So Sad Today: Personal Essays

by Melissa Broder

I was born two weeks late, because I didn’t want to leave the womb. When they finally kicked me out, I was like, oh hell no. I’ve been trying to get back there ever since.

Validation is my main bitch.

Killing your mother as an infant is proof of one’s too-muchness.

One titty is too many and a thousand are never enough.

The world was already not enough, and I, of course, was not enough either.

So, parents, never condemn us for trying to fill our existential holes, when we are but the fruit of your own vain attempts to fill yours. It’s your fault we’re here to deal with the void in the first place.

I’ve had sex with enough gross people that I feel like I should have gotten paid for most of them.

I was running away from the love of my twenty-one-year-old life, who I broke up with weekly, and was trying to prove to everyone—mostly myself—that I was okay. The

and I was now drinking every day so as not to have to feel what I felt.

Staying drunk seemed like a very practical solution to me. If you could drink yourself into happiness, why would you stay sad and sober? And if you could drink yourself into ultra-happ...

When you’re lonely and blacking out in strange places, you let other lonely people do what they want to you. You call it free love.

I have a vested interest in keeping things under control, because when I lose my illusions of control I get very scared.

I am an eater who doesn’t trust herself.

But I am an eater who is the worst feminist, probably, because I objectify other women. I compare my body to the bodies of other women.

I am an eater who feels safest at a place of very thin. I want to live in a body that is so far away from being fat that it has room to gain weight and still not even rub elbows with chubbiness.

I’m in love with you and you don’t want anything to do with me so I think we can make this work: a love story.

I don’t even masturbate to you anymore because it’s too sad: a love story.

Let’s pretend you are capable of being who I think I need you to be: a love story.

I think it’s time for you to drop back into my life, ruin it, then disappear again: a love story.

I’m sorry that when you asked what you could do to help me have an orgasm I said leave the room: a love story.

Imagining that you are going to come back to me is my favorite way to spend the day: a love story.

When I send nudes I like to receive a full dissertation on their greatness: a love story.

I miss the sex that I thought was love, but you knew was just sex: a love story.

I was the one who made it overtly sexual, as I get nervous in undefined spaces and feel compelled to sexualize things.

Our single friends say they are going to be alone for the rest of their lives and we tell them they are crazy. We tell them they are definitely going to find someone. But how do we know? We know nothing.

I am lonely among real human beings and would rather be on my phone than engage with reality.

Like, people who aren’t addicts don’t need to set rules about things. They just do them.

laptop. If the laptop is cocaine, the iPhone is crack. And I take these hits of crack before, during, and after everything.

When a real human being rejects my IRL self, or I perceive a rejection of my IRL self, I need confirmation that I am worthy of being on the planet. The way that I achieve this confirmation is to garner fake love from strangers via an avatar that resembles me.

I’M TRYING TO QUIT GETTING high on people. It’s really fucking hard. I’m a romantic and an addict. I crave

Also, getting clean off of people isn’t the same as getting sober off of alcohol and drugs.

You can’t abstain from people.

This is about using people as drugs.

What fed the drugginess was that distance, and other factors, assured we would never be able to really be together.

I tried quitting the drug-person multiple times. But every time, I kept going back for one more taste.

If I didn’t go back for more, the drug-person would text me. And when the drug-person texted me I had to text back. I didn’t want to “hurt him.”

Then, the drug-person got in touch again, twice. Perhaps he sensed that I had healed and he didn’t want to be forgotten.

No one wants to be forgotten.

like, if we know one thing it’s that u r definitely going to die Higher self: so maybe it’s time 2 stop worrying about bullshit Me: but i luv bullshit Me: bullshit makes me feel so safe

If you really love yourself, you will block and unfollow the person on all social media. But if you really love yourself you probably aren’t reading this essay. So let’s take it slow.

Having sex with them again “one last time.” There is no last time.

Do you really want to just be friends? There is nothing worse than just being friends with someone you’re in love with who isn’t in love with you.

Actually, being friends with benefits with someone you’re in love with who isn’t in love with you is worse. But friendship with no benefits is bad too.