It was mid-winter when I found myself shivering on a slippery rock, staring out to sea. The waves in front of me were growling and my gut responded in kind. Instead of listening to it, I wrestled into a wetsuit and pulled the goggles I’d had since year 5 over my head. I signalled my friend to start recording. Then, I walked in.
By walked, I mean slipped. Violently. The ocean licked me off the rocks and sucked me under with glee. After a few seconds of panicked tumbling, I surfaced with a mouthful of salt water. My friend laughed. I laughed, then coughed, then laughed again.
I was overjoyed because she had just recorded a moment I was sure would capture my crush’s attention. It was a mission I was willing to complete at any cost. Even if that cost was my dignity. Or even, my life.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from an illness known as Downbaditis. Put simply, it is a state of spiritual psychosis triggered by a crush and/or intense courting period. Victims of Downbaditis display an insatiable need for validation from their chosen suitor. Ironically, a suitor’s ineligibility may worsen symptoms. These include, but are not limited to: overhyping hobbies, appearing effortlessly hot on Instagram Stories and pretending you have ever gone for an “ocean swim”.
Being “down bad” is not a new experience. Usher wrote about it in 2001 with U Got It Bad. The entire plot of The Great Gatsby revolves around Jay throwing lavish parties for Daisy’s affection. Charli xcx extrapolated on this well-worn tradition in her sleeper hit Party 4 U. She even secured a cake, champagne and a party bag with purple pills, no less. Perhaps she’d watched The Matrix with her betrothed but she never got around to asking red or blue? It’s hard to know but one thing’s for sure: she was suffering from a critical case of Downbaditis.
The modern strain of Downbaditis can be traced back to the invention of Snapchat Stories. It was the first time regular people could post their most banal daily goings-on without the judgment of a full Facebook post. You had permission to post every little thing, because it disappeared after 24 hours and could only be replied to via direct message. It felt so chill, so flippant, so unscripted, so real. You could pretend to love Drake without your friends pointing out you only knew Hotline Bling because it played on loop at the Foot Locker you worked at in 2016.
Last week, I invited my Instagram community to share stories of times they had fallen prey to Downbaditis. The responses came in thick and fast. Some were vintage – like the woman who went to high school Christian group meetings despite being “1,000% an atheist”. Another played the clarinet for the entirety of her secondary education because there was a hot guy in the band. A third school-age memory was from someone who memorised every single AFL player’s name in primary school so they could talk to the boy they liked. The illness is lifelong, you see.
They grew all the more deranged as time wore on. Like the woman who wore off-the-shoulder tops for an entire year because her crush said he “liked shoulders”. One respondent started learning Afrikaans after a first date. Another lied and said that they saw whales because their crush liked them. “It wasn’t whale season,” she said ominously. “And he knew”.
I also asked my audience to share times they had clocked that they were on the receiving end of someone’s Downbaditis. One woman told me that her friend was seeing a guy who seemed sweet. “On one of their first dates, he offered to order them some dinner. She said she’d like some chicken nuggets. They locked in and all was well until his flatmates came home. They couldn’t believe their eyes because he’d been vegan for six years.”
What I learnt while receiving responses was that Downbaditis strikes everyone. Every gender, every age. It is non-denominational and that is what makes it so dangerous. It is often only diagnosable after the fact. For me, I barely clock my Downbaditis until it’s too late and I’ve bought a surfboard.
Subscribers to attachment theory could argue that Downbaditis is a sign of anxious attachment. It could be. It could also be a feature of the human condition. At its core, Downbaditis is just yearning. A creative strain, for sure. To yearn is a treat – it means you are alive and open. Married people blow up their whole lives to feel it again. So I say yearn while you can. Take up Spanish to impress someone, like one guy I spoke to. “I learnt it on Duolingo to impress a Chilean girl,” he told me. “And now, whenever I see a loaf of bread, a voice of regret in my head sighs ‘el pan’.”
It hurts, but it’s a lot more exciting than plain old bread.
Lucinda Price is a writer, presenter and comedian