Are you a raspberry or a strawberry?

**PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE IF YOU ARE PART OF GENERATION X, OR EVEN A MILLENIAL**

I will be using a number of terms and references in this blogpost that you may be unfamiliar with. Examples include “derp” and the song IDGAF by Drake, featuring Yeat.

Please do not be self-critical if you don’t understand everything immediately. Please do not think you are defective, or slow on the draw, or lacking in social or cultural savvy. Please just go with the flow. Times change and the barrier between my generation and yours is ever-widening. I have done everything I possibly can to keep my language accessible to readers of all ages, with the only demographic I have yet to crack being dogs who don’t speak Mabel.

**NOTICE OVER**

“Are you a Strawberry or a Raspberry?” Justin poses to me. He is stretched chicly across a chic beige couch. We are FaceTiming because he is in the titan of Berlin and I am in the giant of Guildford, a comparison that makes both towns seem normal-sized.*

“I am definitely a Strawberry,” I say, operating with a feeling that is more gut than empirical.

Justin smiles a small, wry smile.

“You certainly are,” he says wryly, smiling. “And I, my love, am a Raspberry.”

“You certainly are,” I say wryly, smiling. “Let us go through every single person we can think of and decide which of the two they are; I feel as though this may be the perfect use of the next two and a half hours.”

Am I a Strawberry or a Raspberry? is the sort of question you may be asking yourself at this juncture. The curious among you may push this further, querying what, exactly, is a Strawberry, and what, exactly, is a Raspberry, if not two deliciously succulent fruits, one the titan of summertime splendour, the other the giant of midwinter crumble, a comparison that makes both crops seem normal-sized?

Well, dear reader, Strawberry versus Raspberry is a method of categorising the human personality. At its best, it is genuinely illuminating abstraction, such as how coming across a leaf in the shape of a heart on your daily walk might inspire you to write a letter to a friend. At its worst, it is waffle - which is, incidentally, the favourite food of most Strawberries.

**PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE IF YOU ARE TUNING OUT**

If you’re reading this thinking that it’s all a crock of shit - and I hate to freak you out more here - but you are a Round. Please see Rosa Lyster’s seminal Are You a Round or a Pointy? for more information, a think-piece that changed the course of my and Justin’s lives and provided the structural and theoretical foundation for our foray into fruits.

**NOTICE OVER**

I would urge you to approach proceedings with an open heart and an open mind. I will be prostrating myself at the altar of allusion and anecdote in my attempt to clarify to you the differences between a Strawberry and a Raspberry. I hope, by the end of this blogpost, you will know yourself better than you could ever have imagined.

Two Strawberries, a short story by Lia Rockey

You must understand that I am Strawberry, a trait I inherited from my mother.

Last weekend I went to the Tate Modern with a sort-of-ex of mine, an activity that is made only remotely possible by the enduring fact of his also being a Strawberry, inheritance unknown.

“I would quite like a small piece of a cake or perhaps a biscuit,” I say as we enter a large hall full of extremely modern art. I am announcing this in appeal to the essential Strawberryishness of the man with whom I am walking, knowing that he places as much value in a delicious snack and a refreshing cup of coffee as I do. In fact, he has ten minutes prior presented me with a small gift of carrot jam, a gesture that makes me misty-eyed in its essential understanding of who we both are. Now, though, he doesn’t seem to be taking the bait, entranced instead by an exhibition that I am finding ridiculous (a massive fuck-off sequined tapestry. What on God’s green earth could it mean?)

“I would quite like a small piece of cake or perhaps a biscuit,” I say ever-so-slightly hysterically. My partner at once understands the significance of this shift in tone. This is a code red: my blood sugar levels are plummeting, rapidly, and any second now I will lose consciousness. I am guided by the elbow out of the museum and into its café with a grim sense of purpose.

And once in the café, as if in a trance, I order “that-cake-over-there-please-and-a-decaf-oat-milk-flat-white-thank-you-so-much” a string of words that, these days, I say about as often as I would suppose Mother Teresa muttered the Pater Noster when she was still knocking around.

We prowl the café for the softest, most comfortable sofa, and eat our sweet snacks. We agree that going back into the Tate would be boring and a waste of time, a machination that could quite literally only be conceived by the soft, sweet brains of two Strawberries in low-culture collaboration.

Strawberry Rulez, a list by Lia Rockey

1. Anyone who has ever posted a video of them singing on Instagram is a Strawberry. For some of you, this might be a confronting revelation. My mom just asked me, “who has even done that?” and I had to reply, “more people than you think, Mom. More people than you think.”

2. A most Strawberryish thing to do is to to thrust one’s foot towards a lover or friend in a private moment and say “hold my foot.” Bonus Strawberry points if your foot is short and fat, reminiscent of a little block of butter, like mine. A Raspberry would never dream of thrusting their foot out to be touched. Besides, most Raspberries have thin, knobbly feet that don’t take well to being held at all.

