and Leia he may have never chosen the dark path, but without them he wouldn’t have chosen the ‘right’ way in his final hours.
In conclusion, it can be said, that there are 3 things that define Anakin Skywalker: his deep and uncontrollable feelings that go hand in hand with his ambivalent relationships, his unsteady self-perception about his potential and the ability to use it and that his loyality to people before concepts.
He’s overprotective, especially over the women in his life, his life is determined by the fear of losing his loved one’s as well as his own identity, which leads to frustration, anger and, according to Yoda, to the ‘dark side’.

Anakin has many roles throughout his life and while he keeps repeating some behavior patterns, they keep repeating themselves. The theme of slavery can be found everywhere in his biography, he’s born in slavery, then the Jedi ‘adopt’ him but he can still be seen as a kind of slave of their believes, under Palpatine’s control he’s again nothing more but a slave and - let’s not forget -  the whole time, he’s a slave of his feelings.
He is a slave, constructer, son, lover, husband, father, chosen one, Jedi, brother, friend, Vader, little boy, troubled adolescent, ruthless adult, victim, murderer, but all in all, he’s one of the most popular fictional characters and it was an honor to study him. After all, he is Anakin Skywalker.


________________________________________________________________________

If you’re interested in this topic, check out: http://www.academia.edu/432933/Darth_Vader_Made_Me_Do_It_
Anakin_Skywalkers_Avoidance_of_Responsibility_and_Hegemonic_Masculinity_in_the_Star_Wars_Universe


Sources might have been:
http://screenrant.com/darth-vaders-professional-diagnosis-mikee-63555/
http://quintessentialldr.com/2012/12/17/how-anakin-skywalker-became-darth-vader-a-quintessential-leadership-analysis/
http://zimbio.com
http://www.livescience.com/10679-psychology-darth-vader-revealed.html
http://teachmix.com/dayblend/sites/default/files/Anakin_Skywalker_slave.jpg
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Anakin_Skywalker
http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Anakin-Skywalker-Force-Choke.jpg

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COMING SOON - "Who are you really"

Lili 11:26 AM , , No comments




Just a quick announcement, i've decided to start a new series on this blog, to keep the posts fresh and new, you know, the emotional crap and the social studies can get a bit boring...

It's gonna be called 'who are you really' and will be about analyzing fictional characters - a bit psychology, a bit fantasy - and all in all hopefully very interesting.

 The first post will be up on sunday and i havn't decided yet, whether to start with Stiles Stilinski or Anakin Skywalker...Let me know who you are interested in!
In the end, somewhere between next week and the next 50 years, i want to be able to write a profile with character traits, personality structure and fun background stuff about me, but until then i'll keep anatomizing and over-interpretating fictional people. 
Send me your favorite tv show or movie character and who knows, maybe his/her life story will be up next...(with maybe i mean probably, because i have nothing better to do in my life...)





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image source: http://geeksoutafterdark.com/ , 6.8.14

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'i only date feminists' - a social experiment (part 2 of the f-word)

Lili 6:43 AM , , , No comments
link to part 1


I met a lot of people in my life. Let's start with this sentence.
Some of them were nice, some of them not so much. Some of them were female, some of them male.
Some of them i loved, some of them i strongly disliked. Some of them are still in my life, some of them left. Some of them were feminists, a few of them part of the patriarchy, most didn't know who they were.

I met some girls and very few boys who got to know me and found out that i'm a feminist and felt like this was a turn-on. I met too many boys and a few girls, who didn't liked my attitude regarding feminism and sexism and social issues in general.

Because of missing education i guessed that most just didn't know what feminism was and that they were afraid of the big word and just too lazy to google it and get informed.




I wanted to start an experiment.
Let's take one of the most popular online dating sites at the moment and see who would be interested in me when all they know is, that i'd only date feminists.

To have the best endresults i started a "normal" account a few months earlier and filled in the questions with my own personal preferences, uploaded a cute picture of me and tried to be flirty and funny and like the common girl on this site would be.
I never was openly promiscuitive, didn't tell anyone too many real facts about me and tried to keep calm whenever their ruthless behaviour irritated me.
It wasn't bad. let's put it that way, i got quite popular. I got a lot of messages, some very openly sexual, others more shy and some really seemed interested in getting to know me.
I even exchanged numbers and facebook details with some of them, because - i'm not gonna lie - some of them actually did interested me despite of this being an experiment (by the way, i never actually lied regarding personal details of my life or person, i openly told everyone who asked me what i was doing there and what i was looking for, that it's for an social experiment and that i'm just looking for nice/interesting people).

