Annie hosted another Write For Your Life Live last night, so we all cycled to Stoke Newington in the last of the sunshine to sit in a basement drinking wine and listening to people’s words. I wrote this piece that I oscillate between thinking is ‘absolute genius’ and ‘not my best work’, but here it is for you all anyway.

On the way home we got into a car crash on Amhurst Road, and it was 2% scary and 98% exciting (everyone is fine obv). But the people who crashed into us all lept from their car and sprinted down the road, so we had to give a small statement to police which was very main character energy. If you read to end I’ll share a pic of the damage.

Anyway, all this to say WHAT A NIGHT and thanks for reading :)

If you could reach back in time to give your 14-year-old self a piece of advice, what would it be? I have two answers, depending on how toxic my brain is behaving. Today, let’s lean into the more positive truth. That, when it comes to attraction and being attractive, never underestimate the importance of the vibe.

Lately, I’ve been losing myself inside Married at First Sight - or MAFS as we, the fans, call it. What began as a hazy, hungover afternoon has stretched into weeks - 60 hours in total - spent watching strangers fumble and feel their way toward the thing we call love.

And like most seasons, this one has followed a predictable pattern. What starts as love - or lust - at first sight shifts as the end of the season draws near. Men become restless, chasing the intangible thing they describe as ‘more’. Women are confused, wondering why the hours in the gym and filler in their cheeks haven’t secured them the happily-ever-after they’ve been conditioned to desire.

Every time I watch it I swear will be my last as I ask: How did we get here? Lost in loops of self-editing, chasing a beauty ideal that slips from our grasp like we’re trying to hold onto water.

Like many of us, I’ve spent years monitoring what I put into my body. Every time i step onto the scale I am 14 years old, counting calories, choosing flattering clothes, seeing mirrors as a surface to inspect, interrogate, dictate my mood. Who was it that said the body is a battleground? They were right. And all this time I thought attraction was simple maths: look good enough, be small enough, mimic the ‘right thing’ enough and it will follow. Right?

Today, the equation has sharpened. There are more edges to slam against, more pits to fall into. Ozempic slicing bodies into shadows, Botox freezing faces into replicas, fillers snatching cheeks “to the gods,” we joke. But when did the gods ever lead by example?

And if I’m being painfully honest, here it is. I am JEALOUS. Jealous of anyone driven enough to chase it, anyone with the kind of bank balance that can buy that kind of transformation. Jealous of their willpower, their ease, their selfies uploaded to Instagram.

But there’s a catch. The maths? It isn’t mathing. Like lots of things in life, attraction does not sit still. You can’t pin it down or frame it neatly for a photograph. Just like Carina learns after a six-week ‘marriage’ to Paul, attraction shifts like smoke. Fluid, fleeting, impossible to hold.

It isn’t ticking boxes or squeezing yourself into the latest mould invented by society. Attraction is knowing their body is close to yours before your eyes do. It’s waking up from a dream about them so vivid that you carry it with you for an entire day. It’s the sparks - literal sparks - that feel like static when skin meets skin.

Last week, sitting passenger-side, my dad told me we only have seven days in a week because that's how many celestial bodies ancient eyes could spot. Seven bodies in the sky, so we carved our lives into sevens. Seven deadly sins. Seven ancient wonders. Seven notes in every song.

Imagine if they'd counted differently. Six planets. Maybe we'd have six-day weeks, fewer sins to avoid. Or ten - would our music stretch wider, our morality split differently, our sense of time expand or contract like lungs breathing in time to an unseen cosmic pulse?

Beauty, attraction - they're like that too. Counting planets we can't control, guided by stars whose next move we can't predict. Once, bodies were holy when they were large, worshipped and carved from stone. The Venus of Willendorf, swollen, abundant, sacred. Then curves became brushstrokes, women painted by Rubens. Lush and desired, spilling from canvases and over frames.

We keep looking outward, upward, everywhere but in, waiting for the universe to tell us what to love, how to look, who to be. Counting planets, counting calories, never realising that attraction is not arithmetic. It's chemistry. It’s alchemy. The inexplicable magic when your skin collides, when your laugh meets theirs across a crowded room.

Our calendars, our scales, our mirrors - they're all just guesses, random as planets chosen by ancient eyes.

Maybe it's time to stop counting, let ourselves orbit freely, remember attraction is a spark, uncountable and fleeting. Maybe we're meant to chase vibes instead of numbers, and to surrender to the mystery instead of trying to measure it.

Thanks for reading 😀