I don’t remember much from my therapy sessions a few years back, except for two moments: when I was asked to draw a face, after which my therapist told me I had narcissistic tendencies based on the oversized pupils and plump lips I drew, and when she told me that some people are meant to be alone—myself included.

The latter had grave consequences. Because with each failed date or relationship, I hear her in the back of my head; a self-fulfilling prophecy that seemingly rings true to this day.

Two weeks ago, I got love bombed by a ginger.

I’ve never been love bombed before, so I’m not sure why I’m experiencing this at 26. It’s such a juvenile first to go through so late in life.

Some women are crowning their first kid as we speak, and I’m here complaining about a guy I met on a dating app.

Comical.

It’s not so much that it happened that bothers me, it’s that a) I let it happen, and b) I didn’t recognize what was happening when it was happening.

When he cupped my face on our second date, gazing into my eyes with a softness I could only perceive as adoration, telling me he loved me, I didn’t question it at all. Hell, I even said it back.

I thought it to be such a risky and nonsensical thing for someone to ‘admit’ so early on that it had to be true.

Our love story only lasted one week. A week of good mornings, good nights, and three five-hour dates that made me feel alive.

He’d sugar me up with words of devotion, saying he saw me long-term, that he’d eagerly tattoo my name on him the way things were going, how we should take a trip to Positano and tour around in a red convertible, that he “wants to take me jewelry shopping next weekend,” and how I’d make an incredible mother.

We went for long drives that stretched into the night, interlocking fingers as he’d adorn the back of my hand with soft, gentle kisses, purring about the way time loses meaning when we’re together.

Except this fantasy was rudely interrupted at the end of each date when he’d insist on spending the night together because, “why wait?”

I turned him down, slightly offended by his persistence, but ultimately let my rose-tinted glasses shield me from the truth each time.

Maybe it was my (therapist confirmed) narcissism, but I’d chalked up his sex starved social abrasiveness to him being so consumed by the ⋆˙⟡♡amore⋆˙⟡♡ he felt for me that he couldn’t wait to tear my clothes off.

What can I say, I’m a hopeless romantic.

After the third date, I laid out what it takes for me to be intimate with someone. I needed to be in a committed relationship and see recent results of a full-panel STD test—bloodwork included.

The next day, he texted me saying he’d caught the flu.

He’d make a big show of it—as one does in an attempt to cover up their lies—by asking me whether I am feeling sick as well and beating himself up wondering where exactly he caught the flu (who cares???)

Texts were then left unanswered for hours on end. Each one that’d sporadically roll in was him telling me he was getting “progressively worse” with an “ever-increasing fever.”

Three days later, I was ghosted. And he was blocked.

After speaking to some friends—who’ve genuinely mulled over the possibility of him being hospitalized and on the brink of death—I concluded that his impending death was highly improbable (unfortunately.)

Because while I’ve never been love bombed before, I have been ghosted. So I know an excuse when I see one.

It’s always something to do with work or a sudden health issue that inexplicably consumes them so much they suddenly can’t give you what you need (i.e., honesty, decency, communication.)

I also know this because I’ve spouted similar garbage when I lost interest in someone but didn’t want to hurt them. Either that, or I was scared of their reaction to being outright rejected.

(I’ve had my fair share of men with over-inflated egos who couldn’t take no for an answer.)

Despite what you read above, I’m not that delusional. I’m actually quite reasonable.

I know feelings and circumstances can change. I’m also not blind to the possibility that he might’ve met someone else. Everyone is seemingly one swipe away at the end of the day.

But what I can’t stomach is the scammy, strategic, conniving nature of his pursuit.

Having someone come in with such effervescent intensity with only one goal in mind is something I’ve never seen before. And the fact that he did this as a seemingly decent man—educated, successful, with a good family background— bamboozled me.

Sure, he wasn’t perfect (he was a ginger, after all), but I could live with that.

I know I seem cool as a cucumber about this now (I’m only writing a 1000 word piece about it, no biggie), but I was not well when it happened.

I cried my eyes out (bursting into tears mid-workday), went on 20 km walks to dish out my pent up energy, and vented to anyone who’d listen—my dad included—for three days straight.

I didn’t understand why this guy I’ve been seeing for one week consumed me so much, until I journaled and remembered my therapist’s cutting words: “Some people are meant to be alone—like you.”

It wasn’t him I was mourning, but the brief wave of hope that what she’d said all those years ago wasn’t true, because clearly this whirlwind romance was proof of a different reality.

So when the hope that I’d built up so aggressively over a week came crumbling down, shattering in such a jarring way, it was brutal.

This entirely new narrative that I’d allowed myself to indulge in was ripped away from me, leaving me naked and alone with the monster who’d loomed in the shadows of my love life these past few years: loneliness, forever.

You know what they say, though, the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And that applies to the emotional aftermath as well.

After fighting for my life for a few of days, I was back on my feet like a spring chicken. I’d dealt with and overcome the five stages of grief, and am now eager to move toward greener pastures.

But first, I have a few limiting beliefs to shed.

I’m back. But I’m not necessarily better. Not kinder either, that’s for sure.

I’ve been on a writing hiatus these past few months because life has gotten in the way. And I know that’s what people say when they get lazy. Or after having their heart ripped to shreds and ego stamped on by a narcissist, which pushes them to reclaim their sense of self by revisiting their passions (oddly specific, I know—just trying to create an immersive reading experience.)

But that’s not the case at all.

Truth is, I moved back to Turkey from Portugal, started a new job, and am working on my new freelance business.

What can I say, I’m a #BossBabe.

So these past few months have been full of corporate shenanigans while working on my website, positioning, and—unfortunately—becoming a LinkedIn warrior for traction and visibility.

(I can feel each root canal pulsate with cringe under my shuddering teeth every time I hit post. But it’s a necessary evil. And honestly, a great form of exposure therapy to public embarrassment.)

Oh well.

Today’s post is about none of these things, which require separate, lengthier, and possibly more heartfelt posts that I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to write about right now.

Today’s article is about run clubs.

I woke up today and wouldn’t say I chose violence, but bullying for sure. Because I cannot, for the life of me, understand run clubs.

I should preface this by saying, unless it’s a joint sport—basketball, football, volleyball, you name it—I think working out together is the stupidest form of social activity. I wouldn’t even call it social interaction since you’re out of breath half the time.

You’re just glancing over at each other, panting, red in the face, eyeballs popping out of your eyesockets, grimacing as you pretend you’re fitter than you are while your muscle fibres twitch and convulse—all while trying to find the will to live and avoid ending it all right there in the name of “healthy social activity.”

Genuinely the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

The way I view working out is akin to how I see going to the bathroom: It’s not pretty. It’s not fun. It just has to be done.

I don’t personally enjoy working out. I think it’s tedious. The concept of picking up dumbbells, counting reps, and tracking sets while being mindful of “progressive overload” is mind-numbing and unnatural.

Kind of like holding the lunge position—except at least that gives you some gratification because of that delicious inner thigh stretch.

Anyway, back to the run clubs. I hate them with a passion so raw, so deep, so visceral, you’d think they’ve wronged my entire ancestry.

They’re like a swarm of bees, except they’re useless, oppressive (yes), and they leave a trail of putrid must that’s unshakeable for about 15 seconds.

And because I live by the beach, I get the short end of the stick. It’s a hotspot for those eager to show off their collective calf elitism: around 20 people hoarding the boardwalk to themselves, with a speaker (because, of course, how else would they fulfill their goal of being their utmost insufferable selves?)

On occasion, the pacemaker (read: self-appointed Head of the Pests) feels a runner’s high, endorphin rush, or a sudden burst of excitement and shrieks out a “woo!”

Motivational, they say. I call it the bane of my existence.

They’re ruining something that for me is supposed to be therapy: long walks by the beach, listening to the waves roll in, the distant shriek of a seagull, the occasional laughter of a child. The beautiful, wholesome parts of life.

Now ruined. Obliterated. Gone.

When I see them huffing and puffing in the distance running in my direction, I feel my will to live slip away from me. I know what’s coming. And I hate it. I hate them for who they are and for putting me in the position of accepting this as my reality.

Okay, I get it, sure, some people need a social push to be active. But for God’s sake, do anything but join a run club and contribute to my drawn-out demise. What’s wrong with, I don’t know, a yoga class or playing ping pong?

As I sit here and fume over the idea of run clubs, I can’t help but wonder why they’ve become so normalized, why no one bats an eye at this atrocity.

