“I’m such a cliché,” Lottie told us, half a Dairy Milk hanging out of her mouth. “I’m eating chocolate and moaning
about men.”
“Sometimes clichés are helpful,” I offered.
“I hate how he’s made me do this. I hate how much chocolate is genuinely helping.”
I broke off another square and passed it down to Amber, who leaned against Lottie’s bed, her long legs sprawled
out on the carpet.
“I just can’t believe he said that,” she said, taking the chocolate and popping it into her mouth. “I don’t want to be
tied down. I hate that. That they think girls are just obsessed with having relationships. What do they want us to do?
Shag them but not expect anything in return?”
“Er, yeah, basically,” Lottie answered.
“No, that’s not right either,” I said. “They call those girls sluts.”
They nodded in agreement.
“So we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t, basically?” Amber looked utterly depressed.
Lottie stood up on the bed, slipping a bit in her fluffy socks. “No, there’s another way. We can pretend to be a
Manic Pixie Dream Girl.”
“A whatta whatta what now?” I asked.
“You know? A fraud. A boy’s dream. Especially the indie boys that we hang out with.”
“What’s a Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Why do you know all these words all the time?”
She sat back down, and scrolled on her phone, pulling up a few movie stills on Google. Zooey Deschanel came up.
And Kirsten Dunst. And this indie film I really liked called Ruby Sparks that came out a few years ago. “Voilà,” she
said. “Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or MPDG if you wanna sound, like, so four years ago.”
“Huh?”
Lottie explained. “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is pretty but she doesn’t really know it. She’s kooky and makes you
feel alive, but she knows when to shut up and just let you watch the football. She drinks whisky or beer and doesn’t
ask anything of your relationship because she’s too busy doing whacky leisure activities or at band practice. She likes
casual sex, but just with you, not with anyone else.”
Amber twisted around and grabbed the phone. “Oh, I SO know what you mean.” She turned to me and helped
explain. “It’s like the Madonna-Whore complex, which is this idea Freud came up with that men get all sexually
confused because they want us to be virginal Madonna types they can bring home to meet their parents…but they
also want us to shag them like we’re insatiable whores. They can’t make up their mind which one they want. Ideally
both, because, you know…” She shrugged. “Because boys. I made up my own phrase for the ideal combo of both,”
she said proudly. “For modern times. I call it The Girl-Next-Door Slut.”
Lottie cackled. “LOVE it! The juxtaposition of two feminine ideals, i.e. a complete lose-lose stereotype.”
I pulled a face. “And you think guys want this?”
“Sure,” Lottie took back her phone. “I swear the only way you get a boyfriend these days is to pretend you’re a
Girl-Next-Door Slut.”
“Pretend how?”
“Oh, you know. Say stuff like ‘Do you mind if we keep this casual, I kinda get freaked out by the whole
commitment thing?’ It drives me mad. Boys always think I’m like that because I’m quite sexual, I guess…” Lottie
didn’t look sexual right then. She had melted chocolate all round her mouth. “But then they realize I sort of want
them to only put their organ into my body, and nobody else’s, and maybe even have a chat about our feelings and
stuff in-between and – bam – they get all jumpy and moody, like I’ve let them down.”
I pulled a face. “Aren’t you being a bit sexist? Boys aren’t all like that.”
“Yes they are,” Amber said.
I thought of Guy, and how he always picked me up on it when I got double-standardy. Thinking about him felt
good… “You can’t just lump all boys into the same turd lump.”
“Why not?” they both asked.
“Well…look at Jane and Joel. He’s not cheated on her, has he? He seems to really love her.”
“He loves a lie!” Lottie stood up again. “Jane is totally playing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Didn’t you say she’s
changed loads since they got together? That you feel she’s made herself a product? A girlfriend product?”
“I guess…”
“I swear to God, if she pulled out her clarinet and started saying ‘I’d rather you not blow me off for band practice
at the last minute’, Joel would up and leave.”
