Do claps really matter?

This was the question ringing through my head on a lonely weekday afternoon as I scrolled through my Medium profile. I’d been reading some stories from the publications I follow and noticed that they had been getting literally thousands of claps. Feeling a little insecure, I started clicking on each one of my stories, trying to figure out what my average amount of claps was.

I’ve been on Medium for just shy of a year now, and I’ve only ever had one story go viral. Sure, I’ve had some other successful pieces — I’ve had ones…

In high school, I had this one friend.

This friend was nice. She was friendly to people and treated others with respect. She had a warm smile and a comforting voice that she was frequently complimented for. She was a talented singer and a good student.

But she also had this fatal flaw. For years, I attributed it to poor social skills, self-absorbedness, a sense of toxic competition. In high school, I never had a term to describe it. I just knew there was something about her that made me feel annoyed — exhausted, even — when we spoke.

Whenever…

I think it’s fair to say that most of us have had at least one experience with the awkward situation known as the “friend zone.”

I, for one, will be the first to admit this. I’ve been in love with friends and had crushes on friends and had friends who had crushes on me. And when the feelings are unrequited, it becomes precisely the definition of friend-zoning — one person is crushing, and the other is not at all, so they attempt to *kindly* reject them, making it clear that they certainly still want to be friends. …

It was 3am.

I was driving home from a bonfire with a couple of friends. One friend had been drinking, and so I offered her a ride. She took me up on it. We left around 2:30. She was talkative, and I love her company, so we drove around a little. I circled onto her block around 2:45, then started heading home.

As I approached my own street, I noticed an awkward glow, like a streetlight, except there weren’t any streetlights at the top of my street. I got closer, then turned right onto my block. …

The subject of exes is complicated.

It seems like everyone has different experiences with their exes. Some are friendly and close while others are distant and aloof. There are some exes who are still in love and other exes who move on easily and date within a month. There are exes who want to be amicable and exes who don’t seem to care if your friendship crashes and burns in the end. Basically, it depends on the person, and the way that the relationship ended.

I’ve realized over time that there are 5 distinct types of exes (at least that…

The first time I got a hateful comment on Medium, I was deeply offended.

It was a comment on one of my political articles. An older man had posted a comment mocking me, my career, and my perspective. He quickly shot down my facts and used stinging words and expletives to get his point across. I’d like to be able to say that I took it with a grain of salt, but I didn’t. In fact, I was so speechless that I didn’t know what to do. Should I respond? Should I just leave it? Should I correct him on…

I’ve never been fat before.

I’ve never had a good relationship with my body (or food, for that matter) so I spent many years thinking I was fat, constantly criticizing my figure, looking in the mirror and hating what I saw. I would see myself in pictures and complain that I looked “disgusting.” But now, years later, I look at those pictures and think, Damn, I was skinny. Why did I hate myself so much?

This year, though, I actually got fat. Like, very overweight. (To be clear, I’m not using “fat” negatively. I feel most comfortable describing my journey…

“Did you hear that Alicia* changed her pronouns again?” my friend asked me one day in conversation. (*I have changed this person’s name to Alicia to protect their privacy.)

I had heard that Alicia had changed her pronouns again, but I really didn’t have a problem with it, and I didn’t know why my friend did. So I just mumbled back, “Yeah.”

And then my friend said something unthinkable. “I think she’s really just doing it for attention.”

I was left speechless. This friend is incredibly politically correct, fiercely accepting of the LGBTQ community, and staunchly liberal. …