Girl Dinner Just Makes Sense.

2023 is the year of GIRL. Let us have some peace.

Photo by Joshua Rondeau on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

Headlines about girl dinner floating around right now that make me think, “Why can’t we have just one nice thing, and it not get ruined?”

And I think this is true of many just girl things. Girls at every age are made to feel ashamed or guilty or embarrassed for liking, enjoying, or finding pleasure in anything we claim for ourselves or wish to be a part of.

To me, girl dinner just makes sense. I get it. I think many other women get it. The original TikTok of Olivia Maher explaining and illustrating girl dinner in less than 15 seconds, we all understood exactly what girl dinner means.

Same thing with girl math. When I came across a TikTok describing girl math, my only thought was, “I do this too.”

There are some habits, behaviors, and thoughts I believe most—if not all—women experience. While these experiences can be universal, sharing them and connecting through them is illuminating and affirming. Maybe because far too often we feel alone or alienated from other women…

And of course, because it is 2023 and it started on TikTok, the concept of girl dinner was immediately slapped with the “Hey wait, this thing is probably actually super problematic” sticker.

Regardless of the TikTokification, girl dinner feels like another example of a unified, nearly universal girl experience.

Sharing the concept of girl dinner is as resonating as learning another girl has the same habit you previously believed was weird and unique to you.

You do that? Oh my god, me too!

Also, same energy, different font: Thank you, it has pockets!

I wouldn’t go so far as to call girl dinner a trend or aesthetic. Some outlets boost irreverence for all things internet in attempted high-brow critiques while grappling to stay relevant in communities that left them behind long ago.

And with the success and breadth of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and the expansive reign of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, it is all giving the celebration of girl.

I don’t think Barbie is leaving my mind anytime soon. Going into the film, I knew there would be a message and a stance taken. What I appreciate most is how Greta and all handled the conversations.

I did not feel exhausted by Gloria’s monologue of the impossibly paradoxical expectations of women. Maybe because it was all in good company and not some manufactured wokeness impressed upon an unimpressed audience, believing us to be fools.

I am a conflicted, hyper-self-aware millennial, and I feel (at times) overly sensitive if not accounting for others’ perspectives or impressions of something I don’t find a problem with.

Trying to account for all perspectives and points of view is exhausting for fear of being unethical, unintentionally problematic, or simply uneducated.

In an interview with Yahoo! Life, the originator of girl dinner, Olivia Maher, says it is "a celebration of food and appreciation and excitement because you’re eating exactly what you want and you’re satisfying all the flavors you're craving.”

I also recommend checking out this video by Amanda of Swell Entertainment on the topic of girl dinner.

While my interpretation of the concept is one of a shared girl experience, it does invite opportunities to discuss other implications, such as our (girls of all ages) relationship to food as well as disordered eating.

I think the conversation around our personal relationships with food and eating and how society played a hand in its manifestation is a valid one. But it feels like a separate conversation from the concept of girl dinner.

Instead, for those interested and motivated to hold the conversation, let girl dinner be a jumping-off point, not the originator of an evil—which is how topics and conversations online are often labeled as.

Some of us are just excited to have a name for a thing many of us do in solitude and away from the judgemental eyes of the internet.

I have been teased by men in my life for indecisiveness around what to eat, especially dinner, which by the end of the day it can be just too much to give much thought to. I have seen the memes for boyfriends who are unified by their girlfriends’ lack of decision-making at times and the life hacks for when a man’s wife just won’t pick a restaurant when he asks.

Girl dinner makes sense. The girls who get it, get it. Everyone else just wants to make it a problem for them.

So is it really so radical for a woman to have her peace undisturbed by something as a concept to describe the meal she makes for herself when the house is empty, her obligations for the day are over, and there is a documentary she’s dying to watch?

No, it’s just girl dinner.

Girling hard over my girl dinner,
River