AFE: How to be a girlboss

This advice is not for the faint of heart. Being a GIRLBOSS is harder than anything in the world. Being a GIRLBOSS is more than just a practice, more than just a mentality – it is a way of being that is lived in. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual commitment that is every day affirmed by your gatekeeping, girlbossing, gaslighting actions. The true GIRLBOSS doesn’t just pump up the jam. The true GIRLBOSS is the jam. 

You might think that this advice piece is exclusionary. To be a girlboss, doesn’t one have to be a girl? No! I am not a girl. The only girl I am is a GIRLBOSS. It is all in the attitude, baby. If you are ready to adopt this way of life, then read on. 

The girlboss knows that being a girlboss is tough work. Therefore, one has to be in peak physical condition at all times in order to be on top of the game. I personally achieve this by constantly challenging my body. If I make it too easy on myself to remain healthy, my body will become complacent. I make sure to eat an inordinate amount of Ruffles every day to countermeasure my otherwise healthy eating habits. You wanna keep your digestive system on its toes. 

Think of it like this: imagine that you’re the quarterback and your digestive tract is the running back. Sometimes, as the quarterback, you wanna totally confuse your running back to make sure that the running back knows who is boss and is always ready to be surprised. Sometimes that means handing the ball to the enemy team. The betrayal will keep the relationship healthy. You win more games this way! Score. 

It’s important to keep your body and your mind fit. Therefore, I set aside two hours before bed-time exclusively for mind exercises. This way, I exhaust my brain to the extent that I can finally fall asleep. Otherwise, the crushing weight of my never-ending thought train impedes my sleep. Such is the burden of being a GIRLBOSS. 

Regardless, my mind exercises are strenuous. I lay on the floor and close my eyes. I begin by envisioning a cube in my mind. I examine this cube carefully in my mind’s eye, searching diligently for imperfections. I have gotten very good at conjuring a cube, and so I no longer conjure up imperfect cubes. You might even say that I approximate the Form of Cubeness. After feeling satisfied that my cube is grade-A material, I begin turning the cube in my mind’s eye. I imagine the cube to be very heavy, and so turning it involves a great deal of concentration. I continue turning the cube this way and that way for the next two hours until I begin to feel sick. After this nauseating experience, I am ready for bed and clamber shakingly into my dorm mattress. 

Sometimes the cube exercises get a little too intense for me, and I can no longer lift my head from the floor. I know that this is because I have skipped the mind exercises for too long and have been remiss in my girlboss duties. Therefore, I deserve to sleep on the floor. This is my own weakness gatekeeping me from the privilege of my bed. Such is the burden of being a GIRLBOSS. 

Part of being a girlboss is about having a look that communicates to people that you’re straight business. You want a look that cuts. You want people to have to wear shades in order to look at you. You want people to look at you and say, “That girl has the right allocation. That girl has good dividends. She’s touring the facility. She’s picking up slack.”

Really, it’s all in the shoes. For a look that screams no-nonsense, top-dog energy, I would recommend the shoes in AVAVAV’s Firenze collection. Sure they’re expensive, but aren’t you committed to this girlboss ideal? However, if that’s too expensive for you, I recommend something from the Dolls Kill website, such as the Chomp N’ Stomp Platform sandals. 

One final aspect of being a girlboss that gets missed a lot in some of the subpar articles out there is the networking aspect of girl-bossing. You can’t be a girlboss if there is no one to boss! You want to interact with other people (obviously while practicing COVID-19 safety guidelines) in such a way as to enable the possibilities of a Hegelian master-slave dialectic to take place. 

As a girlboss, your job is to get everyone to reflect back your self to yourself in a way that you want. People should tell you that you are cool, fun and exciting because you have defeated them in the battle for who will be the dominant friend in the friendship. 

I think it is so silly to think that people will enter interpersonal relationships for the purposes of such things like closeness, human connection, love and yadda yadda. We all know why we are all here. It’s because we want other people to buy us marbles. I’m not losing this arms race to create a global marble empire. I won’t be fooled into buying marbles for other people. I’ll never let my guard down. I’ll never say where I keep my marble stash. And that’s what really makes me a true GIRLBOSS.