Dear Anita,

maybe that’s true and I forgot that I was afraid at home or shut those feeling out. Perhaps I subconsciously am afraid of being controlled again even though at the time it did not feel like control.

“See the illogic here?” I do and I was contradicting my statements. What I should have added is that I know girls who are really beautiful (above average you could say – by society’s standards), have a great figure, but their partners criticize them for having a stretch mark or cellulite (even though they are perfectly healthy and enjoy exercise). Those are the things that people don’t see right away (until they are intimate). Men don’t even ask me out on dates or on a drink as friends because they don’t like what they do see. Even though I don’t necessarily need to be in a relationship, I would love to have some guy friends (and not just girl friends). It is funny, in college, guys/mal schoolmates would be so nice to me when my attractive friends were around and we would have great and fun conversations that I engaged in, but they barely said hi to me when they passed me in the hallways. I’m not trying to feel sorry for myself (I do hope it does not seem that way), but it saddens me deeply that I should be punished this way for not fitting society’s idea of beauty most men buy into. I’m not extremely thin, but I exercise and try to live a healthy life, I take care of my hygiene and make myself look presentable. I do the best I can with what I have been given, but it is never enough. I had an ex-schoolmate/friend (female) once tell me that she cannot picture me being intimate with someone because of the way I look. It would be easier for me to convince myself that I’m being dramatic and that I’m normal if I was the only person who thought this way, but actually hear this from someone else is kinda soul-crushing. I didn’t even ask her about her opinion, she just decided to say that to me while telling me about her relationship.