Cleopatra and Frankenstein

“I think men are taught to buy things for women, yes. Not because we want to own you or control you, but because it’s a way to show we’re interested or we care that doesn’t require much, I don’t know, vulnerability. We’re not taught to communicate the way you are. We’re given these very limited, primitive tools to express ourselves, and, yes, buying a fucking meal is one of them. But women also expect that from us—”

“You think I’m trying to buy you?”
“Aren’t all men trying to buy women, deep down?”

Her mother died in Cleo’s last year of university at Central Saint Martins. She still had not found a way to talk about it.