Difficult Women

by Roxane Gay

“I’d be no good to a really good man and Darryl isn’t really a bad man.” I knew exactly what she meant.

They hugged, pounding each other’s backs in the violent way men show affection.

men.

We were young once and then we weren’t.

I worry about the day when he leaves me, torn apart on our bed, waiting for him to put me back together again.

She once told a boyfriend about these considerations and he said, “You are completely out of your mind.” She told a new friend at work and she said, “Honey, you’re not crazy. You’re a woman.”

but she smiled politely because she understood these people and how they existed only in relation to those around them.

She was smart enough to want more but tired enough to accept the way things were.

Why do I relate to this so much?

She has a pretty face, which is the same thing as ugly when a woman is fat. In the complex calculus between men and women, Milly understands that fat is always ugly and that ugly and skinny makes a woman eminently more desirable than fat and any combination such as beautiful, charming, intelligent, or kind.

Their God is angry and unkind because they made him in their image.