It has happened to all of us. You’re just going about your life and you meet a woman and you fall instantly in love with her, but there’s one problem: You have no idea if she’s gay or straight. Maybe she has even said she is straight, but you remain uncertain she really knows herself, because if she’s straight why do you have this cosmic connection that transcends time and space? So, here we go, a useful quiz for you to figure out if that girl is gay.

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As a transgender woman, there were many requirements in order to receive my first trans-affirming surgery: facial feminization surgery. It started with an appointment with my general practitioner. He had me schedule an extended information phone call about the procedure with someone else in his office (technically an appointment, so copay still required). After that call, I scheduled a consult with the surgeon I’d chosen (the waitlist was several months). The surgeon’s office wouldn’t give me a surgery date until I had my approval letters, which brought me back to my general practitioner’s office. The first step for the letters was another information call where I was asked questions about my medical history. (Another copay.) After this was completed, the office was able to set me up with my official psych eval and medical eval — two more appointments, copays required, both not available for months. Finally, I had approval and was able to schedule my surgery date. The plan after my consult had been October, but by the time this was completed there were no appointments until the end of February.

I’m once again going through these same steps for bottom surgery. Except this time the hospital has their own additional psych and medical evaluations they require — three more appointments that for some reason can’t be used for insurance coverage in place of the appointments with my general practitioner. Bottom surgery also requires a year of hair removal from the surgical site.

I’m 31-years-old and I’ve been on hormones for over seven years. My commitment to my gender and moving through this world as a trans woman has been proven, I’d say.

So imagine my surprise when I saw a clip online from Fox News talking about teenagers going to school with one gender and returning home with another! They were saying kids could get trans surgeries as easily as getting a Big Mac at the drive-thru or, I don’t know, buying a gun at a Walmart.

Clearly, I’ve been going about this all wrong. Clearly, I have the wrong doctors or live in the wrong city, because I would like to avoid any more hurdles and just get my next surgery please.

While an effective advertisement in catching my interest, there wasn’t any number to call to actually go through this accelerated surgery process. If this is available for kids, it should definitely be doable for me. Especially since last time I checked trans minors rarely get surgery and usually it’s just an issue of totally reversible puberty blockers, correct hormones given in cases where someone has been living as their gender for many years, or, most commonly, just using the name and pronouns that make a kid feel better at a time in life when everything is really fucking hard.

Anyway, I’m lucky to finally have a job with health insurance so I can afford these surgeries I’ve wanted for many years, since cost is also often a prohibitive part of the process. But if I could find these drive-thru surgeries I might just throw in some new tits for fun.

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Take a breath, friend. You’ve already done the hardest part. You’ve looked in the mirror and come to terms with something real about yourself.

You are a podcaster.

You can’t change that, that is who you are — and if you are being honest with yourself, isn’t it who’ve you always been? Now that you’ve done the hard work of accepting it, you might feel ready to start thinking about telling your parents. If that’s you, you’ve come to the right place. I am here to guide you through this journey.

Step One: Practice

Give yourself a moment to think about what you want to say to your parents. What is the most important take away you want them to walk away with? These conversations are challenging, and it is likely you won’t be able to cover all your points. Try to narrow it down. Are you solely relying on your Quince spon-con for clothing for the foreseeable future? Do you find yourself going mad about the events of the day if you aren’t behind a mic to give your take? Do you simply just feel more natural with a pop filter in front of your mouth? All of these things are a part of being a podcaster, and being a podcaster is valid. If you find yourself struggling to think about what you might want to say — just jump on the mic for a second and see what comes naturally to you. Remember, this is your life, not theirs.

Step Two: Patience

You will have to give your parents time to understand what this means, and it won’t be easy. You will have to explain things like the “Apple Podcast App” and “iheartRadio,” and these are not words any parent wants to hear coming out of their child’s mouth. But you have to give them time to understand the benefit of iHeart inserting anywhere between two and four minutes of ads for sports betting websites into your work. Try to explain phrases that you take for granted, like “listen wherever you get your podcasts.” What could that sentence mean to parents, really? Just take a deep breath and think about the Helix mattress waiting for you at home.

Persistence

It all comes down to persistence in the end. This is who you are, and if your parents refuse to see that, you will have to wear them down over time. Refuse to let them erase your identity, and stand up for what you believe in, and the proud community you now belong to. Bring your mic and pop filter to Thanksgiving dinner, and don’t back down when your aunties tell you “a microphone doesn’t need a plate.” You are a podcaster, and a podcaster is never alone.

