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hello and the best i can give

im not quite sure who exactly i am and i think its an impossible question for any individual to truly answer but ill do my best. i’m not gonna give my name bc choc_orange does the job but i’m 20 years old and 5”8/9. i have long brown hair and dark eyes, im a pisces and the youngest of 5. I was raised on a small holding with lots of animals; donkeys, sheep, ducks, chickens, a horse, dogs and a cat. i went to an all girls school in a city and didn’t do well socially but always had a few friends. i love to sew and have done casually since i was about 4 years old. i struggle with feeling cripplingly lonely pretty much all the time. i love national trust homes and gardens and am contemplating a membership. i’ve never had a boyfriend or girlfriend and im pretty insecure about it, people usually assume there’s something wrong with you when you tell them (which maybe there is!??) i’m a bartender and don’t yet know what my career plan is which scares me. i have chronic fatigue/ ME i love Love LOVE walking i have an extremely terrible fear i’m romantically unloveable. also my sister is my best friend and im pretty sure we were a delayed split egg or something (dont tell me this is biologically impossible)

@choc_orange

Mar 1, 2025

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A Case of Arrested Development?

First of all, this is definitely normal and you’re absolutely not alone in it. But I think you may be ascribing self-actualization and self-assuredness to those a few years younger than you a little too hastily. People who had their middle-school years disrupted by the pandemic also dealt with/continue to deal with the effects of missing out on formative social and personal development, all the while with less developed brains! Not to mention the people you’re seeing are the ones out at shows, not the ones staying home with social anxiety or panic attacks. So although it may seem from your observation that people in this age range are doing just great, it sounds like you’re comparing yourself to a skewed group through an internalized lens of cultural bias towards youth – quite a combo. And that’s just not being fair to yourself. The fact that you are getting back out there is big and needs to be acknowledged. Instead, you’re positively projecting and amplifying, i.e., seeing in them what you are having trouble finding in yourself. But it is in there – the proof is that you’re showing up. Same thing for self-expression – have you seen your own pfp? You seem cool af! Because of the pandemic, you’ve had a unique and unfortunate generational experience of this “arrested development”, but this also creates an opportunity to further the paradigm shift that royallmonarch focused on in his lovely essay. Societal expectations based around age are out; living your life on your own timeline is in. Life happens; shit happens. But you’re getting through it and you’re doing great. Youth/very young adults who make their youth their personality are actually boring people. Adults who pine about their younger days are also boring. Don’t be either! And if it makes you feel any better, I was at my peak “reckless” right at your age; I got a “late” start. You have so much time to keep doing fun stuff and most importantly, to figure out what you like and don’t like. I’m in my 30s and I’m going to a friend’s rave tomorrow. Ok, it’s a well-organized, well-curated event and not some shit-show in the bush, but still. It’s not over for me! Another night, I’ll stay home and pet my cats. Either way, I’m doing whatever the fuck I want. People take up painting or whatever in their 80s. The sooner you get on that vibe, the better. Ok go have fun!

@solomonki

Jul 11, 2024

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life gets clearer and never stops being messy

