Learning to Love in the Wilds of Our Bodies

On learning to accept love after losing it

I met you after my first breakup.

My first girlfriend was all jagged edges and sharpened remarks. She tossed off acidic judgments and curdled her relationships with my friends. She spoke with gleeful disdain about rivals who had gotten fat. Friends bristled at her comments but still congratulated me. You’re so lucky to have found someone. Thin people are lucky to find the one. Fat people are lucky to find anyone.

But for nearly two years, I stayed. I stayed when she rejected my friends. I stayed when she told me she’d been sleeping with someone else. I stayed, because that is what fat women do. Our value is fixed; we earn autonomy only when we become thin.

I stayed until she dumped me. She emailed an itemized list of reasons she was leaving, copied to our friends. It would’ve been too much work to tell everyone individually. I was doubly heartsick: blindsided by a harsh breakup and ashamed of being heartbroken over someone so unkind.

Then I met you.