As time passed i got a bit closer with some of the guys and girls of this site, i met some of them, had some "dates" and met some actually decent people.
So if you're reading this and you met me there: No, i didn't use you.
I was just never looking for something real and i didn't found anything real.
Most of the conversations on this site actually made me doubt humanity itself. It's unbelievable how pathetic or stupid or just plain rude some people are. But i tried to keep it together for the sake of this experiement.
And as i already said, some of them were okay or actually very lovely.

Moving on, after 1 month of just playing around and getting to know the site and some of it's members, then 2 more months of being more me and more selective, forming friendships and enjoing myself on dates, i changed my behaviour dramatically and stopped taking all the bullshit.
I deleted my account,started a new one, uploaded a photo of myself which didn't show my face anymore and all i posted were the words 'i'd only date feminists'.
I 'liked' everyone's profile and waited for messages or reactions.
Again, i was very open about this being an experiment.
At first nothing really happened.
I got less messages, but that was predictable.
It was the same audience as before, a lot of plain rude sex messages, some slow interactions and then a few people who asked me about my status.
I had some people who asked my if i was interested in feminism and social issues and we talked a bit about how society works, but (s)he never made it clear if (s)he was a feminist or not.

Something i found quite funny was a question i received early on which was:
"Do you really only meet girls?"
Of course i knew what he meant, but i asked him back "What made you believe that and where did i ever say that?"
He then continued saying that i stated this on my profile but lost interested in that pretty quickly:


Later on i had the following conversation about different social issues, about education and political points of view, and he answered my question about him being a feminist with "no, because i don't want to label myself. i have my own conceptions of equality, freedom and so on, including all human beings."

Again, we droped this topic after that and moved on to the typical small talk.

One thing that still bothers me, are the misconception about feminism, sexism and basically the fact that no one really knows what they talk about, (me sometimes of course included).


What guy x speaks of isn't sexism and has nothing to do with feminism, it's about being a polite human being and should be common behaviour for everyone towards anyone.

The next result i want to share with you is this conversation. He asked me about my status and what it meant. I asked him if he knew what feminism is. His answer: "i think it means that women should be treated with respect. But i'm not sure."
I showed him the blog post "the F-word", because i couldn't be bothered to explain it in my own words again, and he replied that this is basically the way he thinks and was quite surprised that he's on holiday and suddenly a text "tells" him, that he's a feminist.


And that was all.


Something that actually kind of surprised me, because i already lost all faith in humanity, was the guy who just answered "yeah, absolutly, because every human has the right of equality". it's not that it shocked me or anything, but he didn't thought about it or started a long discussion and arguing with me about the definition of feminism. He just said yes and we were done.



All in all it was not what i hoped it would be, i wished for a lot more discussions to take place, but let's be honest, what can you expect on such a plattform.I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, it's just not the enviroment for deep talks about our society.
I think my experience can be summarized with this conversation:



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The F-word (probably part 1)

Lili 2:27 AM , , 1 comment

Writing this is very exhausting.
I wrote it several times and then rewrote it and edited parts again and again and i still don't feel 100% comfortable with the endresult. This is such a sensitive topic with so many things that need to be considered and i really struggled to form my thoughts into sentences without getting to emotional or drifting away to other topics like rape culure, homophobia, victim blaming, body shaming or basic human rights.
There are so many things that need to be said about this and i know i didn't even cover half of it, but i really hope that the following text is helpful, informatitive and that i didn't offend anyone who hasn't the same opinion as me.

First of all, if you haven’t guess it already, I’m a feminist. 
And i’m a philanthropist. Yes,being both* at the same time is possible. 
I love men, I love women*, I love everyone - regardless of their sexuality or gender identification, and that’s why I want everyone to be happy, healthy and treated with respect.
I dislike certain human beings for their oppression or discrimination of other human beings.
That can be sexist, racist or homophobic.

