I Got Single White Female-d and It Was An Existential Journey

If we are close friends on Instagram, then you probably know that last autumn, I found out that a former coworker/ friend was basically “single white female- ing” me. If you haven’t seen the 90s thriller movie Single White Female, it’s about a woman in her 20s in NYC in the 90s who gets a new roommate who is OBSESSED with her. So much so that the new roommate gets an identical cut and color for her hair, and starts dressing like her, and tries to bang her boyfriend by pretending to be the OG girl! The roommate wants to take over the OG girl’s life for her own, becoming her.

(I watched this movie this autumn for the first time. The name of the film comes from the OG girl’s newspaper ad seeking a roommate—- like why does the roommate have to be white? Can she not room w a single black female or a single brown female? Like does it actually matter?? 🤨 were people in the 90s just like casually racist all the time? Idk but at the end of the movie I was like “I don’t feel bad for her, maybe this wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been weirdly casually racist in her roommate ad”.)

So anyway, I had this realization that this person was single white female-ing me —— in essence intensely copying me. I came to the realization after I made a very large purchase (I can’t get too detailed because me and this person still have mutuals and there’s honestly a chance they will read this) by buying the exact same thing as me within 24 hours of seeing my own purchase. The item I purchased is niche and made to be customized, requiring lots of research and testing for your own specific needs. This person did none of the research or testing, instead asking me for the specs on mine, and then purchasing an identical version of mine. Within 24 hours of seeing me with mine.

And it freaked me the fuck out.

Like what kind of person in their 30s does something like that? Drops TENS OF THOUSANDS of American dollars because they want to be just like me????

And it got worse. I realized that this person copied my favorite secret camping spot down to saving the exact GPS coordinates (????) (in contrast, I don’t know the gps coordinates, I just get on the road and follow my heart). I started to look at other things: like copying the nicknames I use for my loved ones. Those were all undeniable, but did this person start loving music festivals and herbal supplements just because I loved those things? Did this person make these things the cornerstone of their public identity just because I did? Did this person see my relative (mild) popularity in our circles and think “I need that external social validation and becoming Bella is how I get it”?

Like what the fuck??

I felt like I was crazy. Surely an adult in their 30s wouldn’t do that, but the evidence was undeniable. I tried to talk myself out of what my own eyes had seen. I met up with another mutual friend over beers and he told me, almost sheepishly, “I think (name) has been copying me a lot and it’s making me feel weird”. We compared notes. The copier had purchased identical prescription eyeglasses as our mutual friend. Our mutual friend’s favorite band became the copier’s. After our mutual friend showed off a VERY cool vintage designer fit he found thrifting, the copier then immediately purchased a cheap knock off online, wearing it to the same concerts and events as the mutual friend. Someone called the copier “the temu version” of our mutual friend.

SO I WASNT CRAZY

I don’t know how to articulate the existential dread of seeing someone wear your personality as their own. Like maybe you’re reading this and you’re like “Bella, people can own identical pairs of eyeglasses and knock off fits, it happens all the time”. This was deeper than someone copying our stylistic choices; it felt like this person wanted to become us, usurp us, as us, in our own lives. I felt sick to my stomach.

And besides sick to my stomach that I had invited this person into my home, around my family and friends, I also felt angry.

Like I endured years of bullying in middle school, many friendless years as a teen/adult, being called a dork and a geek and a weirdo, developing my own unique taste in music and art and fashion because I LITERALLY DIDNT HAVE ANYBODY ELSE, just so that some fucking cishet guy could wear my tastes, my personality, my essence, who I am, like a Halloween mask whenever he wanted to be cool and alternative.

Fuck no.

I tried to convince myself that he could try to steal my swag, but he could never steal my lore, no matter how hard he tried with retrofitted childhood stories to match mine. My friends made jokes about it, like “Bella, he’s gonna start curling his hair to copy you”, and of course I laughed because the idea was farcical, but also I was pissed as shit! Like get your own personality bro, mine is already taken by ME! I begged my friends to tell me that he could never copy my je ne sais quoi, my essence, my vibe, my spirit. They assured me he never could. My partner told me, after I laid out all the evidence, “yeah he’s totally swagger jacking you, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

I don’t know why it all made me so fiercely angry.

And so icked out.

Does the copier think that personalities are interchangeable, developed to be switched out and exchanged, performatively worn for external social validation?

I find that idea so repugnant.

My personality is just who I am. I can’t turn it off or turn it on. I can’t wear a new one when I’m with a new crowd. I am who I am, for better or worse. I don’t know how to be anyone else.

And then it made me wonder- do I hate that this person tried so hard to be like me because it made me realize I don’t like that try-hard copy cat aspect in myself?

After all, am I not just an amalgamation of every single cool girl I’ve ever met? Sometimes I see colors or clothes on girls I think are cool and I think “shit dude, I love canary yellow”. Or “damn, I gotta be on the lookout for a leather bomber jacket”. I see pictures of their new haircuts and think “could I pull off a wolf shag?”. I look up pictures of Alexa Chung at Glastonbury from decades past or Kate Moss’s first wedding when I feel insipid and uninspired.

(I know these are just pictures of like Alexa Chung in some cutoffs and Wellys but I legit find this shit inspiring.)

I mean like what even is the self? Like who tf even am I? Am I my corporeal body? Am I the material things that I purchase? Am I the unpredictable spirit who inhabits my corporeal body?

In an effort to comfort myself, I tried to remember my prior studies. At my college we had to take two courses of philosophy to graduate. So you took the 101 philo and then sign up for whatever extra one you want. Eager to knock the credit out, and probably only caring about not having 8 am or Friday classes, I signed up for a class on existentialism my sophomore year.

Basically the entire course went over my head. Admittedly, at this time, my studies were not my priorities. I probably rarely did the required readings and only showed up to class sometimes if the professor took attendance. It was so much funner to spend my time with other people, or reading blogs, or watching tv, or laying on grass somewhere.

Basically the only reading I sort of half did, and the only one that made any sort of sense to me, was Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. I honestly couldn’t remember much about it, now, almost 14 years later, so I skimmed through the copy I keep in my attic.

And plot twist—- JEAN-PAUL SARTRE DOESNT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE TRUE ESSENCE OF SELF IS

Yikes bro. Like Jean-Paul Sartre doesn’t even know, and he’s a professional philosopher? How am I supposed to?

Thanks for nothing, philosophy.

At the end of the day, here are the incontrovertible truths I’ve uncovered:

A) imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery, it is the creepiest

B) someone can jack your swag, but (hopefully) they cannot jack your core essence (there are just some things you can’t fake)

C) getting older has been so great because I literally could not be bothered to give a fuck what any stranger thinks about me anymore. It’s liberating being free to be yourself. May we all find this liberty someday.