When it comes to affairs of the heart, we are all beginners. Some of us, however, at least speak with authority. Introducing Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue (2021) and the forthcoming Love in Exile (2025), whose advice caught our eye. Contact her at DearShonVogue@gmail.com for your own chance at enlightenment.
Dear Shon,
The last year or so has been plagued by an intense, messy situationship that became an intense, messy friendship with frequent relapses into the former category. Throughout, I wanted some sort of reliability or commitment from my ex that she simply wasn’t willing to give, whether as a lover or a friend. I cut contact completely after one disappointment too many.
We’ve taken different approaches since then. I’ve been leaning into my hobbies, learning to love my own company and time spent with close friends. I’ve even moved to a bigger city for work and a brighter future. She, on the other hand (from occasional glimpses in nightclubs and often unwanted reports from mutual friends), has been sleeping around and dating. I’m struggling with feelings of envy about this. The beautiful person who broke my heart gets the pick of the litter in her love life, effortlessly attracting others. I, on the other hand, have essentially no love or sex life anymore, both because I am chubby and less conventionally attractive than her and because I am less willing to open my heart to others for fear of getting hurt again. I feel better alone but can’t shake these feelings of envy and inadequacy. How can I stop feeling like the ugly ex?
Yours sincerely,
Another sapphic lady with a dated hairstyle
Dear sapphic lady with a dated hairstyle,
First things first—tell those mutual friends to stop giving you their little reports on this woman! It is extremely unhelpful. The truth is your friends’ speculation and glimpses in clubs do not provide you with direct insight into your ex’s state of mind, and in any event, her state of mind is none of your business. Instead, all you have is your own imagination, and you are using it to be cruel to yourself. You imagine she is having fabulous dates and wild sex while you sit at home binge-watching trash TV alone. The reality is probably less stark. In our society, we tend to assume the person who returns to dating and sex most quickly after a relationship ends has moved on more quickly, but these behaviors can just as equally be a sign a person is averse to confronting deeper issues. All is not necessarily as it seems.
This woman broke your heart, and you rightly ended things to save yourself further pain. I’m afraid this means you’re going to be a little obsessed with her for a bit. What she’s doing, who she’s with, whether she’s thinking about you, whether your life is better or worse than hers. It’s embarrassing and makes you feel insane, but it’s completely normal and will pass. Try to consciously distract yourself when you catch yourself obsessing. Remind yourself that your life is not determined by some invisible competition with her—you started out in a new city for new work opportunities. That’s brave and demanding: A change of location and work demands a lot of energy and time as you adjust and put down new roots. Focusing on that and yourself instead of dating sounds like it has the potential to be extremely rewarding and fruitful. Try to be kind to yourself and view your life through a lens of abundance. You have the opportunity to experience new things, places, and people. Make sure you get out into your new local queer community to make new friends and social connections.
It sounds like you’ve put your ex on a pedestal, partly because you perceive her as more desirable than you. Trust me, I have been there. I’m trans and typically date straight cis men. In the past I too have fixated on how much easier it will be for them to find another partner after a breakup: They have a much higher stock value (a horrible way to see ourselves) on the dating market than I do. It’s true that their pool of potential partners is usually bigger, but as I’ve already said, easy options can also provide lots of opportunities to just lazily jump around from person to person without any self-development. I am currently single, my exes are all in relationships. Guess what? I don’t envy any of them. Not one. I am single for my own reasons and judge my life on its own terms.
You mention that you’re “chubby” as a cause of this period of celibacy. I want to challenge that: Fat people are having sex every day. You most likely have examples in your own life of fat people hooking up, dating, and falling in love. That just sounds like defaulting to a negative belief you’ve internalized about your body. Honestly? To me it doesn’t sound like the real reason you’re single at all. It sounds like you’re single because you got hurt and you’re still sensitive to rejection. If so, that’s brilliant because you’re acknowledging the pain and respecting it. Dating can be tiring; it’ll be better if you’re not just doing it to get over someone else. Have faith in yourself—you got yourself this far. Trust that, when it comes to dating and sex, you’ll know when you are ready to take a risk and get back out there again.
