My boyfriend cheated. I knew it before I could accuse it — something in the way he treated me was already confessing. I submitted to his neglect. I forced myself to force him to plan dates. I stopped expressing myself when I felt hurt. I edited myself mid-conversation to stave off another disagreement. Nothing seemed explosive enough to walk away from, so I stayed. 

Sabrina Carpenter confronted me. And Madison Beer. And Ethel Cain. Beneath the lyrics and melodies were women’s intuitions tearing at me with fierce urgency. 

In the beginning, watching movies with him was my happy place. Contentment drowned out the passivity. I tricked myself into believing easy, mundane activities were romantic, how we didn’t need anything bigger to feel close. He would wrap me in him, press play, and I sank into his bed, into him. Entire evenings disappeared. A low-effort form of intimacy. 

After months of settling, the comfort started to wane. Suddenly, as I lay with him, I was hovering above my body, observing my own quietness and dissociation as the blue light encased our eyes. Frozen in anxiety, with a hand on my waist and a movie at climax, my stress-induced oily hair against the nape of his neck.

Movie nights became a broken record of uneasiness and irritation. My subconscious wanted out. Instead of leaving, I began choosing romantic comedies for educational purposes. The Princess Bride, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Enchanted — all the films in which the guy gets off his ass to prove his love. I wanted a grand gesture. When I picked 10 Things I Hate About You, he related himself to Patrick. I laughed. He got offended. My smile faded and a protective numbness took its place. 

I avoided lingering on the blatant, almost humorous, faults within my relationship and partner. But women who sang shamelessly about shitty beaus and aching hearts demanded I reckon with mine. That June, everyone heard “Manchild.” 

Loyal to the pop princesses, I scrambled for my headphones for a first listen of the opening track on Man’s Best Friend. My giddy excitement morphed into uncertainty. Sabrina was chastising my type — specific, familiar, and humiliating, even if catchy (“Oh, I like my boys playing hard to get / And I like my men all incompetent”). 

Twenty-three days later, he queued up “Manchild” in the car, knowing I’m a fan, us having gone to one of Sabrina’s concerts together. I clenched as the lyrics took the air out. She was practically branding “foolish” on my forehead. Only this time, my reluctance was met with something every woman knows.

Next to him, hearing it with him right there — a humbling revelation. I stared at the dashboard. I didn’t want to keep allowing a man to treat me like a Sabrina Carpenter song. 

A one-year anniversary and five months of ignoring my gut, and the power of pop made me check his phone. Message after message. I was flooded with the obvious pain and anger, but no one mentions the humiliation and self-doubt. No rage. A shame that confused me in a veil of tears. I was mortified that I had made myself smaller for this. That I permitted him to get away with it for so long because I didn’t trust myself. 

He called them what he called me, complimented them the same, shared identical future plans. Those women weren’t me. A swirling sickness erupted in my stomach and crept up to my constricted throat and dry mouth. The butterflies I used to feel shriveled into clumps of dread. 

A wave of relief met me, soothing the deceit that burned in my chest. There was finally physical confirmation that my intuition is real and warrants my attention; he convinced me the echoes were just overthinking. My hands held onto his phone longer than I expected. I wasn’t shying away from confrontation this time. 

The weight of his Instagram following, low-effort excuses, convenient forgetfulness, and my ensuing late-night panic attacks and crushing loneliness immediately lifted. Hurt and betrayed, in the aftermath of clarity, I grieved the person who only existed in my justifications. 

I play it and I’m in his car again, watching myself grapple with the intuition Sabrina is throwing in my face while he sings along like he has nothing to hide.