I don’t think it’s socially acceptable to invade public spaces with such crude selfishness, such a lack of spatial awareness that comes with hogging an entire boardwalk. What baffles me is that, on top of being such an unbelievable pain in the ass, they also have the audacity to get annoyed at you for being an obstacle in their way.

Like I’m the problem.

And it pains me that there’s no solution, no global movement I can join to stop them from persevering in society. No petition I can sign to eradicate them entirely.

But when there is—because it’s not a question of if, but when—best believe I’ll be the first to sign. Full name, signature, and headshot on display if they let me.

Dear Baldie,

I see you. Yes, you.

The one who thought he’d go unnoticed, lost in a sea of people with a full head of hair. The one who’s clearly unaware of the power they hold over someone like me—someone who lusts over you from afar, eyes glittering with hope, mouth dribbling with desire.

You may think it’s too good to be true—a mockery, even. But I assure you I’m as real as the succubus you dream of, and this is indeed your reality.

I’m the woman who sees a man with a mane and scoffs, unimpressed, uninterested, and unfazed.

It doesn’t attract me, nor does it incite the feelings you, Baldie, can.

Whether your hair is something you once had but lost—or something you never had enough of to begin with—I need you to know that it never mattered to me. I never liked it anyway. It was never my thing.

For a while, you may have even resisted your identity as a Baldie, forcing yourself to be another—a man with hair.

Maybe you’d desperately tried styling the wisps on your head into something you’d hoped resembled lush locks, carefully swishing each strand from one side to another, geling down any remaining follicles in an attempt to cover the nudity of your scalp and shield it away from the gentle breeze it's oh-so accustomed to.

But after a while, you realized its futility.

The more time you spent styling your hair—if we could’ve even called it that—the less of it you ended up having. Either that, or the more it looked like you had none.

So, barely hanging on by a thread (or two), you took the leap and shaved it all off.

I know it was hard. Initially, you may have even sulked, mourning what once was.

Except, if we’re honest, there wasn’t much there to begin with.

So it’s not a physical sorrow you experienced, but a spiritual one—an acceptance that you’re not what you thought you’d be: A Baldie.

But there’s no need to fret or cry over bygones, Baldie, because by doing that, you’ve opened new doors.

What you didn’t have then is what you have now: access to me.

You’ve piqued an interest that sparked the moment I saw the way your scalp glistens, like a diamond in a parade of matted black, brown, red, and blonde mops—none of which excite me as much as the nude.

To me, you stand out. You shine. You are everything.

Your bald head may only reflect the light around it, but to me, it glows from within. It’s its own source of power. It both radiates and draws me in, a two-in-one beacon and magnet, impossible to ignore.

Its smooth, rotund surface is a 3D rendering of the globe stripped of oceans and forests, left only with the richness of land.

Be it shades of cream, bronze, or honey, it’s a world of possibility and beauty uncovered, ripples and folds in uncanny areas—areas I want to explore and trace with my finger, eyes, and tongue.

So when you leave the house, Baldie, don’t be shy. Don’t hide behind a cap, bandana, or woolly hat. Let me see you as you are, bare as you are.

Because when I see you, I see myself. Not just as the reflection in your polished crown, but as the part of me you’ll one day carry inside you, just as I’ll carry you in my heart, forever.

With love,

Derya

Uncertainty is a primary theme in my life at the moment. It gnaws at me daily, chewing away at my self-esteem and spitting out the remnants of who I thought I’d be at 26.

But while I can complain about it all day long, I should appreciate that it’s an excellent opportunity for rebirth.

And right now, I’m a blank canvas, baby.

I just moved to a new country, I’m jobless, single, and free of responsibilities. And in this liminal space where everything’s possible and nothing's guaranteed, I can no longer hold space for a personality trait that’s been holding me back: perfectionism.

The perfect routine, career trajectory, and path to a coveted family are all ideas that have been burnt to a crisp when I realized life doesn’t always pan out the way I want it to.

And with my current life so far away from what I thought it’d look like by now, holding onto an idealized version of myself seems to be doing me more harm than good.

Instead, I now focus on what I call “footlicious living.”

It sounds abstract, but it’s a pretty straightforward ideology: Instead of carefully handcrafting my life—with every next move deliberate, precise, and calculated—I do things with my foot.

The name comes from a situation I’m sure you’ve experienced: the remote is just out of reach, and rather than getting up, you grab it with your foot, lodging it in between your toes (or the soles of your feet if you’re feeling acrobatic).

Is it a pretty sight? Probably not. Does it still accomplish the desired outcome? Absolutely.

It’s about focusing on just getting things done without obsessing over the how, which in turn helps you mark a new step forward.

I used to resist this half-hearted approach to doing things. I was swayed by the maxim I’d heard everywhere, which stated that “how you do one thing is how you do everything.”

I felt the need to give my all to everything I did, to be perfect at everything all at once. But that was impossible. I kept falling short of who I woke up intending to be. And by the end of the day, I felt worse than if I hadn’t tried to do anything at all.

I’d once confided in a friend that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up. When I had a fantastic social life and a great career, my health suffered. Conversely, when I prioritized my health and social life, I wasn’t my best at work.

That’s when she told me about the work-life triangle theory: the idea that you can only truly excel at two out of these three—career, relationships, and health.

This model, while giving me the nod of approval that I can’t do it all perfectly, didn’t pacify me as much as I hoped it would.

In fact, it backfired.

My perfectionist mindset translated it to mean completely sacrificing one aspect in favour of excelling at the other two. And rather than being content with the tradeoff, it made me hyperaware of the one side I was neglecting. So I felt guilty instead of relieved about my limitations.

But the footlicious way of life changes your perspective—and I now look at this triangle in a different light.

First, I reject the notion that you can pick just two. Instead, I think: “To what extent can I accept imperfections across all three areas so I can keep them alive at the same time?”

And it’s not just in these areas I apply this thinking to—it’s to everything.

Being footlicious means being okay with doing things half-heartedly if that’s what it takes to get them going.

Here’s a recent example of my footlicious endeavours.

In preparation for my move to Portugal, I wanted to get rid of some of my clothes. I usually donate them, but my sister told me I should sell them on Dolap—Turkey’s Depop.

She herself hadn’t sold anything yet—she was waiting for everything to be perfect. She wanted to create a solid branding for her account, order the best packaging materials, and photograph her clothes in the most flattering lighting.

Needless to say, she hasn’t gotten around to doing any of those things. Her yearning for perfection has made this task too daunting and demanding.

I, on the other hand, didn’t have the luxury of time. I had one month to get rid of as many clothes as possible, so moving footliciously was paramount.

So I piled the clothes I wanted to sell on the sofa, grabbed my sister’s iPhone stand, and filmed myself posing in each piece one by one. I then took screenshots at points where the clothes looked their best, uploaded them to ChatGPT, and asked it to generate titles and descriptions for each item.

I wasn’t even reading what it was generating. I just copied and pasted the output straight into the listings.

I then ordered the first set of packaging materials I found with fast delivery (which, to my delight, were pink), and with that, I was open for business.

In two days, I’d managed to get about 45 items up, including some books I wanted to give away. And within two weeks, I’d made 19 sales and received a couple of 5-star reviews.

Footliciousness for the win.

In all honesty, I did have a few mishaps. After all, oopsies are a side effect of doing things with your foot.

One of them was that I sent out a dress I’d claimed was flawless (because I hadn’t bothered to check its many layers), only for the buyer to point out it had rips in the lining. I refunded her in full and let her keep it. It’s a small price to pay for my footlicious approach to things (even though part of me thinks she should be grateful to even have received a floor-length dress for eight dollars. But I’m just being a bitch now.)

I also sold a book ChatGPT had described as “perfect, no marks, only read once,” when in reality, the pages were yellowed and the cover had a faint shoe mark on it. I hadn’t double-checked the description before listing it, so the buyer left me a 2-star review claiming the item wasn’t as described. Which, fair enough, I deserve.

But I promise I wasn’t being intentionally misleading; I have a good heart and the best of intentions. I was just doing things with my foot.

All in all, letting go of perfectionism has been life-changing for me. I’m more open to the flow of life, no matter how uncertain, because I can hold space for—and even embrace—the fact that things don’t always go as planned.

Footlicious living has been my way of embodying that: a reminder that perfection is a pipe dream, uncertainty is inevitable, and moving forward—however clumsily—is what matters most.

Good morning, it’s 7 am, and I am awoken by the French.

