Date A Girl Who Loathes Herself

Author's Note: I have been given to understand that this piece makes me look like a douche. Well, I am not. This piece was an exercise in writing, and I hope (and pray), that I am not judged on it, by girls.

Special mentions for Rosemarie Urquico for writing that wonderful piece, and for Tapas Shrivastava for making me want to write one myself.
Thanks to Rohini Lall for the spark that ignited this particular piece.

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Date a girl who loathes herself. Date a girl who spends her money on comfort food. She has problems with closet space because she has too many high heels bought in moments of madness. Date a girl who has a list of failed relationships, who lost her first elocution competition when she was twelve.

Find a girl who is depressed. You'll know she is because she has that long lost look in her eye. She is the one wearing crushed pajamas in the cafeteria, the one who is fidgeting with her cell phone, contemplating whether calling her therapist third time in a day would be a bit too much. You see the weird chick with smudged mascara, and a wrinkle around her eyes. That's the self loather. They can never manage to wipe off the chocolate stain off their chin.

She is the girl drooling over her cup of frozen yogurt. If you take a closer look, you might find trails of maple syrup and chunks of strawberries. She is lost in the greyness of her dull life. Sit down. She might be cursing herself, she might curse you since she treats every new person with her fair share of skepticism. Ask her if she has had a hug in month. Maybe a year.

Buy her an extra portion of fat free gelato.

Let her know what you really think of her, with a pinch of salt. Make her feel significant. Ask her if she wants to go out with her sorority friends. See if she managed to get that promotion at the workplace she had been vying for. Understand that she had really sucked up to her boss. Tell her it is OK with you if she wants to give up on her career altogether.

It's easy to date a girl who loathes herself. Giver her a call on her birthday, maybe a card on her anniversary. That is more than enough for her. Understand that many didn't even remember it was her birthday. Keep that fire of inadequacy burning within her. Commend her on her painted toenails, but mention if her ankles look chubby. Understand that she knows the difference between the impression she has of herself and the person she really is, but she is too weak to break out of that shell. This helplessness adds wind to that fire. Raise her morale, but don't let it fly too high. It would be your fault if she begins to find you inadequate.

Lie to her. If she knows herself, she will know you are lying to gain an advantage. But that would only make her want to stick with you. She has always found it impossible to break up with men not worthy of her. She always finds herself sinking deep into the quicksand of pity. Behind every failure is a lesson she has never learnt. And she hates herself for it.

Fail her. For a girl who loathes herself, that's the caffeine that keeps her awake. She will stick to you because she cannot go through another loss. She will go out of her way to make things work. She understands that things will come to an end one day, but she does not have the guts to walk out now. You will be her hero, no matter how degenerate you are.

Girls who loathe themselves will accept you for all your flaws, because they can relate to them. They understand that deep inside you are not much different from them.

If you like a girl who loathes herself, keep her close. When you find herself sobbing at 6 in the evening because she doesn't fit in that red dress anymore, chide her. You may lose her for an hour when her hatred for herself projects on you. But then she will always come back to you, taking your chiding to be a manifestation of tough love. She'll sulk if she can't bake a good cake. Buy her one from the bakery of her choice. And then tell her you like chubby girls after all.

You will propose over chocolate ice cream. Or peanut butter sandwich. Or maybe after the next session with the therapist.

You will be smiling in you heart wondering how easy it all was. If only you had found one of them in college, instead of going after the self respecting ones. You'll mention in your journal all the things she did for you in bed, just because you didn't walk out on her. She will spend most of her life being indebted to you for bringing her out of the shithole that her life was. Your kids will have a doting mother because she does not want them to turn out like she did. She will always try to outdo herself as a wife and mother, always feeling that she is not good enough.

Date a girl who loathes herself because that is what you can achieve. You can have a girl who makes pancakes for you every morning so that you don't eat at the deli with the hot waitress. If you give her a sense of purpose and meaning to her life, then you are better off alone. Or that is what you would be then anyway; alone. But if you want to be the world and the world beyond it for her, date a girl who loathes herself.

Or better yet, date a girl who pretends to be a feminist, but isn't.