“Is it her weight?”

The question floored me. I remember looking at my phone and looking at myself in nearby mirror as I paced. The body that looked back at me was no chiseled Adonis. He was pasty and chubby. That she would even ask was shocking to me. This was her friend.

“No,” I think I almost laughed at the idea. The truth was she was beautiful. I mean she’ll never see this, but it was never a question of desire. I really liked her. She was soft and curvy. When we’d dance, I feel her against me in all the right ways.

It didn’t matter. This was my era of doomed romances. Forget the fact that she was amazing, that she actually liked me, and that I liked who I was with her. No, I was still too young. I was still chasing a storybook that never existed. That is, to say, I was in love with someone else, and I grew up in twisted toxic world in which staying true to unrequited love was the ultimate sign of honor.

What a waste.

The weight thing, though. That bothered me. I was a rail as a kid, and then puberty hit. Suddenly, I was gaining weight like there was no tomorrow. I heard all the comments even from family and friends. There is no safe space and if I tried to do anything about it, then the teasing got worse. I became the smart kid and that was that. Lucky me. I don’t know how much worse it was for her, but that comment gave me chills. I know her friend was trying to understand why I turned the woman down, but the question made me angry. It would never be about weight, not with me.

There is no “nobility” here¹. I definitely have looks and styles that attract me. Desire is always complex and commingled with a vast array of social, cultural, mental, and biological structures. We cannot pretend we are not a part of that system, but we can navigate it. Even in my stupid youth, I could see that she was beautiful. I wanted her, and I was a fool. It would have been amazing. I think that knowledge is what hurts the most. I also know it would have ended badly. It took years of work to get over that toxic programming, so good for her on dodging that.

I still think of her, though, in those moments of what might have been.