After about two years of dating, I was lying in bed with my boyfriend when he suddenly said something that changed the way I saw him.<\/p>\n
We were both partially dressed.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t a romantic moment anymore.<\/p>\n
He looked at me and said, almost casually:<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been concerned about your weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ve gained some.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it like he was discussing the weather.<\/p>\n
Then he added:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes it harder for me to be attracted to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
There was no concern about my health.<\/p>\n
No \u201cAre you feeling okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
No \u201cHave you been stressed?\u201d<\/p>\n
It was entirely about him.<\/p>\n
He wasn’t worried about me.<\/p>\n
He was worried that I wasn’t as attractive to him as I used to be.<\/p>\n
I looked down at myself.<\/p>\n
I’d gained maybe ten pounds in two years.<\/p>\n
I still wore the same size clothes I’d worn when we’d met.<\/p>\n
I was around a size 6\u20138.<\/p>\n
And honestly?<\/p>\n
I felt fine.<\/p>\n
But I wasn’t going to sit there and argue about whether my body was acceptable enough for him.<\/p>\n
So I said calmly:<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, maybe you should make sure there’s better food for me to eat when I come up on weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked confused.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means every time I come here, we eat crackers, cheese, takeout, frozen pizza, or whatever is easiest.\u201d<\/p>\n
I shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t exactly keep a kitchen stocked with nutritious food.\u201d<\/p>\n
He rolled his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has nothing to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wasn’t angry.<\/p>\n
Not yet.<\/p>\n
I simply looked at him and asked:<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what is your solution?\u201d<\/p>\n
He was quiet.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I thought he might actually say something reasonable.<\/p>\n
Maybe suggest cooking together.<\/p>\n
Maybe talk about exercising together.<\/p>\n
Maybe admit he’d been insensitive.<\/p>\n
Instead, he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you should lose the weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s your solution?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much?\u201d<\/p>\n
He hesitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen pounds would probably be good.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo your attraction to me depends on ten pounds?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon’t make it dramatic.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then I asked:<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you be willing to lose ten pounds too?\u201d<\/p>\n
His face changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s not the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I’m a man.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
Not attraction.<\/p>\n
Not health.<\/p>\n
Not concern.<\/p>\n
Control.<\/p>\n
I got out of bed.<\/p>\n
He watched me get dressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re taking this way too seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m taking it exactly as seriously as I should.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sighed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what? I was just being honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I’m being honest too.\u201d<\/p>\n
I picked up my bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo think.\u201d<\/p>\n
He laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout whether I want to date someone who thinks my body is a problem he needs to solve.\u201d<\/p>\n
His smile disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re really going to leave over this?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked relieved.<\/p>\n
Then I finished:<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m going to leave because of what this tells me about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn’t answer.<\/p>\n
I drove home.<\/p>\n
For the next week, he called constantly.<\/p>\n
At first, he apologized.<\/p>\n
Then he blamed me.<\/p>\n
Then he apologized again.<\/p>\n
Finally, he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t mean you had to be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
I replied:<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t need to be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to be with someone who likes me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he did like me.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the sentence that ended it.<\/p>\n
Not because it hurt.<\/p>\n
Because it clarified everything.<\/p>\n
We broke up.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t dramatic.<\/p>\n
There was no screaming.<\/p>\n
No cheating.<\/p>\n
No revenge.<\/p>\n
I simply stopped accepting the idea that my body was a negotiation.<\/p>\n
Years later, I ran into him at a grocery store.<\/p>\n
He looked surprised.<\/p>\n
We talked for a few minutes.<\/p>\n
He asked if I was married.<\/p>\n
I said yes.<\/p>\n
He smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes your husband ever complain about your weight?\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cLucky guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cLucky me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He seemed genuinely confused.<\/p>\n
So I explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think I got lucky because I found someone who doesn’t complain about my body.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI got lucky because I found someone who never made my body part of the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
Then we said goodbye.<\/p>\n
I walked away smiling.<\/p>\n
Because I finally understood something I wish every twenty-three-year-old woman could know:<\/p>\n
You don’t have to convince someone to find you attractive.<\/strong><\/p>\n And you definitely don’t have to shrink yourself to keep someone who thinks loving you is conditional.<\/p>\n If someone tells you your body is making it harder for them to love you, believe them.<\/p>\n Not because they’re right about your body.<\/p>\n Because they’re telling you exactly how they see you.<\/p>\n And sometimes the healthiest response isn’t changing yourself.<\/p>\n It’s changing who gets access to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After about two years of dating, I was lying in bed with my boyfriend when he suddenly said something that changed the way I saw him. We were both partially … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-honglay"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162776,"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162770\/revisions\/162776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honglay168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}