What It Means To Love A Girl Who’s On Her Period

She’s scared, because she’s been let down too many times before. By froyo. By Seamless. By Taylor Hicks from American Idol.

It’s frightening out there. She’s on her own. Her ID is real now. Sometimes she doesn’t get carded. Her responsibilities now include marketing campaigns or spreadsheets or lesson plans, instead of group projects or “read 10 pages from this textbook” for homework. She has a professional headshot. She uses business cards.

She goes home from work alone, instead of walking back from class with friends. There’s no one to protect her when she runs into that girl who’s always like “we should get drinks sometime!” but is completely full of crap. And she replies, “Yeah, for sure!” but on the inside she’s like, no.

She’s terrified. Because what if when she gets on the bus or the train to go home, she runs into that person from college who she forgot about but now they have to make small talk the whole way because it would be awkward otherwise? And everyone’s listening to the conversation and she’s trying not to act bored while she hears about her long lost acquaintance’s application process for grad school.

And then, she comes home, finally, and all she has for company is the cramps, the bloating, the cat (hopefully), and the cookbook covered in cobwebs that sits in the corner dejectedly while she orders up a large pizza for one. The cobwebs are fake because they are Halloween decorations from 5 months ago that she never put away.

This is her life on her period. Normally she’s running the world and killing it at work and ordering whatever the hell she wants at happy hour and ignoring messages from weirdos on Tinder or LinkedIn.

But on her period? She feels more alone than the Bud Light marketing guy who came up with the campaign about “removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary” and is now working at the mall.

On her period, she loses her sense of trust. Because her Insomnia order said it would arrive at 8:15 and it came at 8:32. Because last week she heard what happened on Grey’s Anatomy and is furious at Shonda Rhimes even though she stopped watching the show 7 years ago when she heard Katherine Heigl was kind of a bitch IRL. Because her semi-friend said she would text her later but then she CALLED instead. #panic

There’s nowhere to turn. There’s nobody to trust. There’s no piece of pizza that will ever have ENOUGH pepperoni on it. Come on, 2 pieces of pepperoni on a large slice? What is this, North Korea?

It’s in these moments that you need to love her more than ever. There’s no one else she can depend on. Those girls who do makeup tutorials on YouTube who say that contouring is easy but it ISN’T. Those people who toss out Game of Thrones spoilers on social media before she’s watched the episode. Those twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley, who stopped making movies when she needed them most.

There’s no one left, but you. And you can’t let her down. Because sometimes, finding someone to depend on during her grueling time of menstruation feels like waiting to find out who A is on Pretty Little Liars: It’s never gonna happen. All she wants is one thing. For you to tell her that you’re here for her and that you love her and that she’s perfect. Or, for A to actually show up and say “I’m back bitches, and I know everything.” Really, either option would suffice.

She needs to believe that you will help her make it to the other side. That you won’t go “ew” when she says her ovaries hurt because seriously – “ew”? Ovaries are organs, not a Paris Hilton song. Stop being so appalled.

Just get your ass up, run to the pharmacy, and get her some Midol. And try not to be an asshole, meaning don’t forget to pick up the Rocky Road ice cream pint and the Hershey’s chocolate bar that she did not ask for.

Bring this stuff back to her, and hand it over along with your love and affection. Soon, she’ll be back to the woman you know and love. Taking control of her life, being an adult, dominating those work presentations, rejoicing at her tax refund, learning yoga, paying attention to the news and the Iraq and everywhere like, such as. Enjoying clever television shows. Killing it on her coed softball team. And not becoming needlessly infuriated about articles that were meant as harmless satire. Bye, Felicia.