Not freshly baked croissants. Not the glittering reflection of the Eiffel Tower. The darker, more sinister French: French people. Oui oui, merde, pute, is all I hear in my thin-walled Airbnb. That and loud splashes from the neighbouring Airbnb’s complementary pool.

Look, I’m happy for people on holiday. I really am. I just wish they were happy elsewhere after 10 pm. I haven’t had any sleep these past three days, and I’m at that point where I’m so tired I’m nauseous.

I live in an enclave of Airbnbs—some short-term, some long-term—and it’s clear the short-term ones, especially the one with that Godforsaken garden pool, have the party reputation. I’ve barely been here a week and have already seen two rotations of neighbours in that Airbnb—both French, both loud.

Every time I look out the window, it’s a sea of unfamiliar people in a now-familiar garden. It actually makes for an incredible people-watching spot—which you may or may not know is a delectable hobby of mine.

So sometimes, as petty payback for their loudness, I unleash my inner perv and stare at them as they flop about in their swimsuits.

It’s my idea of a nightmare neighbour, so I can only hope it’s theirs too.

To clarify, I’m not a crude person. I’m just a vindictive one. I wouldn’t have to be a Peeping Tom if they didn’t give me a reason to be. So a little consideration on their part would actually spare us all from me becoming a monster.

I can’t help but think this invasion of the boisterous French is payback for the way I treated my French neighbour in Amsterdam eight years ago. In my defense, the rent was so high I assumed soundproof walls were part of the deal.

So after particularly awful days, I’d let out all my pent-up energy with a scream while punching pillows until my knuckles chafed raw.

Turns out the room wasn’t soundproof at all, and the Frenchwoman heard all my screams.

Poor woman.

It can’t even say it was a one-off. It happened pretty frequently—sometimes up to four times a week, depending on whether I was dating the devil’s spawn at the time or not.

A couple of months into my screaming exorcisms, I suppose she’d finally had enough because she sent security to have a talk with me. Frankly, I commend her. I don’t know how she lasted that long.

Given my history with the French, maybe I need a different perspective. Perhaps if I adopt a Man’s Search for Meaning approach and view the influx of loud French neighbors as karma for what I once did to a Frenchwoman, I can make peace with it all.

But I don’t think I’m mature enough for that. So I’ll just gawk at their fleshy bits through my window—aware it might mean paying karmic debts to the French for the rest of my life.

It’s day three in Portugal, and I feel like I’m floating.

I don’t know if it’s the high of being on holiday, or the freedom that comes with being a tourist without a reputation to uphold, but I’m way more at ease. I’ve been saying yes to everything without as much as a second thought.

On my first day, right after I checked into my accommodation, I went for a sunset walk by the river to reacquaint myself with the views that had drawn me to the city in the first place.

During my stroll, a man with frazzled hair approached me. Holding a bulky camera, he told me he was a photographer.

I thought I was about to get trafficked. But before I could open my mouth or blink the “help” Morse code to passersby, he whipped out his phone and showed me some proof of photos he took. After regulating both my breathing and blinking (and making a mental note to work on my overly active fight-or-flight response), I took a closer look at his work.

It was nothing special, honestly. The pictures were quite bland, docile, and tame: people posing, hands on hips, elbows jutting at a 90-degree angle, in front of Portuguese monuments.

He told me he quit his job to dedicate his life to art and photography, then asked me if I’d like to help him live his dream since I must be very photogenic.

With that, he’d disarmed me. I’m a sucker for flattery.

I truly thought he saw me for who I am: a rare delicacy, one so special that I must be documented and preserved for future generations by all means necessary. Either that, or he was a Humans of New York-type photographer who found my mere existence intriguing. Both options seemed plausible to me.

What didn’t seem plausible to me, however, was the truth.

I don’t know if it was sleep deprivation or travel exhaustion that made me so unaware of the fact that I was a tourist in front of a popular landmark. In my delusion and self-absorption, I genuinely believed I was doing this man a favor by helping him with his little hobby. The fact that I was falling for a tourist trap didn’t even cross my mind.

So I said “sure!” Who was I to deny this man the pleasure of using me as a launchpad for his career? I had nothing better to do anyway. I would either start striking poses or return to my accommodation to unpack 30 kg worth of luggage.

As he racked his brain for a shooting location, he asked me the usual questions you’d ask a tourist you couldn’t care less about: where I’m from, what I’m doing in Portugal, and whether I’m enjoying my time so far. I replied honestly, elaborating extensively—almost diplomatically—thinking he would use these bits and pieces of information in his project, perhaps as a caption or as a brief introduction to who I was.

My answers fell on deaf ears—in one ear, out the other.

Once he found the perfect spot, he was very precise with his instructions. He told me to stand on top of a specific rock by the river, and “look at the first row of windows on the blue building behind you, head facing it, then walk toward me like you own the fucking world. Keep your left hand holding the top half of your bag strap.”

Even though I knew I’d look constipated and rigid doing all of that, I did it anyway. I thought this was part of a specific vision he had in mind for his project.

After that, he asked me to lean my whole body against the slanted concrete wall of the dam, the part that led down to the river. “Keep your left leg bent, right hand across your body—almost hugging yourself—and left hand playing with your hair, then gaze at the yellow building over your shoulder.”

As the helpful Samaritan that I was, I obliged. Again, I thought I was contributing to his vision—even though I didn’t see it, nor feel it. My neck was craned at such an odd angle a vein start throbbing in my temple.

At the end of my little photoshoot, he showed me the pictures, pointing out his favorite ones (all of which were shit). The pictures looked exactly how they felt: awkward, rigid, and strained. I looked like I was recreating those goofy ’90s couple shoots, except I’d just found out my partner was cheating and didn’t want to lose the deposit, so I went ahead with it solo.

Even though they weren’t my favorite pictures, Mr. Frazzle Dazzle looked happy. Having done my volunteer work, I patted myself on the back, wished him continued success in his creative endeavors, and thanked him for including me.

He then airdropped the photos to me and requested a generous donation so he could “continue providing this experience for everyone.”

Oh.

It was a cold shower. A reality check. A reminder that I am not, in fact, all that—and people can seemingly smell the stench of my vanity so strongly that they know it can be easily exploited.

I handed him the cash and scurried back to my accommodation, eyes glued to the pavement and AirPods jammed in, dodging any other tourist traps that might rope me in by calling me pretty.

I’ve fallen for so many of these tourist traps before that I genuinely should know better. Except I don’t. Because, like love bombing, I think I deserve nice things for no reason.

This experience was like a deja vu, and I was taken back to when I was 19, visiting Milan with one of my close friends.

Upon arrival, we headed straight for the Duomo. Right in front of it, a street seller wandered, holding a box full of colourful, bohemian-style crochet bracelets. As soon as he spotted us, he beelined towards us to tell us how gorgeous we were. He then asked us to extend our hands, which we did, of course. How could we not? He called us pretty. It seemed like a fair exchange.

Lathering on the compliments, he started tying these bracelets onto our wrists. My friend and I exchanged glances of amazement, awed by all the compliments and gifts we were being given, not even two hours into our holiday.

After knotting these bracelets so tightly they nearly cut off our circulation—and so securely they could only be removed with scissors—he aggressively demanded 20 euros.

We couldn’t believe it.

We thought this man gifted them to us because we were so astonishingly gorgeous and he wanted to impress us: two beautiful teenage girls marveling at the Duomo in their Birkenstocks.

I wore that ugly crochet bracelet for a long time. It served as a reminder of my stupidity. And after about a year, thinking the lesson had been drilled into my head, I finally cut it off.

Well clearly I shouldn’t have.

Turns out seven years later, I’m just as gullible and vain as before. Except now, instead of an ugly crochet bracelet as a reminder, I have the most hideous photos of myself as proof that not only am I still naïve, but my vanity might also be unwarranted on top of that.

This piece has been in the making for about two weeks now. I’ve been hesitant to hit publish because I haven’t felt comfortable sharing my experience. But now with less than three hours to go to my flight to Portugal—yes, I’m writing from the airport, and yes, I need to be at the airport at least three hours before my flight otherwise I feel sick to my stomach—I decided there’s no better time to finalize this piece than right now.

Although I’m incredibly excited for a fresh start, I’m also undeniably fidgety, scared, and worried about whether I’m making the right decision. I booked my one-way ticket and accommodation six months ago, after a particularly rough couple of weeks where I’d felt defeated about living in Turkey. Back then, I didn’t think about the logistics of it all. I just knew I needed a change.

Well, I have no choice but to think about them now.

