On the Ex I Too Often Describe as Stupid

photo by Anna Kropekk

What’s your kind of boy? My friend asked me last weekend. This is a conversation I never like to have, but I thought that there may be room for honesty in the spaces between hours, so I finished my glass of wine and told her that I used to like mine stupid. 

I liked boys that still used 3-in-1 soap; that had the kind of friends that high-fived them when they were about to leave a room with me; that still thought they have a moral obligation to pick up the tab; that texted me “Goodnight beautiful” every day, as though a woman once complimented would cease to be annoyed; that wrote me sonnets which were not really sonnets; that didn’t really know where the clitoris was, and were, at that point, too afraid to ask. 

The first time we hooked up, I told him, “You’re really bad at that.” He told me he thought the female orgasm was a strange myth that pornographers propagated to make profits. 

Over time, he got better. As anyone would, well taught. I liked to leave a signature; a man, once bad at sex, was now slightly above average. My handiwork running around, fucking other people after we’re over, but unable to forget me by virtue of the fact that I had shown him, in the first place, how to do it right. A thankless job, but rewarding. 

I suppose I really liked stupid boys because I hated to feel powerless, as I did so often. I liked anticipating the look on his face when he realized that he’d fucked something up. Maybe he was late. Maybe he was bad at responding to texts. I liked knowing that if something ever went wrong between us, I had the option of taking off my shirt to make it better. I liked feeling that if anyone were to leave, it would have been me.

Yes, I liked him because I would have rather lived in a state of perpetual irritation than in one of fear and because I would rather have pitied my lover than resented him. There was nothing more terrifying than looking into someone’s eyes and having no idea what they were thinking; naturally, I picked the most vacant eyes I could find. 

Nothing kills love like erudition. Later, it was my love that died first, his following in its trail.  

Lucretius told us that love makes even the plainest woman look like Venus herself.

Lucretius told us that a smart man should stop himself before he is fooled into blind worship. 

Lucretius told us that the plain woman is happy to accommodate men’s illusions, if only for the fact that these reveries suit her, adorn her, and them, beautiful. 

I do not think I am plain, but I wanted my lovers to see me as Venus, even if it was not true. After all, I am only a woman. My sweat never tasted of honey, nor my tears of poison. But I wanted to be kept happy, and I wanted the flowers at my feet; I wanted to be loved as an idol, not as a woman, because womanhood had always felt to me so ugly and powerless and empty. 

My friend asked, then, if my God complex was linked to the fact that I still shave my armpits. Maybe. Maybe I shave under my arms and above my knees so that when I am looked at naked, I am not human but something more beautiful, something pristine. 

She asked if I was objectifying myself. 

Of course I am, and why should it matter? 

She told me I was trapped in something that happened long ago, laying passively as recollections appeared, shadows on my bedroom wall. I reminded her that “remember” is a verb, an activity. That I am choosing it, again and again.  

I remembered a pink sunset, a painted horizon. Legs dangling off the edge of a rooftop. Him and I, talking past each other. We were happy. No. He was happy. I was perfectly content. There’s a difference. I should know. 

I remembered that winter, the snow and our red cheeks, us peeling off each wet layer and crawling into bed, a silent ten minutes. I waited for the softest whisper: “I love you.” It was the first time he said it to me, but I had known it was coming that whole evening. For a short moment, I allowed myself to fall slowly, as my candle dwindled in the darkness. 

I remembered reminding myself not to grow too attached, reminding myself that I have chosen to like somebody stupid, precisely so that I would like and not love. It was all very calculated, with little margin for error. This is why I remembered it all so clearly.  

I remembered saying “I love you” back, trying to convince myself that I did not mean it, him, emboldened, telling me that he has loved me since the fourth time we kissed.

I remembered thinking, what a stupid thing to say. Stupid, but so lovable. Stupid, but so capable, sadly, of bringing me to tears, even two years later.   

Then I told her the truth: I liked him stupid, but I loved him all the same.