Female Gaze

16 | be there or be square

BRIE

          I have no idea how I've landed myself in this sticky situation, but here I am.

          I know Paige de Haan. Well, I know of her, and have never exchanged two words with her up until now, but I've just found out she can talk for five minutes straight without feeling the need to catch her breath. I've never met someone who can talk as much as me—possibly even more—and I'm simultaneously scared and amazed.

          For one, people like Paige.

          If there's such a thing as a popular kids' table in college—and, for the sake of not reliving my own high school experience at my grown age of twenty-one, I'm hoping there isn't—she's sitting there and gets to dictate the social hierarchy. She's charming and is everywhere, even when and where you can't find her, and, sometimes, it feels like she's better known than her own brother. In a world ruled by athletes, saying that is a big deal.

          When it comes to people like me, others just roll their eyes and pretend to listen. When it comes to people like Paige de Haan, the sea parts to let her through, and she doesn't even have to try.

          It's petty envy coming from me, in a way, as she's the kind of person I'd feel so intimidated by during high school—and I'll even go as far as saying I might still be slightly scared of now—and the one I've been aspiring to be my whole life. Knowing she's younger than me and carries herself with this much self-confidence, enough to allow her to immediately jump into a conversation with someone she has never spoken to, is upsetting to me in a way that almost makes me want to throw a childish tantrum, complete with feet stomping.

          Maybe in high school being around someone like her would fill me with confidence and inspire me to feel better about myself. Now, it makes me feel worse and inadequate, more than usual, as I try and fail to understand where I went wrong about this whole spontaneously talking to people thing.

          "For what it's worth, I don't know much about hockey, either," Paige tells me, once we occupy a concrete bench outside. Now that practice is over, I no longer have to subject myself to the biting chill air in the ice rink and can wait for Rhett on the quad, where the still warm afternoon sun kisses my uncovered skin, even if it's still early for golden hour. "Andy has been playing his whole life, but I just can't get into it. He tried Izzy, but she's more into wellness; yoga, pilates, green smoothies, that sort of thing. She runs a That Girl TikTok account."

          "That Girl?"

          "Green smoothies, waking up at the crack of dawn to be productive, journaling, more productivity, toxic positivity, that kind of shit." Paige taps her perfectly manicured fingers on her phone, then turns it to me to show me her sister Izzy (Isolde) and her TikTok account. The number of views on her videos and her follower count put the few hundreds of likes on my photography posts on Instagram to shame. Is there nothing about this family that won't make me look immature and like I haven't done anything with my life? "Our little Internet celebrity. Mom isn't that big of a fan—she thinks she's too overexposed for a seventeen-year-old who hasn't even graduated high school—but she can't force her to stop."