In this case, I don’t even always 'hate' men or women who are against feminism or part of the patriarchy as long as they leave me be, I mostly ignore or pity them.
Nevertheless I do dislike people who believe in certain gender roles and try to force other people into them or people that believe that men or women are “better” or more valuable than the other gender or people who identify as neither of those two forms.

Feminism stands for equality. This means that feminists want equal rights for everyone.
Surprise, that includes men, too.
If you haven’t noticed, women aren’t the only human beings, that suffer from sexism or the predjudice of gender roles. Feminism is the fight for a society where everyone gets treated respectfully  regardless of their gender. It’s about allowing everyone to be who they are and to live their lives in peace and harmony and to get all the oppurtunities they deserve no matter as what they identify or who they love, or how they dress.

Feminist don’t disregard men or generalize them or see them as animals and ‘the enemy’, no, in terms of e.g. the rape culture,  feminists want everyone to be seen and treated as a complex human being, which means, no more objectiving or sexualizing of any body parts, dressed or not and no ‘boys will be boys’ or lame excuses about the sexual behavior of some members of our society.
 It means that women as well as men are allowed to dress and drink and flirt without getting abused as long as they don’t hurt anyone around them, which basically means: don’t fucking rape no matter what someone’s wearing, how drunk they or how horny you are.
Men will be responsible for their actions, which means cat calling, inappropriate touching, sexualization of shoulders, breasts, butts, legs or the stomach will not be tolerated, because feminists believe that men are in fact not helplessly controlled by their hormones or thoughtless monsters, but human beings with a brain and feelings which are equally important as everyone else’s.
Saying that, most feminists are women and this really needs to change.

Here’s how feminism helps men:
- your daughters, sisters and wives aren’t longer viewed as sex objects and hopefully can go out in the evening without the fear of being raped just because of their gender or their choice in clothes.
- showing feelings, crying or any form of behavior that’s now labeled as feminine or gay, would be tolerated and totally normal for men, because - newsflash, it’s not only a women’s or homosexual’s thing, it’s part of being a human being and should not be labeled as weakness.
Also I really want to live in a world where words like gay, pussy, vagina and girl are no longer insults, but adjectives/nouns without any negative connotation, because it just doesn't make any sense to use them otherwise.
- imagine living in the 50s, where women were way more oppressed than we are now and had fewer rights, imagine being the one who has all the responsibility for your family, you need to earn all the money, make sure everyone’s save and healthy and if anything’s wrong, it’s your fault, because you should be in control of everything that’s going on.You don’t want that.
Most people I know or ever spoke to seek a partner that’s on the same level in intelligence, education and ability to get stuff done, someone who’s a team partner rather than a baby maker and “pet”, someone who can take control and care of you when you need it and not be absolutely helpless without you.
(disclaimer: yes I’m exaggerating right now to make it clearer)

With this in mind think again. Why are you not a feminist?
I don't try to persuade you, i just want to understand movements like 'women against feminism' or people you use the word 'feminist' as an insult and associate it with gay women who don't shave and want to see all men die (by the way 'gay' and 'hairy' aren't insults either, i don't feel offended by being called either one of them, neither should you), because they're absolutly missing the point.
Even if you are a priviledged white female, that doesn't feel opressed, this fact is no reason to not support the cause. it's so selfish to think 'i don't need feminism because i'm fine' or 'i think feminism is bullshit because not all men are like that and i'm a nice guy who treats women well' oh, great for you, but try, just for a second, to think outside your little perfect world and think of all the women in e.g. eastern countries or even your neighbourhood, who might not feel the same way you do and who suffer from this society.

You don't have to be "a victim" to be a feminist and you won't get forced to play the role of "the victim" by calling yourself a feminist. Some women are victims, but so are some men and i can't see how opening your eyes to social issues and supporting movements that try to change the way people are treated is a bad thing.


Writing this was difficult. But i'd do it again and i'll probably will, because i'm nowhere near to be done with this topic.






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image source: http://de.dawanda.com/shop/LilyLeFay

"I'd only date feminists" - a social experiment 


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Lili 10:18 AM , 7 comments
1.Are you a feminist?

2.Why (not)?

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