Today, I am thirty years old.

For my birthday I paid a man to touch my butt*.

If I wasn’t single I wouldn’t have had to pay for it, butt touches would be free and expected

If you aren’t thirty yet, and single keep reading, avoid the pitfalls that have led to this tragic point in my life. For all others help your friends and loved ones if you see them on the same path as me…

There is no one thing to blame for my life, not one thing but four people: my mother and three grandmothers.

One grandmother encouraged me to be the independent woman I am. She gave me the thumbs up to go to college, both times, and thinks my eclectic taste in furniture is a-ok. But she failed me. She took me shopping and bought me modest well fitting t-shirts in every color, I remember distinctly the woman literally falling off a chair grasping her bosom when she deviated from the t-shirt in every color theme, my 12-year-old bust line was too much for the cute clothes in the juniors department.

In my early twenties she relaxed a little, and set me on a path to something akin to style, still one in every color though. But it was too little too late.

My other grandmother aided (unknowingly) in this youthful style betrayal. She wore capris, and made it ok for me to follow suit. Not ok. She should have slapped me and told me to put on real pants. But she is a fairly kind woman, who against her better judgement tolerated my slovenly lifestyle and post-rugby stench to encourage my education.

She was also a great political influence in my life. Essentially, she made me the outlier at Easter dinner by exposing me to hardline, blind conservatism during my late stage rebellious period. This pushback is so deep seeded that the idea of being married and popping out babies for the God and country causes a negative physical reaction. Which isn’t to say that I don’t want those things (and free butt touches!) but I’m ruined of the idea of a traditional life.

My third grandmother, she taught me the importance of heels and sort of forced my mother to pierce my ears when I was 7ish. She thought she was going to win at getting me married before thirty. Boy did she try. But I didn’t use hairspray or mascara until I was nearly an adult, had she lived closer she could have tarted me up. Her one failing, was telling me to get married instead of going to college. It was just dumb of her, I was dead set on college, she should have pushed the MRS degree option harder, I may have seen the virtue in that, but 16 year-old me needed a gentler approach than “get a rich boss and trick him into knocking you up”.

My mother, she tried her best. She encouraged me to go out with friends, in groups, and she let me play in the marching band for four years (she didn’t know how bad that would be for me long term, I think). She told me, when I was 17, that I couldn’t pursue my dream of becoming a Catholic nun because I’d “miss sex too much” but sort of forgot to tell me that I should probably do the whole sex thing before I got too old.

No, seriously, I missed out on years of sex because of my mother’s Catholic guilt, and my grandmother’s need to buy me a t-shirt in every color. And no one will marry a girl in her slut phase, let alone a grown ass woman.

Don’t be like me. Don’t be like my influencers. And if you aren’t in either position, think of it as a safety issue, if you see something say something.

*Calm down, I had a massage at a reputable spa, the glute work is par for the course.