mirabelle! congratulations on making it to 16, having an undeveloped brain and going through puberty kinda blows. so i'm proud of you for surviving what might be the weirdest time in your life for self perception, relationships (of any kind), and mood, lols. i'm 31 now. i'll be 32 this year so i'm twice your age! i could really like go AWFF and give you the full run down of my life story but perhaps i'll save that for another post. i actually read this book when i was a teenager called Einstein's Dreams. it's about all these different realities where time behaves differently, it's really cool. it made me think a lot about the future! speaking of Eisntein, time is relative. so each year that passes, goes faster than the one before. 1 year of your life when you're 10 is 1/10 of your life. as you get older that fraction gets smaller and smaller and smaller. sometimes a year feels like 6 months. it's wild. i also recommend you read "4,000 weeks time management for mortals" it's not really about time management, it's about changing your perspective so you can live a life! one thing about life that will always be true no matter what age you are is that it's always going to be messy. you can have your shit together and shit can still go awry. it's how you pick yourself up from that mess and move forward that determines the next phase/step and ultimately the rest of your life! so your frontal lobe does not develop until your 25. your frontal lobe is responsible for basically making sure that you can move through life with a rational mind. at some point you should google "what is the frontal lobe responsible for" and then give yourself hella grace if you are struggling in some of those areas. i low key wish we didn't go to college until we were 25. you are still SO young in your 20s. i still feel like i'm 27. when i turned 25, it was like the fog cleared and suddenly i felt calm. i wasn't so angry (still angry but just less angry) as i was when i was much younger. i had a lot to be angry about, my therapist can confirm this. now this doesn't happen to everyone... but because i'd SEEN some shit when i was younger i have a very different perspective on relationships and the world in general. i dated a really kind, generous, giving man for 10 years from 20-30. when i turned 25 i started really questioning if i should stay in this relationship. he never gave me a huge reason to leave, it was comfortable, safe, and familiar. so i stayed. when i turned 27 things really started to shift. i learned how to properly feed myself so i didn't feel like shit all the time and so my body wouldn't break down and stop working. again, i'd seen and been through some shit as a kid. when my mood improved, i was able to really grow into myself. i started to become the person i dreamed of becoming when i was 8, 9, or 10. i wish i had had the chance to become that person as a teenager, but life doesn't always work like that. and age is dumb and life is (hopefully) long! also if anyone tries to date you that is significantly older than you before you turn 30, RUN. i realized that most of my decisions i made in my late teens into my 20s were done because (a) i was living in survival mode and (b) i was doing what i thought i "should" be doing. as a women and a child of shitty parents, i never learned to put myself first. i never learned how to live for joy, i never learned how to listen to my heart, mind, body, and SOUL. i started to realize i had to leave this relationship because i wasn't happy. and that was enough of a reason and arguably the most important. now i'm rebuilding my life. but, i'm trying to be the person that when i'm 60 (god willing), i'll look back and say thank you for taking care of me and this body and also fuck yeah that's a fucking life!!! those two outcomes don't have to be mutually exclusive. also adults don't know shit. some adults do and some adults DON'T. some adults never mature beyond middle school. i wish i was kidding. i teach middle school science so i work with kids and parents, i am a reliable source on this. learn how to identify the adults that know what they're talking about and are mature and the ones that don't. my advice to you as a yung cherub, if i may, is (1) find your passions and try to make a life out of those passions. or find a job that let's you pay the bills + still follow your passions on the side. this will keep you going. (2) LISTEN TO YOUR GUT. there is a wisdom so ancient within us. it KNOWS. listen to it, nurture it, thank it. (3) make as many friends as possible. close ones, acquaintances, party friends, friends you can vent to, friends you can go on walks with, friends you can pick up right where you left off even if you haven't seen them in years. there's this saying that stuck with me -- "we're all just walking each other home" maintaining friendships is the secret sauce that makes life so delicious. the people you keep in your heart are like the stars that light the sky as we walk each other home (corny alert). also connections RULE and can help you get to where you want to go in life! all the rest of it is pretty meaningless. 🤷🏻‍♀️ so yeah that's about it! i am wishing you an awesome rest of your LIFE!!!! also if you peak in high school and college that's a fucking loooooooong time to be on the decline. stay weird. be different. do you. and love big!

@chronicwebuser

Apr 12, 2025

Top Recs from @bensinc

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STOP MOTION ANIMATION

My school did a workshop about it when I was like 10 and I think the amount of care and dedication it takes to hand crafting each and every frame is so cool. When its done well you get a really stylised films, I’m thinking like Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit, Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, ParaNorman and The Box Trolls all of which I loved as a kid and every time I rewatch them I get the same sense of childlike wonder I did when I watched them the first time. I know there’s a lot of crossover with CGI now when making them but just the concept of stop motion animation is really cool.

@bensinc

Apr 13, 2025

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GOLD TEETH - BLOOD ORANGE FT. PROJECT PAT, GANGSTA BOO & TINASHE

I have a memory of being hungover in a McDonald’s being surrounded by middlesborough fans, listening to this song through shitty earbuds and it was a weirdly dreamlike moment. Now every time I hear this song I think of that moment.

@bensinc

Apr 25, 2025

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STREAMING PLATFORMS & INDIVIDUALISATION

I’m just about to finish my bachelors in media and cultural studies and my dissertation (idk if it’s the same as a thesis) is on how streaming platforms mostly Spotify, have changed the way people listen to music and how it’s been individualised. Theres a lot to it but I’m gonna try and break down how Spotify uses ai to personalise your experience with the app. Basically, you know cds and that? When you purchase a cd it’s the exact same cd as someone else who also owns that cd even if you listen to it in different settings on paper it’s the same experience. Streaming platforms like Spotify have changed that dynamic because now it’s a lot easier to seperate the music from its intended experience. Spotify then takes your experience with that song and makes a mental note of it and will recommend you music that sounds similar to that song using a ai algorithm that compares your playlists to every playlist on the app. This leads to features like discover weekly that are entirely personalised recommendations based on your own listening history, meaning that on paper your discover weekly and your friends discover weekly should be completely different even if you listen to the same music. Theres a lot more to it then that, including how Spotify as a platform has sort of moved on from just being a music streaming service by including social media like content with a musical twist. The algorithm is also a lot more complicated than that but that’s how it works on a surface level. But my entire paper revolves around the idea that streaming services and by extension the internet are slowly killing communal music experiences like the radio and live music venues (in some extreme cases) because people like the unique experiences that platforms like Spotify provide due to how personalised they are. I’m not finished writing it yet (deadline is in a month), but all the research is done and I’ve had a lot of interesting interviews with people who use the app casually and others who are more involved in local music scenes to see how streaming platforms have affected them.

@bensinc

Apr 12, 2025