Synthetic Jealousy

We were sitting in a pizza parlor in Tribeca and he was talking about Imogen again, about a new photo she’d posted, about how she looked “like pure perfection.” He said this with his boyish grin, and I rolled my eyes, to express my exasperation at us once again coming back to this topic. Back to her. 

He probably assumed I was just tired of the same old rigmarole: one young friend hopelessly pining after another. In reality, I was angry that he was confronting me with yet another reminder that — yes, I get it — Imogen is perfect. Meanwhile, I was stuffing myself with a second slice of pepperoni and hoping the grease running down my chin wasn’t highlighting my breakout. 

He often said he loved me; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I knew he didn’t love me the way he loved Imogen. Her, he loved for her beauty and her class and, frankly, her unattainability. The flashy diamond on her ring finger said what she would not: someone wants to love me forever, and he paid this much to show it. Me, on the other hand, he loved differently: as a friend, a mentor and a mother figure. I leaned into this role because it was the only one he offered me. 

But of course I wanted more. 

***

I wanted more since the day he moved in to the apartment next to mine, three years ago. He was carrying boxes up the stairs and I stood by on the landing to let him pass. When we locked eyes, the grin he gave me made me blush. 

We got to know each other in snippets at first, then by way of longer conversations, until eventually we became friends, and I invited him to my 32nd birthday party. That’s where he met Imogen, and when everything started to unravel. 

I know, in retrospect, that it wasn’t her fault that he found her impossibly beautiful and intelligent and fun: she is all of these things. Not her fault, either, that she was struck by this boy’s good looks and charm: they are undeniable. 

But when I rolled my eyes in the pizza parlor, it was partly to demonstrate my frustration, and maybe also a little bit to blink away the sting of tears. 

Luckily, he didn’t push the subject. Instead, he looked around the room, hunting for something else to talk about. His glance lingered on the waitress behind the counter before he turned back to me with a quiet guffaw. “Did you see that woman’s lips?” 

I peered in the waitress’ direction. Indeed. But where he saw an opportunity to regain peaceful ground, I saw an opportunity for redemption. 

“Ah, yes,” I shook my head, turning back to my pizza. “It’s a shame.” 

“How does one even look like that?” 

“That’s what happens when you start dabbling in plastic surgery.” I am ten years older than he, so I can say such things with the calm assurance of someone who is wiser and more experienced.

“But surely she must look in the mirror and not like what she sees?”

“I think once you start, you can’t stop.” I spoke matter-of-factly, to show that I did not judge her, maybe just pitied her a little. “It’s a progressive distortion that you’re not aware of until it’s too late.” 

He grimaced. “Do you have many friends who do that?” 

I paused. Hesitated. My brain was trying to tug me back towards the side of good reason, charity, kind-heartedness. My good side lost the battle. 

“My friends don’t really do that,” I began. “The only friend I know who dabbles in it is —” I wondered if really I was about to do what I feared I was about to do, “ — Imogen.” 

“Imogen?” He stared at me, mouth open. “She does that?” 

I pursed my lips, instantly filled with regret. She would never have done the same in my place. “I shouldn’t have said that.” I felt awful. “But yes—” I was barreling down the road to infamy, “—she did her lips.” I got quieter. “And the boobs.” 

He looked shocked. 

“She told us about the lips,” I shrugged, trying to soften my betrayal by downplaying it. “Apparently her aunt is a dermatologist and does it for free. And it’s not permanent: it goes away after a while.” 

He seemed slightly relieved. We are always desperate for explanations, however weak they may be. 

I decided to continue with my good charity, and told him that she’d done the boob job when she was in college and that she’d ultimately regretted it. That they’d failed to inform her, before the procedure, that she might not be able to breastfeed her future kids. That she was ultimately the victim of a fucked-up beauty industry. 

He nodded as I spoke, my palliative words slowly restoring his image of Imogen to its original glory. I tried to recuperate even more good karma by omitting the fact that I’d learned she got her lips re-filled every few months. I also left out that, in learning this, I had decided she was officially one of the more superficial people I knew, and that — worst of all — she seemed to have no awareness of it, which I found unoriginal. 

***

For the rest of lunch, he hardly spoke. His silence was my punishment for having been so cruel, so small and unnecessarily petty. I felt even more imperfect, even uglier, than I usually do when comparing myself to Imogen. 

And yet the devil on my shoulder was rubbing its hands together, hoping that, in light of this new information, the boy might suddenly discover in me a “natural” and thereby superior beauty. Perhaps his silence was the realization dawning on him that my lips might be thin, but at least they weren’t filled with plastic. And my boobs might be small — one might even venture to use the word non-existent — but at least I’d be able to breastfeed my children. 

He gave no indication of coming to these conclusions.

Still wallowing in shame, I reminded myself of the unraveling: how Imogen had known full well the extent of my feelings for the boy, and how she still wound up kissing him that drunken night last spring. How she’d kissed him in front of me, despite the fact that I told her earlier that I thought he was sending me flirtatious signals. And how she’d laughed about it in the bathroom afterwards, despite the fact that her very serious boyfriend was on the verge of proposing to her. She didn’t know everything, like that I’d sobbed as I biked home that night, more convinced than ever that I would never be loved the way Imogen was. Nor that, in the weeks that followed, I felt humiliated at having even dared to hope that he might find me more beautiful than her. But still, in light of all this, could she really be the angel he proclaimed her to be? It was small comfort, but it was better than nothing. 

We finished our pizzas and walked to the subway. The rain had stopped but the streets were still slick, and when he touched the small of my back to guide me away from a puddle, I was filled with a renewed sense of hope. 

***

As we rattled uptown in a cramped subway car, he removed his hat and asked if his hair was messed up. I responded that it just needed to be mussed, and he bent his head forward so that I might do it. With my hands running through his hair, in public like that, I felt more certain than ever that he was deciding I was the kind of girl he actually needed: an all-natural, non-judgmental hair-musser. 

And when we said goodbye on the landing between our two doors, he looked deep into my eyes and I was almost certain he was trying to tell me he loved me the good way. 

Later, lying on the couch, I pulled out my phone and googled, “do big boobs make girls look fat.” I looked up celebrities who’d been distorted by too much plastic surgery. I scrolled through their Instagram pages, searching for comments saying the women looked better before getting all that work done. I was disappointed when I didn’t find as many as I’d hoped. 

Then I opened a page in incognito mode and typed, “botox near me.”