Whether you love or hate Cassie Howard from Euphoria, the reality is that tons of girly in the real world totally relate to her.

People notice strong emotional patterns in Cassie that make them feel connected to her. People can sometimes see their own insecurities in her, even if they don’t agree with all of her choices.

After watching and re-watching Euphoria (since it’s one of my all-time favorite shows), I’ve come up with a smallest of reasons why I think girlies in the world resonate with Cassie as they see some of their own emotional patterns playing out on screen.

I’m an independent culture journalist after spending the last seven years for iHeartRadio, RapTV, and other media outlets.

I love doing deep dives into Euphoria, so these are my thoughts on why so many girls in the real world admittedly relate to Cassie based on some of her character traits and behaviors.

Confusing attention with love

The first point I want to cover is the way Cassie confuses attention with love. She thinks that when someone is giving her attention, it must mean they love her or care about her. And for this reason, a lot of girls in the rail world can totally relate. As much as it might suck to admit, this is an emotional trap that many girls fall into, especially during teenagers and early 20s.

Before you have real world experience when it comes to dating men, it’s easy to confuse attention and love. If someone is pouring a bunch of attention onto you, calling you all the time, constantly trying to make plans with you and see you, and everything of that nature – as a young woman – you’re automatically going to think that person must really love you.

When in reality, in some cases guys use the level of attention they give you as a manipulation tactic. In the worst cases, men will love bomb women and make you believe you are the center of their world before things take a dark turn in the relationship. In lighter cases, guys can use the level of attention they give you as a tactic to get away with shitty behavior as time goes by. Because they know that the more invested you are in the relationship and the longer they have you trapped in their snare, the easier it will be for them to continually manipulate you.

Being pretty, yet still insecure

Being pretty, yet still struggling with feelings of insecurity is extremely common for many beautiful young women in the world. As unfortunate as it is, there are too many pretty girls who don’t even understand how pretty they are because the world has been so cruel to them. Even girls who have been told their whole life that they’re beautiful may still struggle with imposter syndrome or insecurity over the fear that others might just be saying compliments to be nice to you instead of giving you compliments that are authentic.

For girls in the world who know without a shadow of a doubt that they’re pretty, they also still occasionally struggle with insecurities, since truly pretty girls faced their own set of issues in the world. Some guys automatically assume that really pretty girls sleep around a lot and don’t deserve as much respect from them. Not all guys think this way, but this is definitely something I’ve heard about.

Also, guys can find really pretty girls so intimidating that they refuse to approach them or ask them out in public. So that leaves really beautiful women to feel isolated and unwanted in the dating world in many cases. so it makes sense that sometimes the prettiest woman of all still have some insecurities, similar to Cassie.

People pleasing tendencies

Cassie is the poster child of a fictional character with people pleasing tendencies. And this point actually deeply hits home with me as a recovering people pleaser. When you grow up in an environment where you don’t fully feel accepted, it can result in you becoming a people pleaser in your adulthood. People pleasing tendencies play out differently for different people, but some examples are being a yes man to your friends, agreeing to do things that you really don’t want to do, agreeing to do things that deeply inconvenience you, agreeing to do things that make you super uncomfortable, and beyond.

Being a people pleaser means doing everything in your power, not to rock the boat and not to stir the pot. It often means biting your tongue and keeping your true feelings about things to yourself because you don’t want to upset others around you. But whenever you serve as a people pleaser to others, it means you are abandoning yourself and your own needs are not being met.

I saw a lot of that in Cassie on you Euphoria, especially in her friendship with Maddy and her relationship with Nate. Maddy and Cassie definitely had a fall out in their friendship after the whole scandal of Cassie and Nate secretly hooking up got exposed. But before that when they were still friends with each other, there were a couple of scenes where Maddy was speaking to Cassie in the most disrespectful way ever. And Cassie never really spoke up for herself, defended herself, or demanded respect from Maddie. She let Maddy talk down to her and she let Maddie talk shit to her. With Nate, she also acts as a people pleaser, willing to do whatever he wants her to do in order to keep his attention and affections.

Romanticizing toxic love

One of the sad, but extremely common things young women and their teenage years and early 20s deal with is the concept of romanticizing, toxic love. I don’t know why this is so common and I hate that it’s so common, but it’s definitely something we see play out with Cassie. In the real world, people romanticize toxic love because they feel that the ride or die narrative is something straight out of a fairytale.

They consider the idea of forgiving someone who hurt you over and over and over again as a way of truly proving just how unbreakable your love can be. But the truth is that continually letting someone back in after they’ve hurt you or broken your heart is the most damaging thing you can do to yourself. All it does is dysregulate your nervous system, lower your self-esteem, and ruin your perception of what true and healthy love should look like.

Cassie had two toxic relationships on Euphoria and she romanticized the hell out of both of them. McKay was a terrible boyfriend to her for always pushing her away and always emotionally shutting her out. And Nate has been a terrible partner to her as well since he has such abusive tendencies. Yet Cassie romanticized both of those relationships and poured her heart into both of those connections.