Remember: The mic is in your hand. You got this.

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A burgeoning microgenre has emerged in the lesbian lit community that has all the girlies feeling a strange mix of sexual arousal and existential climate dread. It’s called SAPPHIC ROMANCE ECOHORROR, a new romance trend that places steamy lesbian love stories against the backdrop of environmental devastation. If you’re looking to dabble in sapphic romance ecohorror, we’ve got four standout titles for you to check out! Read about them below, and be sure to comment with your favorites!

Love at First Megaflood by E. G. Pennywise

Justine is a meteorologist begging for the world to listen to her warnings about an incoming megaflood of apocalyptic proportions, but a government-led propaganda campaign has labeled her as a radical lesbian conspiracy theorist. Too busy trying to warn the world of what’s to come, she keeps missing the signals emanating from Dr. Laura Hapley, a marine biologist known for going viral for her whale videos who also is one of the few people who believes Justine about the flood. During late-night chat sessions online, Justine and Hapley become closer and closer. The scientist/content creator rallies her followers to listen to Justine, but will she also listen to her heart? When Justine and Laura’s paths collide, it’s like a superstorm of sapphic ecstasy. But how will their flood of feelings for each other weather the incoming megaflood? From author E.G. Pennywise comes this soaking wet new sapphic romance.

Searching For Her (And For Drinkable Water) by Lisa Laser

A helpless romantic, Jessica Bradenton knows the woman of her dreams is out there. When she was 16, she went to a bisexual psychic who told her she’d meet her true soulmate during her 38th year. For over a decade, she has been cursed with one dead-end relationship after another, but in the back of her mind she always knew it would never work with these women, who were just placeholders along the way of her true destiny. Now Jess is 38, and every woman she encounters makes her wonder: Is she the one? But meeting women proves hard against the backdrop of widespread drought and toxic water contamination. For the last five years, there have been ongoing water wars over the dwindling drinkable water supply across the country. But when Jess gets involved with an underground group committed to fighting the evil water companies profiting off of the crisis, she meets a slew of women who become new friends. But which one of them could be something more? Read the book that gives a whole new meaning to thirsty.

Hannah and Alex Are Heating Up by Jay Courtney

Hannah and Alex are workplace rivals at their high-intensity jobs as luxury real estate agents in California, where the wealthy are buying up land and building mansions to weather the upcoming apocalyptic heatwaves. But as the planet warms to unprecedented levels, Hannah and Alex find something heating up between them, sexual tension weaseling its way into their years-long rivalry that goes back to their boarding school days. Soon, they won’t be able to ignore it any longer, even if they are masters of the art of delusion and denial about their evil jobs. Both characters are terrible people, but the novel is going to pretend like they’re not!

Squall Squad by S.S. Swordsmith

When a series of life-threatening squalls hit their town, a five-person polycule living in a sprawling but run-down farmhouse take it upon themselves to develop an anarchist collective to distribute mutual aid and rebuild a community ravaged by relentless superstorms and ignored by the government. They call themselves the Squall Squad, but can all the relationships and dynamics that make up this crew of misfit queers withstand the pressures of becoming a climate survival operation? And when one of them goes missing during a squall, will the polycule implode on itself? Read the book that features the most intense chore wheel in queer communal living history.

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feature image photo of Chuck Schumer by MediaPunch/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images via Getty Images

The Democratic Party has been in shambles since their decisive loss in the 2024 general election. Party leadership has been disorganized, inconsistent, and unpopular as they attempt to deal with Donald Trump’s second presidency and a Republican Party of increasing power.

Many loyal Democrat voters have been eager for the party to take action. “Have they considered focusing less on losing elections and more on governing?” asked Laurence Smith, a Democrat voter from Peoria, Illinois.

“It’d be nice to vote because I’m excited about someone, instead of always voting for the lesser of two evils,” said Alex Zucker, a local of Portland, Oregon who asked to be identified as a reluctant registered Democrat.

“I think they’re doing a great job,” countered Braddock, Pennsylvania resident John Fetterman.

Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, aimed to calm distrust in his party at a press conference yesterday. He began by promising that he’d personally make Donald Trump the fastest lame duck president in history before explaining the Democratic Party’s bold new strategy:

We will fight Donald Trump and his unelected cronies with every fight we have in us. We’ll fight them in the courts, we’ll fight them at the ballot box, we’ll fight them by asking if they’d please not do the things we don’t like. And we’ll fight them by throwing trans people into volcanos! 

The bipartisan Must Abolish Gender Misfits Act, or MAGMA, proposes that all known transgender individuals in the United States be tossed into volcanos as volcanos are made available. When asked why target this small portion of the population, one that frequently votes Democrat, Schumer explained that his party was losing on the transgender issue.

“Transgenders started in 2014 and we’ll leave them in 2024,” he continued. We tried it for a decade and it’s just not working with regular hardworking Americans whether they’re banking lobbyists or oil lobbyists or even real estate lobbyists.”

When pressed on why the method of volcanos, Schumer explained that it was time to reclaim the color orange from the current president and “everyone likes explosions.” He insisted the decision had nothing to do with the large donation the Democratic Party received last year from controversial super PAC Melt the Flesh Off People Inc.

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This just in: the new place to see and be seen? The severed floor of the club. That’s right, these trendsetting members of the queer community are all lining up to gain access to L(GBTQ)umon Club, the hottest club open right now. Wondering why the young elite of today are willingly choosing to have an experience the mind won’t remember but the body will? For many — that’s the point.

Severance is a controversial memory altering procedure developed by Lumon Corporation about 12 years ago. It allows you to surgically split your mind, keeping your memories of your “work” life and your “real” life — or the dance floor life and real life — entirely separate. Severance was developed to help people truly create ultimate work life balance — one where you literally cannot remember your job. I know for a lot of us, that idea can feel compelling. The freedom of literally not thinking about work has its points, but why choose a severed dance floor?

We live in a time of constant demands on the mind, so perhaps it makes sense that the youth of today are searching for a place where they won’t remember. “It’s just so relaxing,” Oliver*, 24 tells me. It’s been six months since they went through the severance procedure, and they are still gushing about to everyone they know. “Usually when I go out, I waste so much time worrying about what I am going to say or do or who to talk to. Now all I have to do is get dressed, head down the elevator and boom! It’s the next day.”

Carrie, another advocate for the severed dance floor agrees. “It’s so great, because we all know how the gay community is — always complaining that we’re dating our friends or our friends’ exes, the circles are too small, whatever. This way, we don’t even remember each other. It’s perfect!”

For some folks, the lack of worrying about what they got up to when they were at the club was really relaxing. “I used to get such bad hangexity before I got severed,” Julia, 29, tells me. “I would just sit on the couch and think of ways I did a bad job when I was drunk. Now it really doesn’t matter! It’s so freeing.”

But what about, well…actual hangovers? Splitting one’s mind certainly has its appeal, but how does the body fare? “I can’t lie, the first few mornings were pretty rough,” Oliver admits. “You’ve gotta trust that your Innie won’t like, totally sabotage your Sunday.”

While it sounds like Oliver has a handle on his Innie, many medical professionals I spoke to for this piece were baffled by this choice. “Why is this even a thing” was something I heard quite often, as well as “Why wouldn’t you want to remember partying?” Many argued that the benefits of socializing — and remembering it — far outweigh any of the benefits mentioned above.

Still, Oliver has no plans to hang up his severed dance floor card. “It’s the best I’ve felt in a long time,” he says. “I mean, I think. I don’t really remember.”

*names have not been changed, but they have been made up.

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It was a cool spring evening in March when Christina Grace, 35, finally understood the reason her parents were always begging her to come visit. It was not, as she hoped, to see family and friends and spend some time relaxing in her favorite childhood spots. No, the reason was darker than that — and more insidious.

Christina sighs as she wraps her hands around her mug of coffee. Her face is lined and weary but resolute. She is ready to share her story. “I think there is a part of me that needs to believe that my parents see me as more than their gay daughter who knows about astrology.” She pauses for a moment, gathering her strength. “But I was wrong.”

Like many 30-somethings who have a decent relationship with their family and hometown, Christina makes the trek upstate a few times a year, trying to maintain the balance between having her own life and strengthening the bonds of her family of origin. “Always for Christmas, and usually a few times during the year. I like it here, it’s beautiful, you know?”

