Last year, two teen girls from Spark Magazine decided they would follow to the letter the instructions for girls provided by either Seventeen or Teen Vogue for one month. In honor of my seventeenth birthday, I decided to take the Seventeen Challenge for a week. Here are my findings…

Dear Seventeen,

It’s been a great week together, but I think we should break up. It’s not you, it’s me. Despite what you say, I just don’t think I’m learning about the things that are truly important about being seventeen.

Our relationship was off to a rocky start from the beginning – it’s never good to start off a relationship pretending to be someone you’re not. It’s completely my fault that I took your advice to wear bright blue eye shadow and curled hair to school. The whole day I felt like all anyone was looking at was my makeup, regardless of what I had to say. Seventeen, I don’t blame you for the green mascara ordeal, either. It would’ve been easier had I just taken your suggestion and bought the expensive department store brand;  since that’s really the only khaki green mascara on the market right now, I had to rub a clear mascara wand into green eye shadow to get the look. The whole makeup day took two trips to two different stores, a tube of mascara, and an eye shadow. I know that not many other girls would put in this much effort for you. Effort that I just don’t think you appreciate – waking up extra early at 6:00 A.M. to construct a complicated braid that you market as effortless? That’s effort that I put into my hair instead of worrying about being on time for school.

I also don’t think I can be with someone who my parents don’t like. First off, my mom wouldn’t even let me leave the house on Saturday when you told me to wear red eye shadow because  she didn’t want people asking why my eyes were so red from crying. And how can I forget when you advised me to wear a charcoal smoky eye on Friday to go from the classroom to a party even though the only party I was headed to was Yom Kippur services at my Temple. While we do get low (into our seats and then rise again once the ark is open), club makeup definitely isn’t appropriate everywhere. Plus, I don’t know many real seventeen year-olds  who go to parties each weekend straight from school.

That’s the real problem I think, Seventeen – I went into this relationship thinking we were age-compatible, and then you turned out to be much younger than I thought. While I will admit some of your lunch suggestions were yummy, I also recognized that they’re diet plans, accompanied by a workout instruction plan. If younger girls are really your biggest demographic, I don’t think you should really mix so many positive “body-love” articles with your core idea that you have to change yourself to be beautiful, because it’s really confusing. Besides, while you really did mean well in your article about the dangers of partying, you did not differentiate between the girl’s responsibility not to make herself sick and being abused by another person, which most definitely would not be her fault under any circumstance

The only thing that’s making me sick right now, Seventeen, is our toxic relationship. You see, when I go to school, I don’t want to look like a drag queen, a clown, a shrub, a person with pink-eye, or a club rat. I just want to be myself, and I know that confidence, friends, and anything else you promise to your readers will all be natural products of that. So I guess what I’m trying to say, Seventeen, is that it’s not me, it’s you. Maybe we can be friends some day.

Sincerely,

Ali