When it comes to your ex's new girlfriend, comparison is the thief of joy

Words: P. Eldridge

My iPhone refuses to recognise me in the dark, so I drift beneath a streetlamp. Leather, heavy and sharp, grips my calves; Tom-of-Finland boots hammer against the tarmac as I step into the centre of the road. It’s 1am. I’m ruinously tired; that raw, dangerous fatigue that seeps in after one of London’s fiercest summer days. Every pore slick with sweat, and I think: I’m at my most divine when dripping.

The screen finally concedes, mapping my face back to me, blessing me with an electric bike. Spinning round, I catch sight of two riders hurtling my way. The girl in front belts out, “Oi, Diva!” – clocks me instantly as one of hers. The boy behind thrashes his pedals, surges past, his chain slicing the silence, and vanishes around the bend. She drifts after, hurriedly, and just as my pulse begins to climb, I hear it. A colossal crash, splitting the night.

I freeze. I know them both. One – a stranger, bound to me by blood and communion. The other – my ex. Two choices flash in my head. First: say nothing, keep on my way, pretend it’s none of mine. Second: check on my crashed-out sister. Fuck it, maybe blood is thicker than water.

“You alright, baby?” I call, steelcaps click-clacking towards her. She’s thrashing beneath her bike, tangled in metal and fury, and before I can even reach to lift her she spits, “Leave it, I’m fine! Don’t worry about me!” She yanks herself up, vanishes round the next corner, leaving the air between us trembling.

On the ride home, side-by-side with my best friend, we shout and laugh over each other through snoring streets, tires hissing on the pavement. I keep comparing myself to her. This girl I’ve never met – she’s gliding about in a flimsy summer dress, all softness and easy charm. Me? Knotted, cropped punk tee barely hanging on, tits bouncing over speed bumps, high-cut boxing shorts slicing my thighs. Our only likenesses: the hair whipping behind us, the transness we can both smell on each other — more obvious to us than anyone else — and now, regrettably, the fact we both fucked him.

Comparison is an insidious curse that dominates our dating lives as trans women, seeping into every moment. It whispers cruel truths, persuading you to measure yourself against every other trans body in the room. You keep score without meaning to – who’s softer, who’s hotter, who is more desirable. It steals our joy, transforms intimacy into anxiety, turns affection into desperation. Even in moments of love, we remain contestants in some invisible pageant, forever comparing ourselves against past selves and unknown futures.

Weeks before they got together, he and I had already begun to drift. I was in Australia, pulling myself from the metropolis, coaxing the frantic, hungry bits of me into something softer. Becoming the sound of waves hammering the shore; a horizon streaked pink, red, orange; finding resolve in the knowing I am like shards of broken shells pressed into the soles of bare feet. Perhaps, for the time being, too sharp to decipher; misconstrued and cutting; something to stay clear of.

I didn’t think of him much — time has a way of unravelling people — but occasionally he’d message. Said he missed me, wanted to hold me, thought “we could slay as a couple” once I returned. Scrolling through pictures he sent from holidays in Ireland, stupidly, I let myself believe the months tangled in bed, afternoons draped over each other in parks, might lead to actual girlfriendhood. 

When I returned, I texted him, asked if he still planned our promised date. He refused. Said he was about to name another — a "more beautiful trans woman" — as his own. Humiliation burned fiercely, eclipsed only by a deeper shame. Worse than shame was the embarrassment of clinging to the hope he was drip-feeding me. Sitting with my phone, feeling like the punchline to a cruel joke, I cried.

This insecurity — this fear of always being second, of being less desirable, of comparing the way I look to the next girl — burrowed deeper when I was with him. Once, in a park, he suggested rating strangers by attractiveness; 1 the lowest and 10 the highest. Uncomfortably, I played along, desperate to please, foolishly asking him to rate me too. Without hesitation, he smirked, "You're about a three."

It went through me like a blade. Yet, even in that moment of profound rejection, I invited him back home. That desperation — for affection, for validation — carved into me, convincing me that scraps of attention were enough. But they never are.

By choosing her — declaring her beauty more worthy than mine — he split an invisible line between us; a hierarchy impossible to un-see. I wish I could tell her there was never resentment, only grief. Grief that our worth could be decided and articulated so casually, grief that comparison had turned sisters into rivals, grief for love twisted into competition. But, I suppose this is the brutality of dating: always measuring ourselves against each other, terrified that someone prettier, more effervescent, exceedingly "acceptable" will replace us. It’s a poison that seeps beneath the skin, a whisper that says, "You're never enough."

That night, watching her vanish bruised and hurt into darkness, I wished we could tear down this cruel hierarchy together. I wanted to scream across the empty street that I saw her clearly, beyond him, beyond beauty. I wanted to offer something gentler, truer – a bond forged not in likeness, but in understanding.

We were never meant to be rivals. We are sisters – bound by something deeper than beauty, deeper than some man’s fleeting desires. I ache for the clarity of connection, for the bravery of vulnerability without calculation. For the courage to stand beneath a streetlamp, us both exposed, and simply say: "Here I am."

I imagine she felt it too, that uneasy closeness beneath the defensiveness, which is probably why she rejected my help so abruptly. We’ve both been taught to fear vulnerability, conditioned into competing rather than connecting. But we deserve so much better than this constant comparison, than these wicked competitions. We deserve softness – towards ourselves, towards each other. We deserve a love that doesn’t measure or rank; a love that simply sees us clearly, kindly, exactly as we are.

Blithe smile, lithe limb.

***

P. Eldridge is a curator, writer, and cultural agitator working between London and so-called Australia. Her practice is a soft weapon, a sharp tenderness carving space for queer embodiment, defiance, and reimagined ways of living. 

As a contributor to Gay Times Magazine, she invites readers into a reflective exploration through the intricacies of modern love and the tender unfolding of personal growth. Here, she introduces her new column, SISSY, that delves into the complexities of gender, sexuality, and subverts societal expectations on identity and love. @pierceeldridge