It is. The Hudson Valley remains as scenic as ever, with great sweeping vistas of mountains and farmland. Alas, all of these glorious and comforting sights pale in face of the way her family has used her for her astrology knowledge. “I worked really hard to be seen as a well rounded person by my parents,” Christina admits. “It’s just kind of depressing that no matter what I do, I am nothing more than their gay daughter who knows about astrology.”

“I suppose I should have been suspicious when they kept pushing for me to come up Thursday, instead of Friday.” She shakes her head. “It was all so clear in retrospect.” It wasn’t until her parents casually mentioned that Thursday was their trivia night that she started to understand the magnitude of her situation. “You know what’s crazy? My brother warned me this might happen. I just didn’t believe him.”  Her brother, Sean, 34, confirmed. “I know it’s harder for her,” he tells me candidly. “I’m good at sports questions, but so is my dad. They always fall apart in the astrology round.” He pauses, thinking for a moment. “I can’t imagine the pressure she’s under.”

When I tell Christina this, she loses a long breath, staring up for a moment. “It means a lot to know this isn’t all in my head.”

For their part, her parents remain confused. “I think we had one question about astrology?” her father, David, 64, tells me, confusion is evident in his voice. “We were just thinking it was a nice thing to do on Thursday.” Tellingly, her mother did not want to speak on the record.

At the end of the day, maybe both parties are right. And maybe one day, our parents can value their gay kids for who they are—and not just their knowledge of the stars.

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I think we can all agree that Hinge is the most widely-used dating app for sapphic people. Bumble and its BFF bullshit is too triggering for lesbians; Tinder is still regarded as the vain, judgmental app; Lex is both too millennial and too Gen Z at the same time; and I have yet to hear any positive reviews of Taimi and HER. There is, of course, Feeld… if you’re into that kind of thing. But the fact remains that Hinge is a popular dating app for sapphic people of all expressions. What I really like about Hinge is the prompts feature, which allow me to get to know people before I swipe on them, and vice versa.

But what’s a dyke to do if all of my answers to prompts showcase just how unhinged I am? I mean, some of these really feel like they’re personally attacking me. For example:

A dream home must include

Okay so you want me to reveal that I’ve already located their childhood home on Zillow and memorized every single detail?

A friend’s review of me

Don’t you every fucking talk to my friends about me.

A quick rant about

I have never ranted quickly about anything in my life.

A shower thought I recently had

The combination of “shower” and “recently” is taking a lot of liberties here…

I’m convinced that

I caused 9/11 when I was in kindergarten. Is that what you want me to put on my dating profile?

See what I mean? Why are they setting me up for a disaster like that? Instead of conforming to these barbaric prompts, here are 5 Hinge prompts to hide how unhinged you are:

The most normal thing I’ve ever done is

Go to middle school.

I typically eat dinner

In the late afternoon or early evening.

My most middle-of-the-road opinion is

Lunch is a great meal.

My middle initial stands for

My middle name.

My favorite place to go grocery shopping is

The grocery store.

You see how you were able to learn so much about me, but not once were you worried that I’d be unhinged? I gave you so much fun information here to spark up a conversation and didn’t provide a single reason for you to screenshot my profile and send it to a group chat.

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This lesbian couple has found a way to “hack” their relationship, and it might surprise you. They use AI to resolve all of their arguments. Kara Wilson and Jen Titan are two lesbians who work in tech who are working on a new app to help sapphic couples better communicate. Called LezTalk, the app uses everything from past arguments to astrological placements to attaching styles to transcripts of therapy sessions to help queer women in relationships better talk to each other.

Kara and Jen experimented on their own relationship to develop the app. “We just realized that arguments were taking too much time,” Kara explained in an exclusive interview. “So we thought to ourselves: what if we could make these go faster?”

Kara and Jen struggled at first to train the AI bot for the project, because the slop it was already pulling from often led to homophobic answers. Once, the AI even referred to Jen by a slur. In an attempt to course-correct, the couple showed every single episode of The L Word to the AI bot, but this had some drawbacks, too. Whenever Kara and Jen asked LezTalk how to resolve arguments they were having, the bot would reply with follow-up questions like: “What would Shane do?” and “Have you considered starting a lesbian pickup basketball team randomly for one day about this even though neither of you play basketball?”

Kara and Jen admit the tech isn’t perfect and in fact the tool that was designed to help resolve their arguments was leading to more arguments between them.

They wanted to make couple fights go faster, and along the way, they developed the perfect tool to also make them go worse. But Kara and Jen aren’t giving up. They’re holding out hope that after a few more years of testing, LezTalk could completely change the relationship game.