While I know this move is technically temporary, with my accommodation booked for just under three months, the primary purpose is to determine if I’d like to live in Portugal long-term. And even though I know I have free will—and no one’s holding a gun to my head to stay if I don’t like it—the reality of this move, however temporary, has been creeping in as anxiety.

I’m questioning whether safety and loneliness will be issues, and whether my “why” for leaving—the pursuit of novelty, sense of belonging, and an overall surrendering to my gut-level pull toward Portugal—is strong enough to justify such a drastic decision.

If I’m being honest, I’m feeling quite naive and stupid.

I have no family there, zero job prospects, and barely any friends. The only thing asking me to physically be there is the Portuguese classes I’ll be taking to integrate into (and appease) a society that’s (understandably) sick of foreigners and Airbnb culture.

These feelings of unease are new to me in this context as I’ve done several months-long solo trips before without this much dread. Perhaps I don’t have the same bravado and risk tolerance as I did when I was in my early twenties, when I’d make rash decisions with no regard for consequences or repercussions.

Worried about the why, what, how, and what-the-fucks of moving to another country for, technically speaking, no reason whatsoever, I remind myself of what made me make this decision in the first place. Why I’ve been feeling the itch to leave Turkey.

It’s not the lifestyle at all—I love Istanbul. I love my day-to-day here. Long beach strolls, access to quaint islands by ferry, and my overall healthier lifestyle are what’s kept me here for two years.

But that’s about it.

When it comes to finding my “tribe,” it’s been an entirely different story. I don’t mesh well with the people here. And I can’t even pull the woe-is-me card because it’s mostly my fault: I was naive enough to think that being half Turkish would allow me to integrate into the country seamlessly.

Well, shock, it didn’t.

If I’m honest, I don’t know what’s happening most of the time. I don’t get Turkish people. They operate using a very different social fabric from any other country I’ve lived in, placing more emphasis on the unspoken than the spoken.

Context—who’s speaking, to whom, and in what setting—carries more weight than the actual words people use in conversation. Not only that, but the words they use rarely represent what they mean.

In a country where being blunt or direct is considered rude, people veil the substance of what they’re saying with flowery language that can be very hard to pick apart unless you’re born here.

For this reason, I’ve spent the past two years making a hobby out of riddle-solving and reading between the lines.

Still, the indirectness with which everyone but me manages to communicate makes me feel like everyone’s in on a joke that I’ve been intentionally left out of. Everyone can quickly decipher the cryptic code carved into each social interaction, while I’m the only seemingly missing the cipher key.

And as someone who barely grasps the Turkish language in its basic form, every conversation with a Turk has involved a brain-frying amount of mental gymnastics.

I’ve often made the mistake of *gasp* taking people’s words at face value and responding to exactly what they said, forgoing the seemingly mandatory excavation of hidden meaning they expected me to do mid-conversation. I was subsequently met with disappointment as people assumed my reply was based on the “true” subtext, not the literal words they’d used. Of course, though, this disappointment was never verbalized directly. It was delivered using ominous remarks like “You’re a very funny person…” paired with a head shake of disapproval.

It’s not just the delivery of your words you have to be careful about. It’s your non-verbal cues as well. These carry more weight than you (or I) could ever imagine.

And I don’t mean that in the 48 Laws of Power-type bullshit about “taking up physical space to assert dominance” or regurgitated pop psychology statements like “if their body’s facing you, they like you!!!”

I mean everyday, ordinary gestures that are harmless in the West, such as eye contact, come loaded with heavy implications here.

When I first moved here, I greeted everyone with eye contact, having been taught that this is a sign of respect.

In Turkey, however, it can be seen as a sign of fervent, rabid, and primal interest, where looking a man in the eye risks being interpreted as: “I can’t wait to buy a Kama Sutra book and work through all the positions with you—A to Z, cover-to-cover.”

And I don’t even mean “fuck me eyes” or “fox eyes,” or whatever the internet discourse around seductive eye contact is. I mean literally just humanizing someone by looking them in the eye.

Due to all of these little nuances, a lot of social interactions in Turkey have felt like walking through minefields or being thrown into rapid-fire chess and checkers when I don’t even know the rules of either game.

I’ve been left constantly questioning myself, other people’s intentions, and whether I’ve made the grave mistake of leading someone on by sneezing in their direction.

I couldn’t wrap my head around what makes Turkey the way that it is. And I can’t just live-and-let-live when I don’t understand something. My brain turns into a toddler on loop, going WHY WHY WHY until I get an answer.

To self-soothe, I did some basic research (that I should’ve already known before moving, really.)

Turkey’s roots are in the Ottoman Empire, which operated on an honor-shame culture driven by Islamic influence, social hierarchies, collectivist principles, and gender segregation—all of which still shape communication in Turkey today.

Every action should be self-scrutinized, as the slightest misstep can reflect poorly on your entire family; every gaze carefully policed, in case it’s mistaken for temptation.

This tendency to inflate micro-signals into mating signals traces back to Ottoman rule, where direct interaction between men and women was heavily restricted and typically required an intermediary. Because of this, every direct glance or gesture was illicit by default—and therefore loaded with meaning.

Lovers even had a whole hidden language using handkerchiefs. A white handkerchief meant “I love you”; a yellow one meant “I was sick and couldn’t go out.” One dropped on the ground in a park was an invitation to meet, and one held from the middle meant “I’m waiting for you tonight.”

While people can now skip the handkerchiefs, this coded way of communicating persists to this day. People—especially men and women—can’t express themselves too directly due to delicate social norms, so every smile, glance, or word becomes another straw to grasp at.

My crash course in history did help with understanding some unspoken rules better, but that doesn’t mean I like them any more.

I always thought that when I’d move to Turkey, I’d be returning to a part of me I never had a chance to meet. That I’d feel whole having deepened my understanding of a culture that’s half of me.

But my attempts to integrate felt like wading through a freezing body of water, each step knocking the breath out of me.

While I previously thought I was too warm-blooded for the West, these past two years have made me realize I may just be too Western for the Turks. So where does that leave me?

For now, I’m not sure. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve made so many plans in life, thinking I was the only one holding the reins of control. But of course that’s not the case, and things don’t always go as planned.

Part of me thinks I’m overthinking this whole belonging thing. Maybe feeling out of place is the norm, and everyone has made peace with it without needing to constantly uproot their life like me.

I hope the answers come to me in Portugal. I think they will. They have to. I’m tired of chanting “the only constant is change” each time I throw myself into yet another leap of faith I keep promising will be my last.

The way I advise someone venting about their relationship now is worlds away from how I used to at 18.

If you were to tell me back then that, say, you caught your boyfriend casually texting his ex, I would climb on the nearest elevated surface and release a torrent of firebreath, roaring at you to “Just leave him!”

As I’ve grown older, however, I've come to realize that no one ready to leave a relationship asks for advice.

People are rarely at a true standstill, unsure of what the next steps in their relationship should be. They’re just looking for a shoulder to cry on, someone who can empathise with them and validate their emotions—all disguised under the cloak of “What should I do?”

The only thing they need is for someone to say, “You’re not crazy for feeling this way,” right before wiping their face, dusting them off, and strapping them back in for round 357 of trying to make it work with their partner.

And I say this from experience, as someone who has been in the muddy, musty, fungal-infection-inducing, athlete’s-foot-ridden trenches of relationship unrest. I was that girl who needed someone to vent to, only to be met with the same tired advice I used to dish out at 18.

That’s when I realized that advice can only be received if someone’s even considering an alternative route.

If someone knows deep down they’re going to stay in that relationship, they’ll get defensive. And the last thing you want to do is make someone in distress feel like no one has their back—even if that means biting your tongue and allowing them to continue waltzing with the devil.

So if a friend were to come to me with relationship woes now, my advice is as follows:

“Stay and see it through. Try to make it work.”

Most of the time, it’s what they want to hear. They just need the space and support to make the choice they were going to make anyway. Anything else is a waste of breath. Because if they were truly ready to leave, you wouldn’t be hearing venting or doubts, but a decision already made—a calm, matter-of-fact declaration of what is to come.

What makes the decision between staying and leaving so difficult is often the tug of war between your mind and your heart.

When I feel something for someone, it comes flooding, blurring my vision and washing away any trace of the woman I thought I was: someone who Never Settles for Less™ and Would Never Accept Disrespect™.

In a previous toxic relationship, I so desperately wished my mind could take the reins. It was already berating me for everything I knew to be true, everything obvious to the outside world: that my relationship was in shambles and I should leave.

