If Not Girlfriend, Why Girlfriend-Shaped?

Jan, My Body, and the Movie Girlfriend

When I was younger, I had a very specific kind of body dysmorphia. An impressive kind, really. My brain, ever generous, edited out the parts I couldn’t bear. When I looked in the mirror, I was a floating head with long legs. No torso. On good body days, I could see my arms. On bad body days, I was the one-legged lamp from A Christmas Story.

I was convinced my midsection - big boobs, soft belly - would make me unlovable. And if I was unlovable, I would die. Alone. Just me and my Mommy Milkers.

Younger me and the pre-reduction Mommy Milkers being held captive by an industrial-sized bra.

It was a coping mechanism. Ingenious, if you think about it. My brain decided that seeing myself clearly might kill me - or at the very least, break something permanently. So it opted out. A broken brain, sure. But a protective one.

This part of my brain, this ingenious survivor, might have been a pick-me, but she was a fighter, too. Let’s call her Jan.

Years passed. I started taking pole classes. Low rise jeans went away (LET THEM DIE, YOU GUYS), body positivity entered the chat, and the miracle of aging does also give you a sense that who you are as a whole person is far more important than the meat-suit you wear, and if it has cellulite, or body hair, or fat rolls. (We also need to stop fetishizing young bodies, but, that’s another post).The conversation around bodies shifted… somewhat… and I began to think: maybe I wasn’t built wrong at the factory.

What also helped this slow increase in self-acceptance, is I also had a number of partners gush about my body. They became rare life-rafts in the incessant self-hatred I had been drowning in since I could remember. People who touched me like I was sacred. Who compared me to the Venus de Milo. Who said my body was honey. One partner made a daily practice of pressing their face into my stomach, public enemy number one. And inhaling like it was prayer. It fundamentally changed some of my wiring. This once condemned, never-to-be-spoken of area became their altar. It sparked the first thought: maybe my body deserves to be seen. When my body is shared, it’s appreciated. This thing I was so vehemently convinced would make me unlovable, someone loves.

Still, Jan remained. Especially when selfies became currency.

She taught me angles. Contortions. The precise geometry of shrinking: chin tilted, stomach back, limbs forward. She knew how to create a version of me someone - especially a man - might want.

I thought it was vanity. LA upbringing. Normal body dysmorphia that I inherited both generationally and surviving early 2000’s media. But it was bleeding into everything. I performed less, or opted for smaller physical movements so as not to draw attention to my size. I never asked people out. And, maybe most relevantly, I decided certain roles, sketches, or ideas were off limits for me. Those were reserved for the skinny girls. Skinny Girls could be ugly in roles if they wanted. Skinny Girls could be outlandish. Skinny Girls could fail, and they’d still be lovable. But if I had any shot at being wifed up, Jan had a lot of work to do.

Years went by. The therapy bills stacked up (but worth every penny, baby). My work became more public. Pole videos, a Substack as an open diary, a short film about my heartbreak. I even began writing an unbelievably vulnerable solo show.

And still, Jan whispered: Don’t say that. It sounds desperate. No one loves desperate.

It hit me: Jan wasn’t cruel. She was scared. Terrified of being alone. She’d decided it was safer to accept scraps of affection than to risk not being chosen at all.

That’s how I found myself in the same situationships over and over with infatuated, emotionally unavailable men; addicted to my presence, allergic to commitment. Until they got into a relationship with someone else, and still, they wouldn’t let me go.

Despite my attempts to correct behavior, countless reminders of my boundaries and their girlfriends’ (!!!) boundaries, they wouldn’t stop. They sent me love songs. Told me I lived in their heads. They texted things like, “I watched this porn because the lead reminds me of you.” (yes, really). And would only stop once I blocked them.

I became the manic pixie stand-in, the warm-up act for someone else's emotional growth. And Jan watched. Nervous. Quiet. Her fears confirmed.

I wasn’t the wife. I was the interlude. I thought, “I must not be girlfriend material.”

And then the question came:
What does a girlfriend look like?

Whose idea was I chasing?

Some cinematic ideal. Some whisper campaign. All the boys love her! She’ll free you from your worries! She’ll liberate your horniness! She’ll lick your wounds after that mean, mean girl broke your heart! She doesn’t do comedy! She doesn’t have cellulite! She doesn’t ask for seconds!!

She doesn’t write about the men that broke her heart, pole dances but doesn’t show *too* much, just enough for men to think they can have it but can still introduce her to their mothers with dignity.

She is, in other words, a curated pick-me. She is a woman written by men. She is not me.

Very “inside of you there are two wolves” core.

I’m interested in being the woman who takes seconds. Who cackles so loud it makes people look. Who makes the ugly face because it’s funny. Who doesn’t give men six chances to learn how to be decent. Who overshares. Who writes about her heartbreak.

Jan still panics sometimes. Still whispers, Be careful. Be small. Don’t scare them off. They’ll leave.

And maybe they will.

But the truth is, I’ve spent years sucking in my stomach and holding my tongue. It didn’t make them stay. So now, I’ll eat the bread. I’ll say the thing. I’ll show too much titty.

If anyone is going to leave, they’re going to have to do it in the glow of my full self. At least then I’ll know they left something real. And I can be the one who stays.