You, probably.

Duff: one syllable, four letters, infinite questions. You’ve seen the trailer or heard the Spotify ads (dude, just get Premium, it’s $5 a month), and you can’t help but wonder, am I the Designated Ugly Fat Friend? After a brief hiatus, Tats is back at it with your most pressing questions, answered.

Dear Tats,

I’m something of a film aficionado, and recently a film has been making many waves in the circles of art critique I frequent. I speak, of course, about The Duff. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and such a pivotal work of art begs the question: how exactly can I identify if I am the Duff? I anxiously await your response.

She’s Not All That

Dear She’s Not All That,

Listen, I am so glad you are exploring these difficult questions in this time of self-discovery. College is all about learning who you really are and embracing your identity, and if that means accepting your DUFF status, so be it. Listen, it’s important to know exactly who and what you are. After all, self-awareness is the first step to self-acceptance, and in the eternal Instagram responses words of Ariana Grande, “Don’t compare yourself to anybody else and try to love the things U usually hate on.”

That said, you can’t hate yourself if you don’t have anything to hate! So without further ado, here are the top seven signs that you, dear Not All That, are the Duff of your friends.

1. Your friends keep lovingly referring to you as “old girl,” “lazy,” “pathetic,” and “ugly slob.” It’s all in good fun though!!

2. At parties, you’ve developed a fun, extroverted habit of curling up into a little ball, hedgehog style, in the corner, so as to expose the least amount of vulnerability to the dangerous outside world.

3. Your parents have stopped asking if you’re seeing anyone and instead just send you acne cream and all-access passes to “health clubs.”

4. Your roommate just bought you deodorant.

5. Your yoga pants keep ripping and you can’t figure out why. On an unrelated note, you often fall asleep clutching a bag of Cheetos.

6. Sometimes when your Insecure Pretty Friend gets sad, she pokes your muffin top and pops your pimples. It cheers her up quite a bit, actually.

7. A fun Friday night activity for your clique is throwing mayonnaise and cream cheese at you until you break down and sob in the bathroom, desperately dreaming of a slightly less reductive, misogynistic, materialistic, capitalist regime.

On the other hand, to some degree, aren’t we all DUFFs? Indeed, what is humanity but a perpetual state of obese, unsightly shame, perpetually thrust upon us, one heteronormative rom-com at a time? Selfish, immoral, disinterested in goodness but to appear so, our state of nature is fundamentally hideous in its unceasing quest for immortality.

But hey, on the bright side, whatever else goes wrong, regardless of your DUFF status and how alone you feel inside these cold February nights, hearken back to Ari: “Please be good to U. Love youuuu tons.”

XOXO, Tats

Lookin’ good via Shutterstock.