ENOUGH ALREADY: Mirrored Jealousy
by Kit Rich

My best girlfriend is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She is 5’10, tan and blonde with huge NATURAL breasts. She towers over my 5’5 frame, tiny boobs, big butt, pale skin and short auburn hair. To sum up my dating life, men are few and far between and the ones I do get usually like me because they eventually get to know me. She, on the other hand, has to pull out her weed whacker and is notoriously dating the hottest men on the face of the planet.

Look, I know looks aren’t everything. I know traits such as intelligence, self-respect, and humor matter in the long run. But in the short run, I would like to be her for just one day, maybe two. I would like to know what it feels like to be that skinny and that beautiful and have everyone all day remind me of it.

One Saturday night, she and I were headed to a bar. Before I left the house, I was feeling pretty self confident. I did the mirror check, pulled my jeans up over my love handles and got in her car. My self-confidence deflated liked a popped balloon the second I saw how amazing she looked. Before I could open my mouth she said, “I’ve gained weight, I feel so fat. Do I look fat? Have you noticed? I want to look like you. You have the greatest butt. I need to go on a diet.” I watched her as she pinched her love handles and stomach to show me her fat.

I felt like I was in a warped reality. And did she just say she wanted to look like me? Ah, the vicious cycle. After bantering back and forth about fat, diets, and workout regimes, we both admitted we sounded obnoxious. If anyone outside the car had heard us, we might have been beaten up. We made a joke that we should change the subject and talk about politics to redeem ourselves.

Then she simply said, “Enough already! I think we should just try to see ourselves the way we see each other. Maybe then we’ll stop obsessing.”

There was a brief pause. I don’t think she truly knew how accurate she was. At that point, I was even more jealous. She was blonde, beautiful and wise. The world isn’t fair.

As much as I admire my friend’s beauty, I am friends with her for reasons that have nothing to do with her looks. Her beauty wasn’t responsible for letting me cry on her shoulder for hours when my boyfriend broke up with me. Why is it that our friends see such beauty within us but we can’t see it in ourselves?

So that was the night that started the “Enough Already” philosophy. We both shook hands on it, she winked at me and we walked into the bar.

To be continued…

photos by scarleth blanco, leanne surfleet

beauty, best friends, enough already, friendship, jealousy, women