My Last Ex Called Me Unattractive To My Face

Photo by Emily Bunder

It was a whirlwind and fast romance that only lasted a month. We took a module together and had our first conversation after five weeks of stolen glances. We got together 12 days later after what felt like hundreds of hours of getting to know each other. It was the perfect meet-cute origin story. 

From the start, I was showered in compliments and kindness. He danced around the word love, implying it quicker than one typically would. Nothing was slow. I should’ve noticed that these were red flags at the time, but I wanted to believe that the concepts of love at first sight and soulmates were real. I had no reason to suspect anything but. After all, we had everything in common.

The evening before he ended it with me, I had told him I had a nightmare that he had cheated on me. He knew about how I’d been wronged in the past. I also knew about the problems he’d had in previous relationships. We were proud about how good of communicators we were. I trusted him. He reassured me that he wouldn’t cheat, and made a bucket list for us, of things we wanted to do together, like write each other love letters and make pancakes the morning after a night together. I then went out with my friends and he hung out with his.

On the day, he called me up and told me he couldn’t do this anymore. I was confused, heartbroken and devastated. I dropped everything and went over to his to try and salvage our relationship. We went round in circles, him having no reasoning that related to me, me stupidly begging for him back. What had happened in the last 18 hours? Then he said three sentences that changed everything. 

“I’m embarrassed to be seen with you.”

“I’m not even sure if I’m attracted to you.”

“Are you the most beautiful girl in the world? No.”

The photos he had on his wall of gorgeous actresses stared at me. He had once said I was better than them because I was a real person. Now all I could feel were their icy eyes staring daggers into me. The messages I had in our chat of him calling me sweet, complimenting my looks and reiterating how much he liked everything about me from as recent as the previous day became obsolete. How could someone I gave so much love to say such horrible things?

I got up from my chair, stood in front of the mirror in his room and through the haze of tears in my eyes, I saw myself through the lens of my insecure, self-hating teenage mindset, one I hadn’t tapped into for years. I had been working on my confidence and self-image for quite some time, and was finally comfortable with the way that I looked. But this shattered everything. He told me to not stare into the mirror but it was too late. The damage had already been done.

When you’re bullied for your appearance in your adolescence, when you receive little to no romantic attention as a teenager and when you grow up questioning why everyone looks different (prettier) to you, it takes a lot to shut out those thoughts. I had managed to do it, but I was still uncomfortable with letting other people into my life in such an intimate and close way, that meant they knew those thoughts too. I made an exception to my rule, because I thought he was worth it. I did everything right this time and it still didn’t work out. 

I decided in that moment that I never wanted to date again.

I spent the entire month of April posting on my Instagram story almost every day. This wasn’t just an attempt to prove myself to him, but to prove to myself that his comments didn’t mean anything. It was an orchestrated performance that didn’t make me feel better in any way and I regret looking so desperate. What has made me feel better is time, and the company of my friends, who’ve let me rage and never judged me for it. 

I’m nearly five months down the line now and his words still chime through my head every single day, if not, even more frequently. I’ve screamed, I’ve cried and I’ve emphasised them in conversations with friends and strangers to convey the audacity of the situation. I introduced him to my favourite TV show; I haven’t been able to watch a single episode since. 

The boy who made me feel this way will never see this essay, and I’m glad that he won’t. If he cared about my emotions, if he was mindful about how those statements would hurt me, he wouldn’t have made them in the first place. It takes a different kind of cruelty to use someone’s weaknesses against them in contexts of love and trust. Maybe he wanted to make me hate him? 

I never told him just how badly his words killed. Our last conversation was an argument, ending in me getting blocked on everything. I wanted an apology, but the realisation that he wasn’t a good person and I hadn’t lost the love of my life was a much better resolution.

Over the last four years, I’ve become a much more confident person. A huge part of that has come from learning to love my physical appearance. Not changing it to conform to anyone else’s standards, rather just being kinder to myself and becoming who I want to be. I love seeing my smile, my hair has never been healthier and I look a little bit like my grandmother, who turned down two marriage proposals from other men before marrying my grandfather in her 40s.

When I said that I never wanted to date again after this happened, it was a lie, because I’ve never really dated in the first place. The definition of dating that implies going out with different people back-to-back is not one I enjoy, and I still don't intend to partake in that. My “dating” record consists of me downloading Hinge for ten minutes before having a panic attack and deleting it because I didn’t like the attention. I gravitate more towards emotional connection, and that’s not exactly something you can avoid having with other people. In my experience, it comes naturally. 

I don’t know who or what is going to come next, but I don’t need to know. I’m at a point where I’m happy with so much in my life and that’s enough for me. I’m only 20, I’ve got so many years ahead of me. But one thing is for sure, I won’t be letting the comments of one person impact my self-image again. At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is the way you feel about yourself. And I quite like me!

---

Edited by Gloria Giganti, Sex and Relationships editor