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They say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. But is what’s good for the gander good for women? Several Republican members of Congress don’t think so!

Representative Nancy Mace took to X yesterday sharing reports of gander neutral bathrooms sweeping the nation. “First they let in biological men, now they’re letting in poultry, when will it end?” wrote the congress person.

Senator Josh Hawley joined in with his own concerns: “After being briefed on this latest example of woke culture, I’ve learned that over a thousand Americans have been attacked by geese and ganders since 2001 — the same year as 9/11. Since females are docile, we can assume these attacks were carried out primarily by the ganders.”

It wasn’t clear where these ganders are coming from or why they needed to use human bathrooms. However, the warnings still resonated with the general public. X Premium user FartNugget69 wrote, “These birds have tiny little penises and they will be attacking our wives.”

Some people warned that attacks from the ganders weren’t the primary concern, but rather the contagion that could spread from this species. Another X Premium user GayNotQueer wrote, “Ever heard of a silly goose? Do we want human females turning silly as well? That’s the real bird flu.”

After twelve hours of uproar, a community note pointed out that the article Mace shared in screenshots may have had a typo.

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The past few years have brought an exciting influx of out queer musicians not only creating work, but being celebrated for that work. Artists no longer have to stay in the closet or keep their sexuality quiet in order to receive mainstream fame and awards. But this positive trend has been paired with a troubling development: Queer artists have abandoned their communities.

No, they haven’t made their music less explicitly queer or more palatable for straight people. No, they haven’t toned down their style to fit into a more conventional presentation. No, they haven’t changed their political principles to leave behind marginalized communities. But they have done something worse: They’ve started to market their music.

Of course, I understand that marketing is part of the job. Musicians want people to listen to their music. But I’m not talking about posting on social media that they have a new song or doing a few interviews. Lately queer musicians have started announcing new music — even playing it on TV! — long before it’s released. They’ll say they’re releasing an album when that album isn’t coming out for several more months. It’s this behavior I find inexcusable.

As a queer person, I am entitled to music from these queer artists according to the terms I decide. We are in community with one another, after all. They owe their fans — me — as many songs as I want. And if they aren’t ready, they should at least have the respect for their fans — me — to go away and not promote it until it is.

Why am I seeing billboards and promotional photos for a single song? Why is that song not the exact genre I want from this artist? If queer artists are going to sell out like this, I’d rather they just be straight.

If you’ve enjoyed this piece, please subscribe to my Substack for only $5 a month.

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Coming out isn’t always easy, even if you have a great support system around you. There can still be judgements made, relationships altered, and some real trauma risks created. Not only are you coming to terms with who you are on the inside, you’re also having to communicate this externally to friends, family, coworkers, and strangers everywhere you go. This should be a joyous time in your life but, for one reason or another, it’s proven to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done! That’s why I’m here to help you tell your loved ones one of the scariest things you’ll ever say aloud: I’m a standup comedian.

There will be people who doubt you or question you, they’ll tell you it’s unnatural or part of the “woke virus,” but mostly they’ll just be asking you to prove it. They’ll demand evidence to your face and in frightening circumstances, will make you do it in front of a crowd. They’ll ask you if you know any other standup comedians that they went to high school with despite having nothing else in common. They’ll start comparing you to famous standup comedians like Ellen.

What’s going to hurt the most, and you’ll likely hear it often, is people will insist to you that it’s just a phase. They won’t know how long you’ve actually been thinking about becoming a standup comedian. They won’t know about all of the friends you experimented with in middle school (telling them jokes and seeing what landed). They’ll tell you that you just haven’t found the right job yet and so you’re panicking. They may even try to insist that your standards are too high for desk jobs! “Just give corporate a chance!” they’ll say. “Your Aunt Deb went corporate and now she can finally afford rent with her roommate Barbara.”

The best you can do while you come out is just remember what you have waiting on the other side for you:  room full of women either yelling your name with excitement or shaking their heads in disappointment.

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Is one of your goals this year to eat more protein? Well, this suburban New Jersey varsity soccer game full of feral gay girls has a surprising tip for how you can do so even while traveling or while completely stranded in the wilderness: Eat people.

