My obsession with HBO’s ‘Girls’.
The HBO series Girls premiered in 2012. I was in Year 6 then, still desperately waiting for my period to appear and secretly still playing with Sylvanian families. I doubt my parents would have even let me watch the series, but I probably wouldn’t have become consumed by it if they had.
Many years later a friend of mine repeatedly tells me to watch Girls. I know I would like it, but just like any other good recommendation I receive in my life, I am conscious that I might not like the show and will have to pretend I do to my friend. God forbid what this would do to our friendship.
Then Brat summer arrives, turning my life upside down. I now look for the Brat green everywhere I go, often taking a photo to document the omnipresence of Brat. I wake up to Brat and go to bed to Brat. In every possible way, I am 365 committed to that Brat album.
An article on how to have a Brat summer appears on my Instagram feed, which I immediately click on, and it recommends Girls. Straight away I download NOW TV to watch the series. I was not going to listen to my dear friend’s recommendation, but instead the wisdom of the algorithm.
I now am officially obsessed. I wake up in the morning, eagerly awaiting another three new episodes to watch. Often I find I cannot go to sleep until I have watched at least one episode. A nighttime story for a twenty-something-year-old living in London. Perhaps it would be a healthier and more contained obsession if I watched Girls in pre-streaming times; I would count down the days till the next instalment of Girls, and I would watch the episode on an actual TV.
Even when I am not watching Girls I am living in Lena Dunham’s world. Charli-XCX’s Brat album has now been replaced by Regina Spektor. My brief dalliance with wearing trainers is long gone, I now only wear boots that the cast would most likely wear in Girls. I have constructed a spin-off of Girls where I am the main character, and I am LARPing this every day.
Girls beautifully captures being a twenty-something-year-old, trying so hard to be an adult but often failing so miserably. A friend recently told me that we should be kinder to ourselves as we are essentially baby adults, still learning the basic rules of adulthood, still learning how to be ‘good’ people. I see this in almost every episode of Girls, they are in a permanent state of trying and trying and trying.
Watching Girls, perhaps too simplistically, makes me feel a little better about the state of confusion I seem to be permanently stuck in. I am reminded that life is not a linear process in which every day becomes a little bit closer to being a perfect human, but instead a never-ending collection of complicated and deeply beautiful attempts to love and to be loved.
Recently, I read the book BFFs: The Radical Potential of Female Friendships by Anahit Behrooz. The book captured the beauty of female friendships, often as a true source of love and intimacy. The book resonated with me, yet I felt like the jealousy and resentment that exists in female friendship was potentially overlooked.
As Girls, and come to think of it the Charli-XCX song ‘Girl so confusing’ captures, female friendships are a source of deep emotional connection and intimacy, yet perhaps due to internalised misogyny and the realities of Capitalism, they are also a source of long-standing and never addressing rivalries and insecurities.
This is particularly true in friendships spanning many years. In Girls, Marnie and Hannah hold a deep love for one another, perhaps more than they love their romantic partners. They are also very different from one another, opposites in almost every way. If friendships were formed like online dating, their friendship may have not materialised. What holds their friendship together may be their journey thus far, their college days, and moving to New York together. If there was the ‘one’ of friends, then they are not this, but they have both decided, maybe even unknowingly, that they will be imperfect life partners.
Watching Girls, I am also reminded of the sometimes unbearable complexities of romantic love. To avoid any potential spoiler, I would like to say that I am on Season three so I do not know the complete timings of the romances.
Marnie and Charlie’s relationship thus far so perfectly captures the pains of a first love. They both met at University, both at the same point in life. Then they Graduate and attempt to navigate the challenges of twenty-something-year-old life. Charlie pours his whole heart into Marnie, and Marnie pulls away.
Perhaps Charlie was struggling to adjust in New York, and investing in his relationship in an attempt to find a meaningful identity. Perhaps Marnie pulled away as she struggled to reciprocate this love when she did not know who she was and what she wanted. Either way, both do not communicate until the very end. In the meantime, Marnie and Charlie pretend things are alright, just alright enough to remain in a committed relationship.
This is a feeling I know all too well. There is a romance in first love being forever love. Yet more often than not, this is holding onto a dream or a sense of stability so as to avoid the struggles of early twenty-something-year-old life. It gets to a point that you do not know one another anymore, that you do not know yourself anymore.
I could spend all day writing about Girls. I could spend all day watching Girls. I could let my whole life become a spin-off series of Girls.
Whilst incredibly imperfect characters in incredibly imperfect situations, the series has become a series of Parables on how to navigate twenty-something-year-old life.