3. Without Strawberries, Shrove Tuesday wouldn’t exist, and we’d only have Lent, which is no fun for anyone. For a Strawberry, the twenty-four hours of Shrove Tuesday will feel like they have been given a special, secret preview by God of how literal Heaven looks. Think of the person in your life who goes so fucking hard for Shrove Tuesday. They are a Strawberry.

4. It is the guilty secret of your typical Strawberry to be the curator of a Spotify playlist called something like “2016 bangers,” “2016 *fire emoji*,” or “Hype Drake.” It is the guiltier secret of your typical Strawberry that the “Play” button of this playlist is, invariably, the one upon which their quivering finger will most often alight, eschewing other, cooler playlists like “February 2024,” which boasts the who’s-who-in-the-zoo of very sad, very cool music, but does nothing to set the Strawberry’s soul (made plump by a diet of quite derp personal interests) on fire.

5. Drake is the patron saint of Strawberries. Think about it. That whole “money for fun! :D” moment is literally the most Strawberrylicious thing anyone has ever done.

Raspberry Rulez, a list by Lia Rockey. This one might not be as good, because I’m not a Raspberry, but I’ve given it my best go.

1. Raspberries have hair that lends itself to a real, proper hairstyle. Raspberries rock the fuq out a bob in a way that pitifully few Strawberries can. However, and I hate to say this, but Raspberry hair can run the risk of looking limp when inadequate attention has been lavished on it. Let that sink in, everyone who read the Strawberry Rulez and thought, I’m better than this, I’m probably a Raspberry. I speak directly to you now: most of the time, a Raspberry’s hair will look absolutely amazing, coiffed and quiffed and slicked and stuck to perfection. Occasionally, though, the routine doesn’t work, and you are left with something lank and miserable, a fate that hardly ever, hardly ever, befalls a Strawberry.

2. Raspberries understand the music of Animal Collective. I have a brother called Jack Rockey who is extremely similar to me in most earthly ways: we like the same clothes, jokes, Mabel, things to do and football players. The music of Animal Collective, however, represents a chasm between us, and has transmogrified into an elephant (“that’s just one animal, not a collective!” screams Michael McIntyre, interminably live at the interminable Apollo) that stands in the proverbial of our relationship. Jack “gets it.” I just don’t “get it.” Guess which of the berries the other Rockey most identifies with?

3. “Give me your pickle,” implores the Raspberry at luncheon, eyes twinkling with intent, “and I’ll eat it.” “Ok,” replies the Strawberry, who is just happy to be a part of something.

4. It’s not that Raspberries can’t sing a Mabel song, it’s that they won’t. Let me explain. As a Strawberry, I wile my days away singing songs to and with Mabel about a number of topics, including love, loss and what is for lunch that particular night (“Butterbean soup / Butterbean soup / Come here Mabel / Let me give you a kiss”). I have tried to get the Raspberries in my life involved in this, and more often than not they fall at the first hurdle, an absolute tenet of Raspberry doctrine, that is, being so self-preserving that you can’t do objectively stupid things. If the thought of standing in my kitchen and proudly singing a Mabel song freaks you out a bit, then…well, you can fill in the blanks.

5. What is more Raspberryite than withholding information? On a date, Strawberries are bursting at the seams to tell the person sat opposite every single thing that has ever happened to them. By contrast, the eyes of the Raspberry will sort of glaze over if you press them on the tidbit of childhood trauma they let slip during pint number two, and only years later will said Raspberry, by now trapped in a relationship with their over-zealous Strawberryian counterpart, muster up the wherewithal to explain what the hell, exactly, went down at age eight. Strawberries are essentially incapable of being secretive. I have wracked my brains to find something that I’ve never told anyone before and am drawing a blank.

Right, ok, so those are the Rulez. Does everything seem clearer now? I can speed-run a few more comparisons, if you’d like.

Strawberry versus Raspberry speedrun

Strawberries usually have quite big pores but amazing skin otherwise. Raspberries have skin that is tighter than a duck’s a$$ but suffer from cystic acne. Strawberries like to be on stage. Raspberries should live lives of private significance, emerging into the spotlight only when they have produced something of true artistic merit (inevitable). Strawberries buy lots of new jackets. Raspberries own one that they have secretly named “Old Faithful.” Strawberries will be the first to fall asleep at a sleepover, but bring such a potently awesome vibe to the party that it doesn’t really matter. Raspberries can hold a grudge for years, if not decades.

Peace out biatches,

A Pointy Strawberry

*This is a Mitchell and Webb joke that I make the mistake of referencing in front of a man once, many years ago.

“MITCHELL AND WEBB?!” he roars, particles of pint depositing themselves on my face, irresponsibly stationed a mere metre away. “YOU - YOU’VE - WATCHED MITCHELL AND WEBB?!???!! I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO KNEW THAT SKETCH!!!!”

Yeah, mate, I’ve watched Mitchell and Webb, because I’ve been fucking sixteen before. The man is absolutely beside himself with joy and lust. I can see that he has prematurely ejaculated, and there is a dark stain spreading, conquistadorishly, from his crotch to his upper thigh.

Gentlemen, let this be a learning. Please never assume that you have been more of a sixteen-year-old than the strange, beautiful woman you are locked in conversation with.