But no matter how much I rationalized the hurt, listed reasons to walk away, or ritualized affirmations of self-worth, my emotions had me hooked—attached, in love, and unable to let go of something that made me feel so deeply, so intensely alive. Even if that meant continuously setting myself on fire to keep the relationship alight.

On rare occasions when I’d manage to compartmentalize my feelings just enough for my mind to take over, I’d get a gust of momentum to leave. But that never lasted. The disconnect between my actions and my feelings caused unbearable cognitive dissonance.

While my body might’ve been physically far away from the relationship, it still consumed my thoughts. My feelings were just as intense—if not worse, now laced with the intoxicating effect of longing.

And eventually—because you can only live in duality for so long—the rubber band snapped back. One end heart, the other mind, recoiled toward each other, forcing me to become one again. And just like that, using a “drunk” text or a not-so-spontaneous encounter, I was, by my own volition, pulled back in again. Back to square one. Free to feel the painful love I had for them, and back to hating myself.

Maybe you’re stronger than I am, or you can talk yourself out of your feelings better than I can, but I’ve never been able to leave a romantic situation prematurely, before it ran its full course. I can’t be at war with myself, doing one thing and feeling another.

If I don’t act from complete alignment, with my mind and feelings moving in tandem, my love life becomes a series of back-and-forths and all-consuming turmoils.

The only way I can break the cycle is by getting my heart on board with my head, or my head on board with my heart.

You may think this approach keeps me stuck in wrong relationships for a long time, but it’s actually the opposite. It’s the theatrics—the push-and-pulls, temporary break-ups, and performative silent treatments—that actually drag things out, making relationships last longer than they should.

By giving myself permission to fully feel my way through relationships—no matter how humiliating—things end faster. The only catch is being patient enough to wait for your feelings to catch up to what your mind already knows.

And when I reach that point of alignment, when my heart and mind move as one, there’s no going back. I don’t need to consult friends or family or draft out yet another pros and cons list color-coded by degrees of pain. My body becomes my compass, calibrated by enough experience and scar tissue to point to a definitive exit.

That’s when I can gallop toward the relationship’s finish line like a racehorse with blinders on, free from any desire to look back and see who I’ve left behind.

That’s why I say: stay until you’ve had enough. Because eventually, you will. Your body won’t keep you stuck in dead-end loops forever—it’s smarter than you think. It’s wired with subconscious mechanisms designed to keep you safe. And your visceral, gut-level reactions—the knee-jerk hell yes’s or fuck no’s—are part of that. They’re all-knowing, and they happen for you.

So trust that you’ll eventually reach a point where “absolutely not” becomes your gut’s only response to staying in something that’s long stopped serving you. At that point, there’ll be no could’ve-would’ve-should’ves, no what-ifs left unturned. The conviction in your mind, body, and heart will be crystal clear.

So until you reach that point, keep going. Let yourself go through countless humiliation rituals if you have to. Because eventually—and it’s not an if, it’s a when—the cost of staying will outweigh the high of feeling. And you’ll no longer be able to ignore what your mind’s been shouting from the rooftops.

Then, and only then, will “stay and see it through” sound just as impossible as “just leave him” once did.

We’ve been told there’s a time and place for everything. But twenty-six is a funny age—an odd in-between life stage where people’s paths start to diverge so wildly.

Some are pursuing their PhDs; others are happily married. In that sense, there’s still a societal acceptance for ambiguity, allowing for some wiggle room in decision-making.

You can have fun and make mistakes—but not too much or too many. Otherwise, you’ll get tsk-tsk-tsked and side-eyed by people thinking, “Shouldn’t she know better?” And the thing is, by this time, you kind of do, so you’re expected to act like it.

But you know what I really miss? The rogueness of my early 20s—and how recklessness was just expected at that age.

Last night I charged my iPhone 7 for the first time in months—the phone I had during university—and spent hours scrolling through my camera roll, a portal into a life once lived.

Looking back, nothing I did seemed to make any sense. I was driven by fun and a sense of curiosity. I said “yes” to whatever felt right at the time, letting my whims guide my decision-making.

Perhaps the fact that I was in university (i.e., doing the thing that was expected of me at that age) gave me the inner permission to let loose in other areas of my life—bullying my shitty neighbours in Amsterdam being one of them.

Here’s one example: My flatmate and I, fed up with our upstairs neighbour’s incessant stomping, decided to play a months-long prank on her.

Our self-appointed Jumping Jacks Queen was an American woman who’d moved in a few months earlier and, as far as we could tell, was still adjusting to life in Amsterdam.

To throw her off—whether it was by making her question her sanity or Dutch customs—we’d collect abandoned chairs we’d find left around the city on trash days and ominously place them in front of her door.

Then we’d wait, ears perked, for her reaction.

It sounds innocent—and it was. But after months of harassing her with unwanted chairs, she grew increasingly exasperated.

It went from her assuming the chairs were a welcome gift to overhearing her phone calling her friends to try and decode their meaning.

The cherry on top? When her cleaner came and assumed the chair was hers, unknowingly taking it into the apartment. We figured that out when we heard her yelp of horror: “How the HELL did this get in here?!”

We then swiftly moved on to our next bully-worthy target—another insufferable neighbour. He was a rich kid whose father was a renowned lawyer, so he was used to having access to everything and anything he wanted. Of course, that included women. Whenever he passed by me and my flatmate, he’d make suggestive comments and jokes about taking us to bed.

Fed up, we decided to take him for a spin on our bully mobile—and he gave us the perfect opportunity to do so when he invited us over for drinks one weekend, making it clear his flatmate was gone and there was “lots of alcohol ;-)”.

Ah, what a glorious time to strike.

We went over and got straight into mocking his obnoxious art while we sipped his most expensive champagne.

A couple of glasses in, he yanked my ponytail.

When I asked him what on Earth could possibly compel him to be that moronic, he said he wanted to show us how much of an “alpha dominant male” he was. That’s when we upgraded him to our premium bullying services.

When he wasn’t looking, and with a sleight of hand, my flatmate stole his house key and tucked it neatly into her underwear. Then we left—and I have this glorious screenshot of memorabilia to show for it.

Now I’m not saying what we did was right, but I know for a fact that we weren’t 200% in the wrong.

I actually don’t remember what happened to that key in the end. But I do recall us tying it to the balcony railing at some point—partly as a symbol of justice, partly in hopes that our pathetic neighbor would spot it so we could later hide it again and gaslight him into thinking he was hallucinating.

Back then, I simply lived in the moment, doing things for the shits and giggles—no fear of consequences (or a criminal record, clearly.) But everything’s different now.

The time pressure of my late twenties—and the looming 30s, when I’m supposed to magically have it all figured out—makes every move feel like it needs to be strategic and purposeful.

I’m always thinking ahead, planning out next steps, the next big thing, and what I have to do to get there—be that in my love life, career, or even how each of my travel experience have to outdo the last.

All of this to make sure I stay aligned with the life phase I’m “supposed” to be entering.

I can no longer just be or do things for the sake of doing them. I need to preemptively justify them, framing every decision as a strategic step toward some future idealized version of myself.

Am I doing this right? Is this really what your late 20s are about—making deliberate choices to keep moving forward, upward, toward some predefined version of success? And if that’s the case, why does it still feel so wrong at times? Am I just whining about being a responsible adult—or is there actually something amiss here?

Part of me wants to live like I did in my early 20s again—throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. But I can’t seem to make moves without a reason anymore. Every decision has to be a means to an end. And that makes it hard to enjoy the present, because I’m constantly evaluating how each moment serves an overarching goal.

Ironically, the more intentional I try to be, the more misaligned I feel.

The funny thing is, all those poor, unplanned decisions—questionable as they were—still brought me here. And while I’m not exactly where I thought I’d be, I wouldn’t say I’m completely off track.

Sometimes I wonder if we should approach life the way we’re told to approach love—letting the best things find us when we least expect them.

Perhaps the right choices reveal themselves when we stop chasing them and start tuning into how we feel, letting our intuition guide us at times instead of relying entirely on our intellect.

And you know what my intuition’s telling me right now? That it’s time to blow the dust off my bullying skills and put them to good use—by bullying myself back into a version that wasn’t so obsessed with being a goody two-shoes.

I always thought the growing desperation of finding a partner and settling down was a female-only experience. Rooted in fear and spoon-fed to us by our elders, it’s predicated on the idea that we’re running out of time and must be picked ASAP before we hit the wall.

