Don't become a Married Woman

Be a woman who happens to be married instead.

So, I have a friend named Becka, who is a recurring character in this substack. Of her many quirks, the most peculiar one is her obsession with the people we went to secondary school with. Maybe it’s my terrible memory or some unconscious repression, but I barely remember most of secondary school. Becka, though, remembers everything. One of the few things that has stuck with me is the memory of the beautiful “women” we went to school with. Now, why am I calling them “women” when they were 16-year-old girls? Well, to my flat-chested, boyish 10-year-old self, those seniors were womanhood personified. They had curves, they had boobs, they were attractive. Two in particular stood out: Ada and Naomi.

Ada was stunning. She wasn’t as buxom as Naomi, but she had one of those faces that could be cast to play Helen of Troy, and the DEI opponents would not complain. In fact, if my faulty memory serves, our gonzo school newspaper even crowned her the most beautiful girl on campus. Then there was Naomi, and damn, she was a woman. She was like a Black Joan from Mad Men—the kind of beauty that just commanded attention.

Fast forward 18 years since I first saw them at the age of ten, and, well, a lot has changed. For one, I’m still flat-chested. But Becka recently told me about Ada, and I almost couldn’t believe we were talking about the same person. She looked so... underwhelming. The extra weight hadn't just changed her – it had erased that magnetic beauty that once defined her. And Naomi? She looked beaten down by motherhood, too exhausted to even pretend to care about her appearance.

Now, before you crucify me, let me respond to the rebuttals I know are coming. Do I expect women to never age? No. What I’m saying is that the “fall from grace” for these women has felt so rapid. We’re still young! Women in their early to mid-30s shouldn’t look dramatically different from when we were all in school. What's more telling is how some of their classmates still look vibrant. The difference comes down to two things: weight and wealth.