The themes I wanted to explore in my most recent collection are: being young and inexperienced in relationships. Betrayal and heartbreak.

When you're young and inexperienced in relationships, its natural to anticipate only the best from boys. I guess you could say, you have blind faith in them and you innocently assume their intentions are sincere because yours are. So it can come as a shock when you realise that actually, there are a lot of boys out there who will have no problem at all fucking you over and sleeping soundly at night.

In fact, maybe at first, you're in total disbelief that people can be so shady, what kind of person intentionally uses and hurts others without remorse? In your naivety, you assumed everyone shared the same moral integrity. So refusing to take your rose tinted glasses off, you overlook the 'bad' in boys and give them the benefit of the doubt.  

You start denying, minimising and rationalising their mistreatment and disrespect. You become desenitised to toxic relationships and start to believe its normal, you start to loose sight of who you are and your own moral standards. You want to believe everyone has your best interests at heart, even in the face of overwhelming evidence they don't.

I wanted to create this piece "Boys Lie, So Look Before You Leap" as a warning not to jump into relationships with blind faith that everyone is trustworthy. Some boys are narcissistic liars and will wreak havoc with your emotional and mental well being. 

-

"Boys Lie, So Look Before You Leap" available here.

This is not to say you are to blame for boys betraying, disrespecting or mistreating you. They are entirely accountable for their own actions, its NOT your fault. Your only weakness is putting blind faith into others and assuming everyone has their heart is in the right place. No one ever teaches us how to trust smartly. In fact, girls are conditioned to excuse and even romanticise shady behavior, we tell little girls "he's only mean to you because he likes you."

Develop your judgment skills, in assessing whether someone or not someone is trustworthy (because unfortunately not everyone is), you have to remain level-headed. Don't just give your trust away, it has to be earned. Its all about finding a balance, you can't trust blindly but neither can you be completely distrustful. Trust should work like balancing scales, it starts out neutral & you adjust it with evidence. Acknowledge when someone does something shady but also recognize when they do something that shows they're trustworthy.

Trusting blindly, is like putting (imaginary) evidence on the 'trustworthy' scale, before they've even proven themselves. Similarly, being completely distrustful, is like putting (imaginary) evidence on the 'untrustworthy' scale, when someone hasn't even done anything wrong! Don't cast aspersions on everybody because of the actions of your fuckboy exes. I know its hard when you've experienced betrayal over & over but would you like to be punished for other people's actions? The fact is, not everyone is trustworthy but you have to realise some people are legit & if you don't give them a fair chance you'll push them away.

You can't expect to know whether or not you can trust someone straight away, people prove themselves overtime with consistent actions. Keep your eyes open & give someone the trust they deserve. You have to accept there's always going to be an element of risk when you decide to trust someone but of course, some people are safer bets than others. Make sure you invest your trust & loyalty in someone who is worthy.

 

There are red flags that someone is shady, just don't blame yourself for not knowing what they are. Learn from shady exes what type of people & traits to avoid in the future. If you look back at those relationships, you will see there were red flags there from the start. Eventually, you will be able to spot fuckboys from a mile off. You will feel more confident going into new relationships because you're more likely to notice when someone is bad news. You are not the same naive person you were in previous relationships, that didn't see such shady people coming. You're wiser.