As soon as I entered my twenties, my mom and grandma wasted no time narrating the steady trickle of the hourglass sand timer. With every birthday came a familiar update:

“When I was your age, I had a one-year-old and was pregnant with my second,” which the following year would become, “At your age, I had a two-year-old and a one-year-old.”

Feeling the pressure, I tried to fast-track fate.

I thought if I exclusively dated older men in their late thirties, maybe mid-forties, I could avoid the whole gray area of what-are-we’s, bypass boyish tendencies, and leap straight into a mature, fairytale-like age-gap romance that came with a lifetime guarantee of partnership.

On the one hand, I can’t complain—I got what I asked for. The older men I dated were definitely more eager to settle down than men my age. I also appreciated that they humored me in my sweet-but-bland idealization of the white-picket-fence lifestyle. “Whatever you want,” they’d say.

One thing I wasn’t expecting to feel was put off by their eagerness. It seemed more desperate, more ravenous than mine, a way different undertone compared to the pressure-driven urgency felt by women.

A woman’s yearning for love and partnership stems from a starry-eyed vision of the future—a dream sold to us by the media and culture. We’re just little girls who grew up being told that the only end goal worth pursuing is a wonderful marriage and a perfect family.

Older men’s desperation for partnership isn’t typically as frilly. It hinges on loneliness and the need for a legacy. They require pregnancy as proof that their bloodline is worth continuing. Uterus hunters, basically.

I recall two particular dates that sparked this train of thought: one was 38 years old and the other 44, both of whom I met on dating apps.

The 38-year-old was a straightshooter.

On our first and only date, he told me all about how children are the missing piece in his life, how he wishes to have a wife who isn’t preoccupied with her career but who’d rather be a present stay-at-home mom, how he owns a manufacturing firm and is financially stable, and how he’s willing and able to make all of my travel dreams come true.

He was saying all the right things, and we definitely bonded over our shared desire to start a family.

As I nodded in approval to his dreams of domestication, the way he looked at me shifted. It wasn’t me he was seeing, but the idea of who he needed me to be. I was just someone to slot into the pre-cast roles he’d already decided needed filling in his life: ‘wife,’ ‘mother of my children.’

Whereas I wanted to build a family with the right person, he seemed eager to start one with whoever agreed to have his child.

Despite this, we exchanged phone numbers and kept in touch. But over the next few days, he became extremely overbearing.

He’d send me constant check-ins of his day-to-day—from driving into his driveway to arriving at the office—and expected the same from me. Unable (and unwilling) to keep up with this rhythm, my late replies were acknowledged with pitiful woes like, “I thought you forgot about me :(“

My last straw was the barrage of pigeon nest videos he kept taking outside his workplace, each one sent to me daily with some variation of the same caption: “FAMILY!” give or take an emoji.

Needless to say, that was the end of that.

The 44-year-old was just as eager.

He was an American passport bro whom I matched with when he was still in the US. We’d chatted for a month before he flew to my country with his parents—a pitstop en route to a wedding he needed to attend in the Middle East.

During our chats, he told me he wanted to start a family because “the time has come,” that he was sick and tired of the party girls, and that he was ready to find someone with traditional family values.

After video chatting for hours on end, combing through potential visa hurdles, and considering what a move to the US might entail for me, we decided to give it a shot.

It all seemed great on paper: There was a lot of alignment, and he seemed serious about building a future with me. He even introduced me to his parents during one of our video chats. And despite not being my type at all, I thought our shared goals, lifestyle needs, and the power of love would (eventually) be enough to overcome that. I have never been one for looks anyway; I believe anyone can grow on me like a tumor under the right circumstances.

When he finally arrived, we went on our first date. And in true American fashion—or lack thereof—he wore a colorful Hawaiian button-up, cargo shorts, aviator Ray-Bans, and Converse.

Two hours into our date, he’d already called me his girlfriend, given me a ring as a birthday gift, and taken selfies of us to send to his friends.

Given our almost 20-year age gap, I expected to be fawned over, looked at with utmost adoration and sheer gratitude. However, the rate at which everything was happening was alarming. He was getting too comfortable, too fast.

Three hours in, he farted.

“Did you just fart?” I asked, trying to seem slightly amused, not to embarrass him.

I hoped he’d try to save face and deny it, perhaps claiming it was the squeak of a chair or a slip of the foot on the tiled floor. Anything but the ugly truth.

“Yup.”

Noted.

Four hours in, he kept telling me how he had to rearrange his boxers because of me. Mind you, we hadn’t even kissed.

The thought of seeing him again after that made my stomach turn. And when he suggested we go for dinner with his parents as a second date, I was out.

When I got home, I said I couldn’t see him anymore, that things happened too fast, and it was all too intense to bear.

He texted me paragraphs saying I should reconsider because everything was going great, that we should work through it, that I’m making a huge mistake because we clearly work so well together, how he knew he shouldn’t have dated this young but decided to give me a chance, and that I may end up regretting it later on.

I told him I was sorry and couldn’t go on with this, and we never spoke again.

Six months later, he was engaged.

After a bit of digging, I discovered he was talking to me and his fiancée—now wife—simultaneously, keeping us both warm until one of us said yes. Charming.

We’re used to the trope of women clinging onto dying relationships, pushing for marriage, or trying to turn a meaningless situationship into something more significant. But my attempt at speeding up my happily-ever-after showed me what it’s like to be on the flip side of things, with the man being eager to use anything with a pulse as an incubator.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my age gap ventures, it’s just how off-putting desperation can be. The worst part is you can’t even hide it; it’s insidious. It’s in the way you talk, your mannerisms, and your overall energy. And no amount of acting cool and unbothered can conceal it enough.

Now, I’m not saying we should go into dates acting as though we couldn’t care less if our date lived or died, but I believe we should be at peace with the possibility of being alone for the rest of our lives before seeking a partner.

It may sound extreme, but facing your fears head-on is the only way to regain your equilibrium. At the end of the day, energy goes where attention flows. If you’re so focused on finding the one, that energy festers inside you and leaks as desperation. And who knows, perhaps the reason I was attracting desperate people was because I reeked of desperation myself.

With this clarity in mind, I remind myself of one harsh but powerful mantra to keep desperation at bay and discernment at the forefront during dating:

I’d rather die alone than extend the bloodline of a man whose lineage should’ve ended with him.

It’s been a while since I typed away on a keyboard. I was laid off in April, so I haven’t been too keen on digital antics.

Instead, I’ve been busy touching, fondling, and rubbing up on grass. Reconnecting with the real world. Talking to people, reading books, going for meditative hikes, and traveling wherever the wind blows me.

In fact, I recently returned from an incredible trip to the Galapagos Islands, where I swam with and gawked at every animal I had the chance to. With so much beauty around me, I felt guilty for blinking—especially when I remembered how long it took me to get there.

My week in the Galapagos Islands was truly a breath of fresh air, a break from my digital routine.

I reconnected with the simpler things in life, the things we typically overlook as we continually strive for more at the expense of what actually matters: our connection with nature and with other people.

I practiced synchronized swimming with sea lions, roasted in the sun with marine iguanas, blew bubbles with dozens of tortugas, and watched birds of all colors (and all-colored feet) fly above or waddle below me.

Trekking up volcanoes, traversing calcified corals, and having fine sand lump in between my toes as I marveled at the beauty of untouched beaches made me feel one with the world around me for the first time in a long time.

The interactions with locals also oozed with love.

One day on Isabela Island, as I walked toward the beach to watch the sunrise, I came across a crowd of children on their way to school. Each child passed by me, greeting me with radiant, ear-to-ear smiles and a heartwarming “hola!”

I felt like a proud mother duck leading a trail of cheerful ducklings.

Even when I peeked into people’s gardens—which could’ve easily been seen as intrusive (because it was)—I wasn’t met with disapproval.

My curious glances were returned with friendly handwaves and “buenos dias.” I was effectively a stranger welcomed into someone’s private world with no hesitation.

Witnessing Galapaguenans' deep appreciation for their community and pride in their islands’ ecosystem sparked an awakening inside me that made me feel as though I’d been sleepwalking for the past couple of years.

It’s after this trip that I’ve come to realize I’ve been living in a haze.

I’d been so consumed by the digital world, hunkered down navigating the pixelated highs and lows of remote 9-5s, that the real world whizzed past me in horizontal blurs and I was left unaware of the wonders around me.

Initially, however, at the start of my career in 2020, this trade-off felt worthwhile.

As the world shut down during the pandemic, businesses needed tech solutions to help them navigate a remote-first work environment. Writing marketing content for these software tools made me feel like my work mattered, as if I were helping the world get back on its feet.