Daddy issues/abandonment issues

Another major reason a lot of euphoria viewers can resonate with Cassie is due to her daddy issues/abandonment issues. As sad as it is to say, a lot of us do have issues and because of that, a lot of us also have abandonment issues. According to my research, about 15 to 16 million children are currently living in a household with a single mother right now. That means their dads are not present.

From personal experience, I know how much it hurts to not have your dad around in your formative years. We watched Cassie struggle with daddy issues since her dad turned to his addiction and abandoned his family when she needed him the most. Since having daddy issues is so common, it’s not shocking to me at all that so many Euphoria viewers can see a bit of themselves in Cassie.

It genuinely hurts to feel that half of your DNA, half of the reason you’re alive on this planet, doesn’t feel like you’re worthwhile enough to stick around or take care of you. This realization has definitely negatively impacted Cassie as a character on the show.

Feeling incomplete without validation

One thing you can’t deny about Cassie is that she needs validation more than anything else. And she feels absolutely incomplete without it. And as much as many people don’t want to admit this, she isn’t the only person to think that way, even if it’s subconscious. No one is purposely aiming to feel incomplete without validation, but it’s just something that naturally happens in a lot of cases.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling warm and happy when someone validates you. It feels good to be validated. It feels good to be seen. It feels good to be heard. It feels good to be prioritized. It feels good to feel like you matter to someone. All of these things are true. But for Cassie, she actually feels incomplete when validation doesn’t happen.

And that, in my opinion, is a natural response as part of the human condition. It requires a lot of self-love and personal development to train your brain to not rely on validation from others. It might come natural to some rare people in the world, but for a lot of of us, it actually takes mental training to stop being so heavily reliant on validation from others.

Validation from others can come and go like a breeze in the sky. If you are relying on someone else to validate you, they might tell you how beautiful you are on a Monday, but if they get busy on Tuesday and forget to give you a compliment, is that going to make you have a mental breakdown the way Cassie would? If so, it’s definitely time for self reflection and inner trauma healing.

But even if you don’t go to the extreme level of having a meltdown, just feeling the strong desire to be validated by others is a big reason why people relate to Cassie.

Navigating jealous energies

No one likes to talk about jealousy. It’s one of those hot button topics that really sucks. But Cassie has been on both sides of jealousy, so she really understands the depths of its toxicity. Probably more than most people. But because she understands jealousy on both sides, many Euphoria viewers can truly resonate with her on a deeper level.

We’ve seen Cassie be super jealous of Maddy, to the point that she sabotage her friendship with Maddy by secretly sleeping with Nate. Cassie is jealousy of Maddy was revealed when she showed up to school just like Maddy, copying Maddy‘s aura, and trying to jock Maddy‘s swag. Cassie‘s jealousy was oozing out of her in that scene specifically.

But we’ve also seen Cassie deal with the bitter resentment and jealousy she receives from her younger sister, Lexi. Lexi made it clear in her play that she low-key hates living her life in Cassie’s shadow. Since she’s Cassie’s little sister, she’s constantly being compared to Cassie, and those comparisons are happening against her will. From Cassie’s perspective, it’s probably frustrating knowing her little sister is jealous of her when she just wants Lexi to live her own life, be her own shining star, and do her own thing without concerning herself with those constant comparisons.

Wanting to be chosen

A big detail about Cassie as a character in Euphoria is that she really wants to be chosen. She cares about being chosen on such a deep level that she’s kind of willing to do anything and everything in order to make sure she gets picked. And I want to clarify that the desire to be chosen is not a bad thing. It’s actually normal and it’s part of the human condition. Who wants to be left behind? Who wants to be rejected? Who wants to live a life alone? No one.

The desire to be chosen is actually so normal, yet people try to make others feel shameful or guilty about it. Before I met my husband, I was so dedicated and determined to find my life partner That I locked in for about six months of my life to become the best version of myself who would be worthy of attracting an amazing husband. I locked in with my fitness goals, my financial goals, my mental health goals, my spirituality, and every other detail about myself in order to meet my husband. And ultimately, I did meet my husband.

So I truly don’t personally judge anyone else for the desire to be chosen. And it’s a big reason why a lot of people can relate to Cassie.

Spiraling when life starts lifeing

The thing about life is that it’s going to keep lifeing, no matter what we do. You might think you can set everything up perfectly to see your circumstances play out in the most flawless way ever. But life will still do whatever it wants to do and go in whatever direction he wants to take at Random. Which can be very painful and very hurtful, especially if you’re the type of person who likes to plan ahead. Especially if you’re the type of person who likes to see your efforts, matching your results.

But life will do what it wants, sometimes life will break you down when it throws curveballs that are completely unexpected. And what I saw from Kelsey on euphoria is that she’s the type of relative spiral out of control and have mental breakdowns whenever life goes in a direction she’s not happy with. And this is something a lot of people can relate to, because it requires a lot of personal development, emotional regulation, nervous system regulation, emotional maturity, trauma healing, and inner work to have chill reactions to bad things that happen in life.

Letting heartbreaks and chaos roll off your back is not really that easy. So for this reason, people can often relate to Cassie when she has her freak out moments. Some people love Cassie, other people hate her. But the truth of the matter is that a lot of people can relate to her.