He said, “is everything alright” and I said, “everything’s great” then ranted for several minutes about how nobody made bathing suits with the back and sides on them anymore, and how were you supposed to go on a family holiday with most of your ass and part of your labia hanging out, a bit of majora at minimum. He said, “did you tell your friends I was coming” and I said I didn’t need to, and he said, “people like to be told if you’re bringing someone somewhere” and “I wanted to make a good impression.”
At this point the fight had not started in earnest and was more of a light tension somewhere around my lower back. I returned to the bathing suits, and he said, “you called me your boyfriend earlier,” then explained that he wasn’t against the title necessarily, but was surprised because we had not talked about it, and maybe that was something to—
I interrupted to tell him he could still sleep with other people if that was his concern. He said it was not, and the tension crept up my back and into my shoulders. “You can do whatever you want,” I said, “but everything is easier if I can say, ‘This is my boyfriend.’” He asked why, and I sighed and described in great detail an orange-brown powder I often mixed with water and spread on toast in place of peanut butter.
When he did not understand what I was getting at, I picked up a dark chocolate and almond butter treat and showed it to him. “I pay extra to eat this instead of a Reese’s,” I said. “Like, what the fuck is a Snacking Cup?” He still did not get it, and I saw that the moment had arrived. I was being forced to take him on a tour of my insanities, to show him their contours and detail their depths. We were going to have a fight and he was going to hate it.
I explained to him that I was busting my ass every day to stay just a little bit beautiful, like maybe seven out of ten, because everyone was looking at me and feeling sorry for me, and I could not deal with their pity about my body or my face as well. “Do you remember when we ran into that girl Liz on the bus?” I asked. I told him Liz had given me a particular look when she realized I was with him, a look people used to give when they heard I was engaged, like they were proud and happy and, most importantly, not worried.
He was sitting in a chair by the window and had been jiggling his left leg up and down since I started talking about Liz. My head and ears were hot, and he said, “is this why you were talking about my coming to that wedding like I could have been anyone?” I said I liked him a lot, but it was complicated, and he sighed. The conversation had gotten away from us and now could only be as bad as it was or worse. We slipped into cliché, and he said maybe we needed some space, and I said it was a Me thing, not about him at all, and he said he wanted me to “let him in,” which unfortunately was the last straw.
I yelled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” and he yelled, “why do you cry every time we have sex” and I screamed, “it’s BIOLOGY” and he quieted down and said he knew breakups were hard, that his had been the darkest period of his life, so he understood if I was struggling with my divorce. He got up from his chair and looked at me with almost comically sympathetic eyes, and I felt sick to my stomach and started saying things I didn’t mean.
Things like: “you don’t even know me” and “I’m completely over Jon” and “men who are obsessed with therapy are always the biggest psychos.” I said, “I looked up your ex and she’s so thin,” and he said, “so?” and I said, “so what are you doing with me” and he said, “why do you keep asking me that?”
My heart started beating too quickly, and I did not stop myself from saying, “if you’re so emotionally healthy, why is the first person you dated after your ex an emotionally fucked-up divorcée who cries all the time?” and “I don’t have to be a therapist to see that you have very intense commitment issues,” and “you’d be so scared if I was taking this even a little bit seriously. You’d probably have to run out and cheat on me too.”
After a very long and very awful silence, he said, “this is not an emotionally hygienic conversation,” and I told him he was not better than me because he paid someone to tell him his feelings were valid. He sighed, and I accused him of gaslighting me, and he started to define the word “gaslighting” and I absolutely lost my shit. I told him it was unfair that he could treat his girlfriend that way and have another woman line up right behind her. He asked me to please leave his relationship out of it, and I said, “why should I.”
My intestines twisted in on themselves, and I told him I knew dozens, maybe hundreds, of gorgeous, funny, smart, amazing women, none of whom needed a boyfriend, but none of whom could get a boyfriend, and the fact of that was slowly corroding their belief in themselves from within. “They’re not even allowed to talk about it,” I said. “We’re not allowed to talk about it. Even though the whole world is set up to cater to couples, and it’s more expensive and dangerous to be a woman on your own, and the only thing you’re unequivocally rewarded for is finding someone—a man, preferably—who wants to be with you. And if you can’t, you have to walk around knowing that people are judging you—often out loud, to your face—and blaming you, and finding you wanting, and you have to smile and say something bullshit like ‘I’m never lonely because I love my own company!’ or ‘this tastes JUST like peanut butter, only it’s half the calories!’”
Seeing that we had come back to the peanut powder, Simon grabbed his coat and said he was leaving. I sat on the edge of my bed, and my chest hurt and my head throbbed. I dripped big, stupid tears onto my duvet and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as he took his scarf and the extra toothbrush from my bathroom and said, in a resigned and gentle tone that made me want to rip my hair out, “I hope you have a nice time at the wedding.”