I have big breasts, but no real figure, unless I suck in my stomach and pull my shirt tight at the back to show off the dimpled hips with nothing to offer. My smile scrunches up my whole face, and even then, it is not pleasant, because they are somewhat yellow and chipped from when I fell hard one day playing softball. Craters and moles freckle my face, and acne scars freckle my shoulder blades. I tend to pick at them when I’m anxious. I am always anxious. I tell myself that even the moon has pockmarks and imperfections; but it is not enough. My hair is too short, black, and kinky, not flowing and elegant like other girls whose locks are long enough to get lost in. And my shoulders, they’re too wide, and my thighs, they touch, and my walk is clunky like I’m wearing metal boots, and the underside of my chin is rough and scaly from resting it on my wrist too much as I dream, and my hands are so heavy that they feel borrowed from a man.
That’s what I think of myself when I look in the mirror.
I think, maybe I was a man in my last life, and that’s why everything about me is so bulky and uncoordinated. It’s so easy for other girls, who get asked on dates and marriage proposals so often that it’s annoying for them. And I know that a woman is more than her beauty, is more than the attention a man gives her, but when you’ve never had them, you can’t help but wonder if something is wrong with you.
My mother, my father, my friends, all tell me nothing is wrong with me. But they all sit there with someone beside them, holding their hand, ordering dinner for two, as they say so.
When I was sixteen, a girl read my palm and said I was doomed to live a solitary life. My friends laughed and teased me, saying I could at least have cats. I don’t want cats. I want to be as pretty as my friend who always has men knocking at her door, so often that she has them wait in line and finds them annoying.
I want to be as carefree as my kindergarten bestie, who just got engaged and praised God across her three social media accounts for bringing them together. I want the prom-posal, the silly teenage kisses in the Taco Bell parking lot, the stories rewinding on a passionate loop online. But I don’t have deep eyes that men would go to war for. I am no Helen of Troy. I’m twenty-four, now, nearly twenty-five. That’s how I know that there must be something wrong with me.
That’s how I know that when He looks at me, or laughs at my jokes, or holds the door for me, or sits quietly beside me without any awkward tension, that it doesn’t really mean anything. Because it never does.
When I was thirteen at a college camp, a Boy told me that he had to pick between me and another girl as a date for the end-of-camp dance. We had been friends for the whole week. Exchanged numbers and everything.
I stayed up late with the blue glow of his name on my new phone (the one Dad insisted was just for emergencies) and texted with him well into the night. We hung back to talk during the tours of the college, giggling and laughing over stupid things like the iron balls dangling between the thick legs of the university’s prestigious horse statue. I imagined that this was what we would tell our kids in the future- this was how we met, two dumb kids at summer camp who would, at the end of the week, dance a preview of our wedding waltz in ten years.
The Boy picked the Other Girl. No one else asked, or considered me.
This is why when He tells about how funny I am, or suddenly blurts that I have nice eyes, I stop my brain before it can wander into the future. Because there is nothing there. There never is.
When I was ten, I made a puppet show about the lives of two women pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. I presented it to my class anxiously. We were reading Treasure Island and had to complete a project about real-life pirates, and I was worried that I had tried too hard with my handmade construction paper sets and characters. Everyone loved it, my teacher included. My Crush at the time walked up to me and told me that it was genius. He said he wanted to be a director, and I should write a script for him. I already could see it. A husband-wife writer-director team. We would be unstoppable.
He told me, not long after, that he couldn’t be with a Black girl because he didn’t want nappy-headed kids. He wanted a wife whose hair he could run his hands through. He was darker than me.
That makes things so much harder when He does that thing with his nose. When He wrinkles it as He’s working, as we stay up late to get everything done. When He’s writing His thesis on aerospace engineering, muttering a litter of words I’ll never understand. When He explains it to me, the aerodynamics of this, the thrust potential of that, He gets so excited. The same way I get excited about the historical economics of East Asia or the sociopolitical impact of war in Burundi. When I get started about something, He watches me. And keeps watching. But I ignore this.
I am twenty-four, almost twenty-five. I’m young, people tell me, but they don’t understand. Playground rejections, high school stand-ups, they’re nothing next to the silence of suitors you face as an adult. I’ve tried the dating apps. I’ve tried approaching. I’ve tried waiting. Nothing works. And nothing is crueler than hope.
When I was eighteen I spent three hours talking with a Guy under the stars, about life, love, and nothing. It was the first time anyone had looked into my eyes, with both of us quiet, for so long. I asked if he liked me. He said I was just a friend.
When I was nineteen I held hands for the first time with a Dude my friend set me up with. He wanted more than a hug. I didn’t. I went home in the dark alone, feeling guilty for having wanted a date in the first place.
When I was twenty-one, I attended a conference for political science students on behalf of my school. I was surrounded by men in uniform for a week. I didn’t pay them any mind. I knew nothing would come of it. I gave my opinions at the roundtable I was assigned to, I spoke about the political climate of America, I listened as a table of men in uniform spoke about bombs and missiles and reading the enemies’ minds, and they asked me what I thought in turn. I made friends, women, and men. I had a good time, knowing that I could go home and say that I had survived my first run at diplomacy.
I wasn’t expecting anything more. Because by then, I had learned not to see or judge all men as potential partners. I’d learned that no man was entitled to me, nor was I to him. I learned that men are people too. They are not the solution to any problem, are the cause to a plethora of others, and at the same time, are only, and can only be human. When I think of them this way, they become excellent friends. The camaraderie among men is intriguing to me, like witnessing a ritual of nature. They defend and tease and advise each other loudly, publicly, privately, lovingly. And when you are their friend, they look out for you in the same way. This is why I don’t mind being “just a friend” anymore. This is why I was eager to eat with them, laugh with them, debate with them, without expecting anything.
But then.
The day before we all went home, I was talking to a friend after a lecture, comparing notes and sharing our thoughts on what had been said. A Man, a military student, from my roundtable- one who had bolstered genius arguments during our discussion on behalf of his country- walked up to me, excused himself for interrupting, and shook my hand. It was the first time we had spoken one-on-one. He told me that he enjoyed my reflections. He’d never thought about America in that way, until I’d spoken about it. My friend had to go since her roundtable was called, and I told her I’d see her later. The Man apologized for separating us, but I joked that he was forgiven. We talked, and then walked as we talked. I stopped myself. We laughed about our home countries and the schools we went to. I reminded myself. We ended up having lunch together.
We told stories about growing up in Europe. We talked politics, entertainment, history, then graduated to dumb things like the worst foods we’d ever eaten. People came and went from our table. We stayed. We talked for about an hour and a half. We exchanged contact information; he told me we had to meet again someday.
Someday.
I nearly forgot my lesson.
But I remembered as soon as I saw his relationship status on Facebook.
This is why, I tell myself again, every time He says something that hints at something else…every time He looks at me in that way…it’s nothing more than a trick of the light. This is why I have to focus on other things, like school, and work, and myself.
Even when He hesitates, just after we say goodbye. Even when He says things that sound sweet and charming. Even when He asks, when, how, can we do this again? Can I see you tomorrow? Do you want to come… with me?
I tell myself.
It’s nothing. It never is.
It never will be.
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