But now that things are pretty much back to normal, the tech sector isn’t as palpitating as it once was. Couple this with the surge of AI, and my writing career left me feeling uninspired and useless.

In the months leading up to my layoff, I was effectively paid to churn out regurgitated fluff, blabber that I’d later have to plaster my name onto and claim as my own.

This not only chipped away at my integrity as a writer, but my interest in a writing career as a whole.

So when I got laid off, I was mostly relieved. For the first time, I had the space and clarity of mind to consider a different path.

It’s been nearly three months of joblessness now, and while I’ve been filled to the brim with uncertainty, I’m overwhelmed with a sense of joy.

Heck, I’m gonna say it: I love being unemployed. I absolutely revel in it.

I wake up beaming, arms cartoonishly stretched upwards while imaginary birds chirp away to what seems to be the start of a Disney soundtrack.

Flowers bloom.

The sky, strikingly blue and streaked with rays of sunshine, beckons me into a new day.

A sickeningly sweet smell of unemployment permeates the fresh air around me. I inhale freedom, and exhale fumes of anxiety.

Ah, I feel alive.

Nothing irritates me. No corporate pings, pangs, or dings. No “jokes” or “work emergencies” I have to react to or pretend I care about.

I’m getting my much-needed breather, a rebirth.

I have self-identified as a writer for so long—both in my career and in my personal life—that I wasn’t sure I could fully detach from it. It’s been my comfort zone for as long as I can remember. But now that the self-imposed shackles have been forcibly removed, I’m free to choose a different career path.

My time spent outdoors and attuned with the world made me heavily consider doing something more tangible, something I can touch (commodities? jewelry? I don’t know, oil mining?), but that leap feels so far-fetched it’s daunting.

My massive ego doesn’t help either: I can’t remember the last time I had to be a beginner at something, taking the hits and humiliations of learning a craft on the chin.

Thankfully, I have the luxury of time on my side and don’t need to figure things out right away. So for now, as I take the summer to relax and consider other avenues, I have one goal in mind: exploration.

I’m trying new things, meeting new people, approaching situations with a curious mind, and placing a premium on novelty. Because how can I leap into a new me if I’m still seeing the world through the lens of someone I’m trying to leave behind?

I’m the type of person who believes I’ll find what I’m looking for by moving to another country, eager to unlock some untapped part of myself and find my tribe by upending my life and starting from scratch elsewhere.

Having been in Turkey for almost two years, I’ve been feeling the itch to move again. Don’t get me wrong, I love my lifestyle here: long beach walks, late-night coffee stops, and the fight-or-flight rush that kicks in whenever I make eye contact with a Turkish man have been thrilling staples of my daily routine.

But I still don’t feel like I belong.

You’d think moving to the country where your dad’s from, where you’d spend summers growing up basking in the sun and collecting seashells, would make you feel at home. And while I look around and see different iterations of me—olive skin, long dark brown hair, piercing (if I do say so myself) brown eyes—there’s still a disconnect; a them and me in a place I thought there’d be a collective us.

Sure, I wasn’t born and raised here, so expecting an immediate click would’ve been naive. But I have been trying.

My Turkish is now significantly better than it was when I first arrived—I can actually string a sentence together without it feeling like I’m pulling teeth. But my accent and mispronunciations are a dead giveaway that I am not from here, despite my full name being as Turkish as they come.

But then again, I think back to my childhood growing up in international schools in Romania. Despite speaking Romanian fluently, my accent was never quite right there either, with people assuming I was from the countryside.

My time in Amsterdam is an entirely different story. I never wanted to belong. Standing out and refusing to learn the language was my act of defiance against a country I deemed too sanitized for my liking. I always knew I would get my degree and evacuate the first chance I got.

What I’ve been looking for over the past few years is a sense of community, which has been an ongoing struggle given that most of my university years and entire career have been entirely online.

I don’t feel like I have roots anywhere because my roots have been portable, tethered by an internet connection and the act of cafe hopping.

And while I once was okay with being a “citizen of the world” (eugh), I’m no longer satisfied. All the places I’ve lived in have felt easy to leave—a mere pitstop on my quest to find home.

My many moves meant I’ve been able to detach from people and places very quickly. I’ve always sensed an impending move coming, being one foot in and one foot out, luggage left ajar just in case I have to pack up and leave again.

I want to live in a place that feels impossible to walk away from, one I’d resist leaving with everything I have. And I haven’t found that yet.

I’ve discussed the topic with my friends, other international school kids, and they’ve expressed a similar unease. One of my best friends suggested that I might be approaching things the wrong way.

Instead of expecting to fit right into the puzzle that is the country I'm in, I should see myself as a lone piece, building my own puzzle by connecting with like-minded people—people who’ve grown up between countries and have picked up, left, and honed parts of themselves in each country they’ve left behind.

But that feels masochistic and unattainable.

It would mean I’m seeking stability in people like myself, those who are used to never staying in one place for too long, always ready to leave at any moment.

At times, I fear that the subversive driving force behind my wild goose chase is the craving for something that’s out of reach. Perhaps consistently searching for a place to call home feels safer than facing a potential painful truth—that the lack of fulfillment stems from within.

If I stop and realize that I’m the common denominator—the one carrying this deep void everywhere I go—then what?

Well, there’s only one way to find out: by giving the country that’s held my heart for eight years a real and conclusive chance.

This summer, I’m giving Portugal a solid go, with a one-way ticket and a willingness to venture into the semi-unknown. I figure this will be enough country-hopping to diagnose the root of the problem. Fourth time’s a charm, right?

Prior to turning 25, I never bought into the whole “frontal lobe development” thing. I was convinced I was born with fully formed tastes—my enduring love for leopard print surely being proof of that.

But last summer, the summer I turned 25, I sensed a shift: The girl version of me was leathery, seemingly having withered overnight, skin cracking, peeling, and shedding to accommodate the blossoming, nay, erupting, woman within.

I realized this when I tried to squeeze into one of my ancient crop tops from university. Attempting to fit a fully-fledged woman into a ribbed Forever 21 polyester crop top with “Baby Girl” embroidered on it felt off—almost pedophilic. To myself. Unnecessarily infantilizing.

Consequently, I took a critical look at my closet and try-on-hauled my clothes to see what else should be binned.

It was neither looking nor feeling good.

Items I’d adored merely months ago—stringy tops, open-back tops, and low-rise jeans—felt far too uncomfortable to wear. Bits and bobs splatted out. Organs hung loose. I felt like it was Halloween, and I was cosplaying different cultural variants of a string sausage.

These were the types of clothes I’d wear while proclaiming '“body positivity!!!” whenever someone pointed out that I was inappropriately dressed for the occasion (and they weren’t wrong.)

And it wasn’t just their cuts that bothered me, it was their overwhelming loudness that was jarring. I felt like a walking, talking eyesore—“visual pollution,” as the Dutch once called my moving boxes when I was settling into my Amsterdam accommodation.

The bright, look-at-me colors I once loved walking around in for the love of self-expression, experimentation, and “having a personality” also made me feel itchy, more perceived than I was okay with. This shift felt strange because, for as long as I’ve known myself, I’ve used fashion as a creative outlet.

I was all for trying new styles, trends, and aesthetics, seemingly allergic to basics. My closet was a display of my hoarding habits; an eclectic mix of mismatched, clashing garments with not a single timeless piece in sight.

In fact, to this day, I still don’t own a simple white T-shirt (though I’m on the hunt for the perfect one.)

Back in university, I’d spend hours perfecting elaborate make-up looks to match my outfits—metallic deep blue cut creases, khaki smoky eyes, sunset-inspired looks, you name it. This was a habit I’d carried over since my high school days when I’d wake up at 5 a.m. just to blend the perfect grey-to-black ombre smoky eye before class.

Defining, refining, and redefining my look used to be one of my favorite hobbies, so much so that my version of ambient noise was make-up tutorials and “outfit of the week” videos playing on a loop in the background for hours on end.

And I genuinely believed, as you do when you’re young, that everyone was just like me, using fashion as a means of self-expression.

Whenever I saw someone dressed plainly, I couldn’t help but make assumptions about their personality. I assumed they were just as dull and uninspiring as their outfit. It never occurred to me that, for some—if not most—people, clothing was merely a practical shield against a criminal charge of indecent exposure.

So, dare I say, I surprised myself last summer when I purged a third of my closet, tossing out clothes that had too much personality. Clothes that, at 18, I’d be frothing at the mouth to own because they made me look “different” and “not like the other girls.”

