YOU NEED SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT BESIDES WORK AND YOUR LOVE LIFE

And yes, I think getting a hobby might actually make you hotter.

I have a theory: the coolest people I know have hobbies.

And no, I don't mean they wake up at 6am, drink something green, go to Pilates and journal before work. (Honestly, that sounds exhausting - but not judging, I promise!!!). I mean they have actual things. Things they're weirdly obsessed with. Things they're learning. Things they can talk about for twenty minutes even though nobody asked.

Because we're living in a time where everyone is trying very hard to look interesting. We want the cool Instagram, the cool clothes, the cool restaurants, the cool holiday that everyone else somehow also went on this summer. But at some point I started wondering... when did we become more interested in looking interesting than actually being interesting? Because I'd much rather sit next to the girl who's spent the last two months trying to learn how to surf and has three ridiculous stories about almost drowning than someone whose main project this month was making her Instagram feed look effortless.

And honestly, you need something to talk about besides work and your love life. PLEASEEE don't be the friend whose only update at dinner is the guy she's talking to. We've all been her, so I'm allowed to say this. But there's only so many times your friends can analyse why he watched your story but didn't reply to your message. At some point we need another storyline. Tell me you joined a running club and discovered you hate running. Tell me about the weird woman from your painting class. Literally anything. Your situationship cannot be on season seven when nothing has happened since season two.

And maybe this is also why people with hobbies have that annoying effortless energy everyone is always trying to recreate. They're not pretending to be mysterious. They're just... doing something. Maybe she didn't take three hours to reply because she's following some dating rule she saw on TikTok. Maybe she was surfing. Maybe her hands were covered in clay. Maybe she was halfway through a book and genuinely didn't see her phone. Suddenly "if he texts, great; if he doesn't, whatever" isn't something you have to repeat to yourself in the mirror. You actually have other shit going on.

Also, can we please bring back being absolutely terrible at things? The internet has somehow convinced us that every hobby needs an audience. You start making jewellery and someone immediately goes, "OMG you should sell these." No. Maybe I want to make ugly necklaces in my bedroom. You start running and now apparently Strava needs to know. You bake one good cake and someone tells you to start an account. Why can't the cake just... be a cake? You are allowed to spend three hours doing something that makes you happy and earn exactly €0 from it.

Actually, what did we even do before our phones became our main hobby? Think about being twelve and bored. You'd make bracelets, rearrange your entire bedroom at 11pm, learn a random dance, draw something terrible, bake something even worse. I used to find the most random things to do simply because there was nothing else to do. Now I have five free minutes and somehow I'm on TikTok watching gossip online about Alix Earle and Braxton Berrios. Maybe we didn't become boring. Maybe scrolling just became the easiest possible answer to boredom.

So maybe instead of asking "What hobby would make me cooler?" (which, sorry, is exactly how we'd manage to ruin this too) think about what you actually like. 

What did you love before you cared whether you were good at it? Before everything needed to be aesthetic or useful? Try pottery. Learn Italian. Sew a skirt that you will absolutely never wear outside the house. Research the entire history of the Titanic for no reason. I don't care. And please don't start Pilates just because hot girls apparently do Pilates now. Do it because you like Pilates. 

And there's another bonus nobody talks about: suddenly your entire social life doesn't have to come from work, your existing friends or Hinge. You go to the same class every Wednesday and (shockingly) you start recognising people. You talk. You become friends. Maybe making friends as an adult isn't as impossible as everyone says. Maybe we just stopped regularly going anywhere that wasn't work, dinner or someone's apartment.

I think that's what that cool energy actually is. Not having the perfect morning routine or pretending you don't care about anyone. It's having enough things in your own life that one person doesn't become the entire plot. You can like the guy. You can absolutely lose your mind when he finally texts. We're not pretending to be above any of that. But he should be A storyline, not THE storyline.

So get a hobby. Be terrible at it. Don't post it. Don't sell it. Don't turn it into your personality!!! 

Just find something you like doing.