She is apparently an inexperienced tender flower. He is apparently some suave playboy who sleeps with a lot of women, falls in ‘love’/lust with many women, then proceeds to discard them.

Okay, so I understand my boyfriend’s concern. However, I don’t agree with him that J is somehow ‘more responsible’ in this relationship than H. Both of them decided to have sex, both of them decided to begin a relationship even though both were perfectly aware that it would be short-lived. Just because she has less dating/sexual experience does not mean that is she is the victim in this situation; if anything, she should have been even more cautious because she then knew the likelihood of her becoming attached to this first romantic interest. Had she been–sorry to be so judgmental–intelligent, she would have realized that it was a really stupid thing to a.) fall in love with someone so much older, b.) sleep with him, c.) waste any energy pining after someone who she will not see for the next three years. I have no pity for her, at all. Any girl with two brain cells know not to fall in love that easily, with someone so undeserving, in a situation so inconducive to a relationship.

And simply because J is more romantically seasoned and aware of his own personal propensities with regards to females doesn’t mean that he should be held responsible for the suffering that H is currently undergoing. It doesn’t mean that he’s obligated to protect her from emotional damage and to restrain himself from taking any action if he does actually like her, or just want to bed her. It doesn’t mean that he ought to tiptoe around her as if she were made of shatterable crystal because honestly, both are adults now. Both can choose what actions they want to take, what decisions to make, how to behave toward each other, to what degree they will become attached to each other. Neither one is (or, rather, both are equally) at fault for the current situation.

Honestly, I’m just a little pissed because I feel like my current boyfriend always takes this condescending tone toward younger girls/has a slight pedophilic proclivity/enjoys typecasting people into the virginal and the debauched. In reality, no one is that naive or innocent, and no one is that unapologetically lascivious. There’s no need at all to feel outrage or sympathy; neither are deserving of such emotions.

Perhaps this also results from a twinge of jealousy, that my bf is so concerned about some other girl.

I should probably break up with him.

After seeing the thinspiration on my wall:
Mom: Wow, those magazine ads are so lovely!

Will weight ever stop being such a large part of my life? If not, which is what it seems, then I don’t want life anymore.

No one knows for certain how many died when some 300,000 soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army launched a deadly assault to end the student-led pro-democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square.

The Chinese Red Cross initially reported 2,600 dead – and immediately retracted under intense government pressure. The official government figure is 7,000 wounded and 241 dead, including soldiers.

From http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/story/2009/05/do-you-remember-tiananmen.html.

Mostly, just the way I look. But this facet of self-hatred seeps into every other aspect of my identity because how I look is, to me, who I am. I am defined by the number on the scale, the person in the mirror, the fat on my bones, the bulge in my cheeks.

When I separate my appearance from all other aspects of myself, I realize just how great everything else is, and how wonderfully things are going.

My boyfriend is supportive in every possible way, and is so nurturing and loving. My professors write me personalized emails praising my work. I have a stellar GPA. My parents are not overbearing or critical. My friends are magical, kind, understanding, fun.

And yet I feel unsatisfied. (Wow, what a whiner.) Not just unsatisfied–downright unhappy. If I could trade all the things above for my 90 lb body and the self-confidence and assurance it gave me… I think I would.

I suppose this goes to show what my thoughts revolve around–as much as I want to be knowledgeable and entertaining and to chirp off some pop culture-related bon mots, I am inherently and inevitably self-centered. Self, self, self.

Instead of trying to fight off this proclivity to think and write about my personal life, I will accede. After all, it removes the writer’s block, as I no longer need to manipulate my thoughts to my writing, but can simply write whatever I think.

Here goes.

I don’t know how–or if I will learn again–to be normal. It’s been so many months, yet still I struggle every. single. day. with eating, with my body, with accepting myself, with trying to find the beauty in myself. I don’t know how to eat properly. Those weekly meetings with my nutritionist? I don’t learn a thing. Perhaps the resolve to eat healthy can last through that brief 30-minute appointment, but it all breaks down when I walk out the doors of UHS. Why should I restrict myself from all things luscious and delicious and rich and delightful? Isn’t moderate restriction and careful meal planning just an extension of my former eating disorder? What is the difference between carefully monitoring what I eat now, versus carefully monitoring what I did not eat before? What is the distinction between managing my caloric intake so that it averages 1800, whereas before there was likewise a target number, albeit a much lower zero? This mentality has led to a horrifying weight gain of 50 lbs so far this year, a trend I’m terrified will continue.

But not horrified or terrified enough to stop with my binging habits. I eat when I’m hungry. I eat when I’m full. I eat when I’m bored, tired, sleepy, energetic, sad, happy. Eating is like breathing–I do it mindlessly, all the time, nonstop. Why stop, when I’m already fat? I’ve already destroyed my body, I think to myself, so what’s the harm of another donut? Or 20?

I’m disgusting. At Harvard, this self-hatred was ameliorated by the presence of my boyfriend, who acted as my mirror when I was afraid to look in a real one, whose care and affection and nurture–for the first time in my life–made me feel beautiful. Now, at home and without him, each day is a battle against myself. Do I let myself eat or not? How much? Why am I eating when I look the way I do? I just want to destroy myself–either through starvation or binging.

The entire wall above my desk–just inches behind this computer screen–is plastered with advertisements from Elle. Gazelle-like Bebe and Ralph Lauren models, thinspiration. Thin is what I used to have, even more than those women in the photographs. I used to be delicate, fragile, graceful, airy, ethereal. Double digits. Now I am corpulent and disgusting and wobbly and lumpy and heavy. I eat and I eat and I eat because I feel so disgusting.

Food is my medicine and my poison.

At once I want back what those images on the wall demonstrate, yet a part of me knows that I should probably just accept what I am now. Resign myself to the fact that I will never again be that skinny or that in control. That was the apex, and it’s all downhill from here.

In truth, I just wish my boyfriend were here to make me feel beautiful again, since I cannot attain that feeling by myself.

He is working in Lexington, KY for this month, and one of his first impressions was that “people and sources here are SO MUCH NICER than doing stuff in cambridge/boston.”  I found this comment so amusing, but it got me thinking–are people in Cambridge not nice, then? The Crimson was my first foray into the world of journalism, and I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by how receptive, warm, and open (most) people are when you let them know that you’re a reporter from Harvard. Perhaps Southern hospitality just trumps it all and exceed all other manifestations of niceness? Perhaps (not to sound egotistical) his school affiliation causes others to be intrigued and to open up? Whatever the case may be, I hope I have a similar experience next week when I start.

In the meantime, I have been reading a copious amount of business news, since I will be writing for the Business section. That means The Economist, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, etc. etc. Last night, though, I somehow found myself drifting toward the New York Social Diary and The Sartorialist. Oops.