Scottish student, Aymie Black, responds to negative comments after taking herself out on a date
'What's most upsetting is those who comment that I must be desperate to get married, a prostitute or a complete airhead'
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Your support makes all the difference.A Scottish student has written about the staggering amount of abuse she received after her story of how she treated herself to a date went viral.
Aymie Black shared her feelings in her blog, which documents her life living with bipolar disorder.
Black wrote about how her recovery from depression had been “slow, but progressive.” Gradually, after not wanting to leave her house as recently as June, she got to the stage earlier this month where she felt more able to go out and socialise.
After travelling into Glasgow City Centre to meet up with a man she had been messaging for a few months, the student found she had been stood up found after he failed to show. Alone in the city and no longer with any plans, Black said she had already felt uneasy earlier about travelling alone, but decided to be proactive and make the best of her situation. Black joked to her friends that she was taking herself on a date, and that she was going to enjoy a nice evening out in Glasgow.
Throughout the evening, she sent Snapchats to her friends, taking pictures of her antics, including images of her shopping spree, and of the cocktail she had ordered. She wrote: “As nervous as I felt sitting in a strange bar in Glasgow on my own, it felt oddly empowering.”
Feeling uplifted by her night out, Black’s friends encouraged her to share the photos on Twitter to “allow other people to join in the fun.” Once online, she described how “support poured out in its thousands with less than ten negative comments - people who couldn’t understand the message I was communicating.”
However, awaking the following day to find her story had been picked up by other blogs, the press, and shared on Facebook, she was overwhelmed by the hurtfulness of many people’s responses.
She faced speculation that she had undergone plastic surgery, criticism over the amount of makeup she wore, and asked if she was promoting Ann Summers lingerie. She added: “What’s most upsetting is those who comment that I must be desperate to get married, a prostitute, a complete airhead, or someone who just wants to so desperately be famous. None of which, I am and I could deal without the grief.
“I expected a few giggles with my followers, not to be thrown into viral territory, in hindsight that is very naïve.”
Black lamented how people had put a negative, misogynistic spin on what was meant to be her story of empowerment and recovery. She wrote: “I felt like a real girl, not the ill girl. So please don’t take my positivity away. I felt confident, sexy, sassy, and happy - and I’d never want any other woman to feel any differently.”
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this article, please visit Student Minds for help and support
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