When I was 18 I took a ballet class at college and every morning our beginner adult class started just as the Ballet Majors in the studio next door took a mid-class break.
Many mornings they would gather in the doorway of my classroom and watch us struggle through our bar warmups or jumble up a new technique while they smiled and whispered to each other.
And every morning I dreaded seeing them there because I knew they were making fun of me.
I had other classes with some of them, and I was always embarrassed when ballet came up, and it always did, them being ballet majors, because I loved to talk about it but knew they’d seen me dance, and I was sure they thought I didn’t belong in the conversation.
At the end of the semester, our instructor announced that she’d like to invite the dancers from the next door studio to sit in on our final performance as an audience, and everyone in my class hesitated. We’d worked so hard, we wanted to celebrate our progress during our final without being judged. Most of us left class that day suddenly more anxious about the final than we’d ever been.
The next morning, in one of my other classes I had with the ballet majors, one of them approached me, and as if she’d been reading our minds the entire semester, she said
“Hey. I just wanted to say that I know we watch you guys dance a lot, and I wanted to make sure you know we’re never laughing at you. When we watch you guys learn the basics…..it reminds us of when we first started when we were younger. It’s like…looking at ourselves when we first fell in love with dancing. That’s why we love watching you guys.”
It shocked me. I felt awash with relief and utterly stupid all at once.
Here I had spent an entire semester assuming the worst of people who had otherwise been nothing but nice to me in every other setting, and I had no one to blame for that but my own insecurities that I’d allowed to rule me for months.
I’d been so unfair to these girls, because I was self conscious. I was so worried about being judged that I’d judged all of them.
Here I was worried they were laughing at me, and all along they were looking at me with nothing but absolute delight, even envy for what I was getting to experience.
This encounter changed my entire attitude, permanently.
It made me realize that, yeah sometimes people are jerks for no reason, but more often than not, people really are just….Good.
Since that day, I’ve started giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong, for their sake and for my own.
And I’ve learned that the world becomes a lot better and life becomes a lot easier when you accept that maybe not everyone is judging you. Maybe you’re the one who’s hardest on yourself.
Let yourself be. Let yourself exist and breathe and be happy.
So I started watching this Japanese dating show on Netflix called Rea(L)ove, where every contestant is looking for love and each has a “dark secret” that they have to reveal to the other contestants at random times, and hope that the others still accept them. Some are addicted to sex, some have a lot of debt, some have a criminal record and so on. So there is this one girl who likes one of the guys despite him being rude at times, and he choosesto go on a solo date with her. Towards the end of their date, the hosts make her share her secret with him, and it goes as follows:
he had an almost speechless and shocked response, he didn’t say anything negative or positive really, just the two hosts kept laughing and saying very rude remarks. The scene just kind of ended with them walking away and then their individual thoughts on the date that pretty much boiled down to:
and
So the next day, the girls, this time, get to choose a guy to go on a date with…
WILL HE????
HE DID!
So now, on the date—–
Sorry for the long post, but this was one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in a long time, and I was literally crying and just needed to share this with someone
SPOILER ALERT: THEY CHOSE EACH OTHER AT THE END!!!!!!!!
Tom Holland does Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on Lip Sync Battle
I’m literally zendaya reacting like he didn’t have to go that hard and yet..
every time i watch this when the reveal hits and he starts dancing i’m like “oh ok that ain’t a big deal he’s just another celeb doing a gimmick” but somehow by the end of this video without fail i am filled with respect for him and zendaya for being like…a powerful gen z couple who both give off chaotic bisexual vibes
i think it’s the irreverence with which he splashes the water
that was a classic that was a classic
It’s a good time to remember that Tom Holland is a trained dancer and that initself is a gift
He’s trained in ballet, too, which is what makes this even funnier. I saw a video (also with Zendaya in it) of him doing like, fifteen fouettes in someone’s basement. GET A MAN WHO CAN DO BOTH.
just saw someone say online that they’ve never seen mountains irl and lost my mind. is this an experience you guys have had. are there some people who havent seen mountains
i’ve never seen mountains. but i live on and island and i lose my mind when people tell me they’ve never seen the ocean. the ocean. some people have never seen the ocean before.
What really gets me is that some people have never seen either.
like dudes for real PBS has so many resources for education and stuff. you can watch HOURS of documentaries online for free on their site.
like no joke go on pbs dot org right now and you’ll find an entire netflix of public television with full transcripts to boot. the american experience site alone is loaded with multipart docuseries about american history
the availability can vary but even then watch pbs sometimes!! they have really cool crap on all the time. sometimes they play ballets and broadway shows. (donation ad voice) support public television
2 dudes, chillin in open graves, 5 feet apart cause they’re not gay
This is actually an art piece by Miller & Shellabarger where they dug graves connected by a tunnel so they could hold hands. They are very much gay and irl married
QueerGalaxies 