Connecting the dots...

- What about you, Leonor?

- What about me?

- How does being overweight affect you at work?

- I work at home, so it doesn't.

- Let me get this straight. You say you're not fat, only overweight. And it doesn't affect you at work. So I was wondering, why are you here?

- My boyfriend's an engineer too. We've been together for 12 years. Very happy. 5 months ago he moved to L.A. For a year to work for an American company and... Well,the rest is obvious. He has no idea and I won't tell him.

- Why don't you just tell him?

- Why don't you just help me lose 20 kilos?

- When does he get back?

- In five months.

........

"In these last 5 months I haven't left the house. I've done nothing but work and eat. I've had no life, because German is my life. I don't feel like doing anything without him. You can't spend your whole life with only one man. I haven't tried different things, I haven't lived, I haven't experimented. For 12 years I've felt like I was missing out on my life. Our relationship was so wonderful that I refused to accept that...that I didn't want it.

I got fat because I wanted him to dump me.

He didn't dump me. He didn't want to,or he couldn't bring himself to. The thing is, he wouldn't do it, so I did.

And we cried. It was really hard. These relationships create a lot of dependency. So we decided to stay friends. And while we were at it, we had sex.

It was typical goodbye sex. I didn't feel fat. I felt pretty and attractive. Light and wild.

Suddenly I started having my doubts. Maybe breaking up wasn't a good idea. Maybe we should stay together. Maybe we were made for each other.

So we decided to stay together.

That very same night, the insomnia and the anxiety came back. And I felt fat and disgusting again. I hated myself. And he wasn't there to comfort me.

I felt so awful and so in need of therapy that I came on the wrong day.

I came to the bar. I didn't want to go home. Suddenly I realized there was a man who wouldn't stop looking at me. I thought he was marveling at how fat I was and I wanted to leave. I asked the waiter for the bill but he said the man had paid for my drink. And suddenly, I don't know how, he was sitting right beside me. He kept telling me how pretty I was and he looked good to me too. And I felt so in need of a little consolation... I felt desired, I didn't feel fat. Of course the following week I went right back to feeling fat and disgusting and unable to stop eating.

I needed to be consoled...

I wanted someone in and out of my life. I belong to German and only German. I knew it wasn't right, that I couldn't keep being so compulsive, that I had to go back to therapy.

And that's how I met guys I fucked. Who all were handsome and happily married. So I decided to keep fucking handsome, happily married men. Because I didn't want to face rejection (that's why I wanted no strings attached). And because I didn't feel like I was cheating on German.

Until one day I said:"Enough. No more." This morning I was convinced it would never happen again. It was when German was getting back. I knew he wouldn't come back. That he wouldn't want to. I think that's why I slept with all those men. I thought it would be easier to get over German. If he wouldn't dump me for gaining 20 kilos, maybe he would for fucking 20 guys.

I get anything I decide to go after.

........

At first I couldn't figure out why a handsome, happily-married man would sleep with a fat girl. I often wondered.

Until one day I stopped wondering."

Gordos (2009)