That’s right, human flesh contains natural protein that can fuel you on the go. “It tastes better than you think,” said Shauna Shipman, who first discovered this protein hack when she snacked on her dead best friend’s ear while steadily losing her mind. In fact, she thinks ear snacks should be incorporated into more athletes diets as they contain far fewer chemical ingredients than the leading protein bars. “You don’t get much more natural than human mean,” Shauna said. “It’s unprocessed, full of nutrients, and comes directly from the source.”

“No comment,” said Shauna’s teammate Taissa Turner when asked what she thinks about this gamechanging approach to hitting protein goals. Her girlfriend Van offered that eating human body parts is way less scary of a concept than the film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre makes it seem and then proceeded to give a detailed recap of the entire film like some sort of human version of a Wikipedia page.

In a time when more people are cutting back on their meat consumption due to ethical and environmental concerns, the soccer team’s advice reveals radical new opportunities. Don’t we as a society tend to agree that animal cruelty is worse than human suffering? Eat people, not pets! These scary little soccer gays are onto something.

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Q:

I’ve always felt like I have a secure attachment style. I’m really direct and I tend to date people who are just as good at communicating as I am. But I’ve started to catch my girlfriend lying to me. Last week, she told me she was hanging out with a friend of hers, but then I ran into that friend at the grocery store. When I confronted her about it, she told me she was planning something for my birthday, but that’s two whole months away… And this wasn’t a one-time occurrence. Generally, she’s been more distant and seems to always be texting with someone. I’ve been cheated on before and it’s really starting to feel like that.

But here’s the thing: She’s sort of an internet celebrity and she’s been cast on the next season. I know from board game nights that she’s REALLY competitive, so maybe she’s just practicing for the show? If she can figure out how to lie to me, then it’d be easier for her to lie to a Real Housewife. Should I confront her about cheating? Or should I wait until after she films the show?

A:

Wow, what a unique predicament! In fact, I feel like I should start by saying that this is being published on a public website and your anonymity might be at risk due to the specifics described here. Does your girlfriend read Autostraddle? Because you may get an answer to your question sooner than you’d like.

But, on the off chance your celesbian girlfriend doesn’t read our publication (weird but okay), I think you should talk to her. You said you’re usually really direct and good at communicating so be direct and communicate! You don’t need to be confrontational about it either. You can just explain how you’ve been feeling. You can say you understand why she said she lied about the plan with her friend, but you’re struggling to move past it, along with her other behavior. You can even add that you understand if this is all part of her process in preparing to go to Scotland to meet Alan Cumming and be on a reality TV show.

It’s important to be able to trust your partner. And whether she’s cheating or not, that trust seems to not be there for you right now. I think it’s a mistake to let that distrust and resentment continue to form during her time at the castle. There’s a good chance your girlfriend won’t be the only hot queer on the show. Do you really want to be worrying if she’s carrying out deceit and deception with a former Drag Race contestant?

Ultimately, The Traitors is a show all about trust. Just like she’ll have to decide who to trust in the castle, you’ll have to decide whether you can trust her. If you’re not able to gain that trust back, the only option is banishment.

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By now you’ve surely heard of the breakup of the iconic content creator couple Lindsey Bubbles and Kate Latte. I still remember where I was when I first learned: sitting in my bed, scrolling on TikTok like I do for two to three hours before bed and right after waking up. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t.

For the past two weeks since they announced the breakup in a 76-minute-long video posted to both of their personal accounts as well as their shared couples content account, I’ve consumed every video, story, thread, and Reddit conspiracy available online dissecting the breakup and the events leading up to it. I could probably write a full-length book about this breakup, but I won’t because books are kind of cringe. I mean, why do they have to have so many words? Anyways, I digress. I’m here to talk about the breakup of Lindsey and Kate, because it is all I know how to talk about. It is all I’m thinking about.

While I was Team Lindsey in the immediate aftermath, another fan has convinced me to switch over to Team Kate. In all honestly though, I’m just Team Sad. How could this happen? How could they do this to us, their loyal followers who were made to believe in the beauty of their love. If they can’t make it work, how can any of us? I feel manipulated — nay, betrayed by their actions. Don’t they know they don’t get to be real people with agency and lives beyond our screens? If I no longer have their content to consume, I will simply wither away, because I’m somehow managed to hinge my entire sense of self worth and mental health on these two people from online who I do not know and never will meet.

I know I’m not alone in this struggle. So join me on Instagram live at noon central for my recap and analysis of the breakup and its aftermath and so we can all be in community together about this tragedy.

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