'Wait... WAIT WAIT WAIT, can you see my spliff?' says Rihanna adjusting her G-string 'does this pose say 'I don't give a fuck?'
'I don't know Ri' says Melissa, her arms beginning to quake with tiredness 'but we've done at least fifty retakes of you in the gangster hat already... and you clearly DO give a fuck.'
Who is Melissa? You know Melissa Forde, she's Riri's childhood homeslice, aka the woman who takes all those insanely hot pictures of her while she slowly dies of boredom behind her iPhone.
Well Melissa Forde I feel your pain, because my slightly less talented childhood friend Chloe has done the very same thing to me. And ever since she got her manicured mitts on those vintage filters our relationship has been irrevocably different.
Once upon a time we could get through a meal time without her begging me to pap her with her dinner. Now, every day is a new opportunity to document her latest hat/pose/puppy/quiche. The pictures are curated, photoshopped and uploaded to her facebook over my shoulder. I due to my aversion to cameras, I am very, very rarely in them.
If I had to hazard a guess as to where this all began, I'd say it was with a disgusting breakup last summer, where Chloe had her heart stamped on. She lost a couple pounds and discovered she looked phenomenal in denim shorts (she really does). Acting on this discovery, she wanted as many hot shots of her under bum as poss and to help mend her broken heart by breaking new ones. Belfies are hard to do, so natch, I offered to take them.
Fast forward a year and I am now her personal Mario Testino. I know she looks fitter when she swooshes her hair over her face. Or that her legs look skinnier when she makes herself go all knocked-kneed - even though I've told her that makes her look like she needs a poo.
At first I quite enjoyed the challenge of making her look banging in pictures because she bloody deserved it, but now the limits of my tolerance are waning. The other day we went for a nice stroll. Just as I was about ask her advice about a seriously shit boy problem I'm dealing with, she stuck out her arm to block my path. 'OMG' she said, running towards a trendy coffee shop, 'can you get one me with my latté under this sign?'
When I asked her if she was fucking kidding me, she seemed a tiny bit indignant. Like our friendship was really getting in the way of a jolly nice picture. We've had similar altercations, often in public places. Then last week I snapped when photograph her outfit for the 900th time until I screamed at her: “YOU ARE NOT A FUCKING FASHION BLOGGER” and pigeons actually flew away.
We sat down in Wetherspoons (because even instagram can't save Wetherspoons) and I tried to explain my beef but it turns out she thinks I am a killjoy. She's right. I never been that keen on the whole 'hey world, this is my fringe' thing. But she explained this is the world we live in, so I need to get on board.
I suppose a part of me is a bit disappointed she's not as 'whevs' as she used to be. In the old days we'd laugh at girls like Kimmy K and Rihanna who crave affirmation from perfect strangers but now I think Chloe might be one of them.
I mean, it's just dishonest. She looks more fun and sexy in my pictures than it's possible to be all the time. She also looks like the kind of person you wouldn't like to look ugly and do farts with and I always thought we were those kind of people.
Give it rest won't you Riri? Melissa's arms are tired.
Follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyannhancock
Picture: Ada Hamza
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.