Around two years ago, at the onset of spooky season, I decided it was about time that I sit down and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time.

I’d been told by countless people that it was a phenomenal show and that it was right up my alley, but even with all of the hype and expectation, I was still surprised by the effect this show had on me. As many people will tell you, BTVS takes a little while to work its magic. I was enjoying it well enough, but it wasn’t until around the third season that I realized, quite suddenly, that I’d fallen in love with this show. By the time I reached season 7, almost every episode made me cry. I think I’d gotten the idea that by not watching Buffy while it was on television, I would never be able to connect to it in the right way. Obviously, I was wrong.

For a while, I’ve been planning to write a blog post about this show. There is a lot of excellent writing out there about BTVS already, and I became obsessed with figuring out a unique perspective to present. What is there about this show that people haven’t considered and written about ten thousand times before? Should I write about how the trio in BTVS presents a perfect parallel to the trio in the Harry Potter series? How about an examination of the loneliness of the ‘chosen one?’ A listicle about Buffy’s trench coats? There were a lot of different angles I considered, some of them more ambitious than others, but ultimately I decided that sometimes the best place to start is the simplest.

So, without further ado, I present: Seven Lessons Buffy the Vampire Slayer Can Teach You, Even as an Adult Woman in 2018. (There are seven because the show has seven seasons, but I didn’t correlate each lesson to a season because what do I look like, a professional? Cut me some slack, guys.)