“I…guess…”
Amber came and joined us on the bed, flopping down and making ripples on the mattress. “Sometimes I don’t
care if I am sexist, you know? We have to deal with it all day every day, why not fight fire with fire?”
“Girls should rule the world,” Lottie said.
“Totally.”
I always felt I learned something when I was with them. They had such strong opinions, such high opinions about
being a girl and how it’s amazing, it was hard not to get swept up in it. I did feel a bit glowy about girlfolk. I mean, we
are really cool, aren’t we? And the world is, like, totally against you if you have a fanny, isn’t it?
“Shall I tell you what annoys me?” I asked, wanting to join in. “About Tim?”
“Go on.”
“It’s the language boys use, the language all of us use when we talk about girls. It’s so screwed up. Like, there are
all these horrid words for being girls with no male equivalent – like ‘slut’ or ‘psycho girlfriend’. Like Tim saying ‘being
tied down’ implies we’re a burden, that we, as a species, tie boys down and take away their freedom. Why do they
get freedom and we don’t? Why does everyone assume boys want freedom and girls want to be attached to
someone?” I took another square of chocolate and it helped my dulling hangover. “Think about it,” I continued.
“When boys get older, if they don’t find someone they get called bachelors. We get called spinsters. There isn’t a
word that means male spinster. Just like there isn’t a word for a guy who sleeps around – whereas there are TONS
for girls. The English language itself is sexist – it reinforces these overgeneralized, screwed-up notions about how
boys and girls are allowed to be…” I trailed off when I noticed them both staring at me.
“What?” I asked self-consciously.
“You’re quite smart, aren’t you, oh quiet one?” Lottie said, grinning. “I forget sometimes.”
“Well…umm…”
Amber re-flopped on the bed, causing another mini-earthquake.
“I hate the word spinster,” she said. “I’m already worried about becoming one and I’m only sixteen. And then I
get mad at myself for worrying so much about meeting a guy.”
“Why don’t we reclaim it?” Lottie asked, grinning wider. It was the first time she’d smiled all day and she looked
gorgeous – all lit up from inside. I felt proud that Amber and I were able to turn her round so quickly. “We can
reinvent the word ‘spinster’, make it the complete opposite of what it means? Like ‘young’ and ‘independent’ and
‘strong’? She yanked out her phone again, tapping away madly, pulling up photos of a protest in London – mostly of
women, waving placards and wearing miniskirts. “Look, a couple of years ago some feminists tried to reclaim the
word ‘slut’. And they organized these protests called ‘slut walks’ all around the world. It didn’t completely work,
mainly because slut is such a horrible word it can just never be empowering. But why don’t we try and reclaim
‘spinster’?”
Amber smiled. “I like it.”
“At the moment, spinster, technically means, what? An older unmarried woman? But it also means more than
that. It’s the scary fairytale word girls are told about so we fear being unattractive to men from a young age. It
means left on the shelf. It means a life wasted. It means cat lady. It means lonely and sad and bitter just because a
man doesn’t want you… What if we reversed it?”
“To what?” Amber asked.
And I answered.
“Being a spinster means you value your female relationships as much as your male ones.” I thought of Jane.
“Being a spinster means not altering who you are, what you believe in, and what you want just because it makes a
boy’s life easier.”
They both smiled wider and Lottie took over. “Being a spinster means you’re not afraid to look at society and say
loudly, ‘I don’t agree with this, this is wrong.’ Being a spinster means not worrying that boys won’t find you cute or
sexy for saying those things.”
I smiled as Amber finished up. “Being a spinster means looking after your girlfriends and supporting them through
whatever they need.”
I grabbed their hands – one each – and raised them to Lottie’s ceiling. “I formally announce us…SPINSTERS
through and through.” And we clapped and cheered and whistled ourselves and, for the first time ever in my life,
I felt strong.
Exclusive extract taken from Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne, out now. Follow Holly on Twitter @holly_bourneYA
or search for #100DaysofNormal.