I suppose I now understand older women—the ones I used to look down on for dressing plain and run-of-the-mill.

Now, in my eyes, the chicest, most fashionable women are often the simplest, dressed in timeless cuts, natural fabrics, and colors that flatter their skin tones.

In the end, these are the pieces you’ll never regret owning as you learn to distinguish between what’s trendy (but not truly fashionable) and what’s overpriced (without justification in fabric quality).

Maybe becoming a Plain Jane is part of growing up. Or maybe I’m simply tired of the guilt that comes with trying to donate my skimpy clothes to orphans or filling up a landfill with more spandex.

I’m a voyeur for depravity. But I wasn’t always this way. People-watching was instilled in me quite wholesomely, in fact. Well, in a more wholesome form than it is now, anyway.

When I was around 10, my mum bought three binoculars for me, my sister, and herself. And as a bonding activity, we’d turn off the lights in our apartment at night and use them to watch our neighbors.

I’d take on East, my sister West, and my mother North, and together, we were on neighborhood watch; our unpaid internship.

“Second floor, fourth window.” She’d say, and my sister and I would shift our binocular gaze to the fourth window on the second floor of the Northern flat. And the commentary would begin.

Do you think her kitchen decor is better than ours?

What is she’s making?

Do you think she lives alone?

But that soon became mundane, and I have since taken a turn for the worse.

Nowadays, my voyeuristic kick comes from seeing people at their lowest, their most decrepit selves. And watching them throw up on a night out is part of it. Call me demented, but I think it’s fun to see how hard people try to maintain appearances even when their system is forcibly ejecting out toxins.

So, it seems God has noticed my morbid fascination with human despair and extended his giant helping hand to give me something worth appreciating: an apartment in Istanbul, a three-minute walk away from a club-like venue.

The venue is open every single day. People get in at about 8 p.m., have dinner with their friends, drink raki (sweetly pungent Turkish liquor), shimmy around with belly dancers, and get out by 1 a.m., inebriated.

The best part isn’t my apartment’s proximity to the venue, no, it’s the fact that there’s a late-night cafe right across the venue that overlooks its exit.

So, on my nights off, when there’s not much to do, I indulge in my guilty pleasure.

Come midnight, I sit at the cafe, facing the club’s exit head-on, order a piping hot cappuccino, turn the infrared heater on, and turn the world off—well, most of it, except for the club. That’s, like, mega on.

So I wait. And wait. Watching closely, like a shadow in the night, a filthy little rat that for once isn’t the prey but rather the one laying the cheese trap.

And at about 12:30 a.m., I am rewarded. People start tumbling out of the venue; a conveyor belt of the beaten down, the vomitters, and the unstable. They are uninhibited, rowdy, horny, sick, confused, and on edge. A train wreck waiting to happen—a train wreck that I’m waiting to happen.

Alcohol has worn them down to the bone, and they’ve just started to notice it now that they’re in the open air.

Some are holding onto a tree—the only thing not spinning in their world—and others are doing the Slav squat, back leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette. The calm before the storm.

I like to observe the moment it all clicks in their minds, the moment they realize they have to succumb to their humaneness, acknowledging that it still reigns supreme, even if they’re adorned with their best clothes.

A couple of weeks ago, for example, I watched as a woman—sparkly sequin dress, long trench coat, sleek back ponytail—clawed her way out of the club. She beelined for the bin, her friend trailing behind her.

The scene was quite poetic, actually, a testament to girlhood. The sequined sweetie had her head halfway down the trash can while her friend was soothing her, half holding onto her hair, half stroking it in support. It was clearly neither of their first rodeos. It seemed like they were used to taking turns; one week being the carer, the next being the cared for.

But those who own what’s happening aren’t as fun to watch as those trying to hide it.

They know they can’t stop the inevitable. Still, they at least want to do it privately to maintain a semblance of self-respect, turning what would’ve otherwise been a spectacle into a solitary purge, their dirty little secret.

And while it may be dirty, it can’t be their secret. It’s our secret. Because my ratty little gaze trails right behind them.

"Wherever you go, there you are I am."

–Jon Kabat-Zinn

– Derya

They cower away into a hiding spot, behind a bin or tree, to splash out their innards.

Pathetic.

Their guard may be down, but mine is sky-high. I’m watching them from my high horse, a morally superior high ground, shaking my head in disapproval.

“I would never.” I think.

And maybe, if I repeat it to myself enough, I can forget that I, too, am just like them, having been on all fours, clawing at the dirt beneath me as I vomit into a bush, hiding from the watchers that are just like me.

“In today’s ever-evolving lands-” Shut it.

“In the realm of-” Nope.

“In an era where-” I refuse.

I can’t stand it. I can’t digest one more AI intro without bile rising up my throat, scraping my esophagus like sandpaper.

Nowadays, searching for anything on Google seems futile. Every query I use to try and reach human writing is a treacherous endeavor. All I get is AI drivel: soulless intros, meaningless jargon (“supercharge” anyone?), and sentence structures that make me think the writer was held at gunpoint by a university professor.

Even platforms such as Medium, once my go-to for human stories, are no longer safe.

Before jumping on Substack, I used to frequent Medium a lot. The people were great. It was a community of writers who spoke from their hearts about anything and everything. Sure, writers could get paid if their articles gathered a lot of views, but that never seemed like their primary focus. It was more of an afterthought as the pay was laughable.

Simply put, Medium was a place where people came to connect over words, to bond over their love for the craft.

But the platform soon turned to horseshit when algorithms became king and AI reared its fugly, (I presume) bulbous head.

Writers seemingly no longer wrote for the sake of writing. They used AI to churn out garbage, overloading the platform with content meant to trick the algorithms into funneling them some cash. It was either that or complete rage bait meant to get clicks.

I tried to keep up for a bit, writing incendiary content to get people’s attention. Mind you, I’m naturally quite good at that. I love getting a rise out of people; it’s a hobby I’ve cultivated since my early blogging days.

I’m not going to lie, it was fun at first, pondering over what I could write to make people’s blood boil. But it soon started feeling like a performance, a carefully curated act where I’d dig deep to find the ugliest parts of myself to show the world, hoping it’d trigger someone into leaving a hate comment.

Which subculture should I bully? What hot take can I claim as a personal viewpoint? Who can I target?

Some of my articles stirred the algorithm, gaining me some notoriety and a few hundred dollars. But other than that, it felt rather empty.

I felt like I couldn’t get personal without divulging my darkest traumas, as those were the only personal stories people seemed to care about.

Do I have to tell people how my heartbreaks shattered me to pieces, unable to eat or trust again? Can’t I just talk about my love for cats and how petting stray ones serves as a channel for my maternal instincts?

Recently, I read a Verge article titled “Bring back personal blogging.” It spoke to me, taking me back to the good old days of blogging.

“In the beginning, there were blogs, and they were the original social web. We built community. We found our people. We wrote personally. We wrote frequently. We self-policed, and we linked to each other so that newbies could discover new and good blogs.”

– Monique Judge

I desperately crave human writing again—person to person, heart to heart.

What I want to see in the writing sphere is what I see under girl’s Instagram posts. Why can’t we create an echo chamber of “Omg loveeee” and “Soo beautiful” in the comment sections under our blog posts? Build a community of creative writers who share their thoughts without worrying about metrics and money-making algorithms?

My dream is to be able to read what was prevalent in the early 2000s when SEO and algorithms weren’t as potent.

Tell me, Sandra, what did you eat today? How’s your love life going? Talk me through your mundane. Y’know what, throw in a typo here and there. Give me the odd off-putting, weirdly structured sentence so I know you’re real.

This is why I chose Substack. I think I’ve found what I’m looking for: a place where people write for the sake of writing, as an outlet or a hobby.

From what I’ve noticed, you can’t “hack the algorithm” or “optimize” your way into people’s wallets on this platform. If you want eyes on your work, be a good writer or write things people care about. And if people love your work so much that they become paid subscribers, that’s great. But don’t expect it or use that as a motivator.

Personally, I don’t plan on making Substack my main source of income. I’m not ready to starve just yet; it’s cold outside. Maybe I’ll give it a go in the summer when my appetite’s smaller, calling it intermittent fasting instead of poverty-driven malnutrition.

I’m here, really, to practice what I preach: cultivate a space for reading and writing personal thoughts. I can almost guarantee you’ll find errors and odd phrasings in my writing. I think it’s part of my allure. But at least it’ll be authentically me.