CAMERON, Ezra, Hector? 22 reasons why you’re emotionally dead and need therapy, Mark. Become size eight. A woman’s Notes app offers regrettable insights:
Shopping lists
Begins ‘eggs, milk’ before collapsing into ‘stop eating like divorced man of 48’. Aspirational items like ‘miniature lemons’ and ‘agave nectar’ slip in, compiled during optimistic moments when the author is planning a total life change. Is never consulted in shops, where Frosties and Chardonnay are bought instead.
Life goals
‘Move to Italy’, ‘find signature scent’ and ‘stop letting bad text ruin week’ are all written at 1.17am after watching one reel of a woman in Oslo with linen bedsheets and a baker husband named Lars. Soon, goals like ‘heal’ and ‘set boundaries’ slip to smaller goals like ‘do washing’ and ‘cancel Apple TV’. Even those don’t happen.
Baby names
At least 45 are listed despite the owner being single, exhausted and swearing off dicks in every sense. Divided into categories like ‘cute for daughter in cardigan’, ‘fine for a ginger’ and ‘son/Labradoodle?’ Choosing a new Pope takes less thought. Any associated with exes, bitches at school or catastrophic Hinge dates are blacklisted.
Long emotional messages to men
The app should really bar any of these being cut-and-pasted into a text or e-mail. Every woman has drafted at least one 1,900-word essay beginning ‘I just think it’s funny how…’ before spiralling into a breakdown of an entirely unamusing situationship. It’s a forensic cross-examination of a man who, if he ever saw it, would close it without reading.
Topics for therapy
Essentially the same as the previous topic but directed inwards. Made up of bullet points written at 3am including ‘fear of abandonment?’, ‘self-sabotage?’ and ‘burn-out or need hair recolour?’ Will never be mentioned in therapy, because she wants her therapist to like her.
Wedding plans
A highly detailed plan for a wedding with the budget and logistical complexity of a coronation, with a blank space left for the groom. ‘Small and relaxed’ evolves into ‘mismatched satin’, ‘organic champagne towers’ and ‘everyone cries but elegantly’. ‘Custom, nun-made veil’ and ‘find calligrapher URGENT’ are added.
Doomed attempts at creative writing
At some point every girl has written the first line of what she believed would become a profound bestselling novel. Usually this happens after two glasses of wine, a minor setback and a Greta Gerwig film. It begins ‘The city hummed beneath her like a wounded animal’, shortly followed by ‘film adaptation: Anya Taylor-Joy as me? or Sadie Sink?’
