NEW YORK - ANA'S WATCHING

Eating disorders are no joke, but dating someone who has one can be fucking hilarious. My ex was tall and beautiful, and I could swear I saw her eat all the time. But according to friends and family, I'm not much of a listener—if a girl I just met said, "Hey, I think you should know that I have a serious eating disorder and I don't want help," chances are I didn't pay attention to any of that. So since I'm used to ignoring the obvious I thought this lady must be that first ex-wife I've been waiting around for. I even introduced her to my parents. Then things started to slip.

One time I bought her a cherry slushie at the movies, and after drinking it she disappeared for half an hour. She returned wearing an entirely different outfit and I told myself that she had she maxed out her pad and was too embarrassed to say anything. I didn't want to have to think about the truth, that she carried a change of clothes with her at all times to handle embarrassing moments such as these, when she clearly had puked on herself.

She also would hide food in her napkin, and one time I caught her counting the things on her plate. Another weird thing was her obsession with pouring mountains of condiments on everything. It got so bad at times I couldn't even reach for the salt without getting a look of hate.

While digging around my cave of a room while she was out somewhere I came across her laptop lying under a pile of her clothes, opened to her email account. I figured this was her little way of inviting me to violate her super-secret private world. So I began nosing around. With each click I descended deeper into her psychosis. The future mother of my children was not only a member of the purge-more sorority, she was a high priestess. Guess who was the administrator of her very own pro-anorexia/bulimia discussion group?

I could tell from the font types, bright colors, and smiley face characters they were using with wild abandon that these girls were really young. The discussion touched on every fucked-up aspect of eating and/or not eating, including how to handle the shame of having actually started the process of digesting food. I remember one girl confessed something like, "I ran three miles today after eating a can of pineapple and all I could think about during the run was how heavy the food felt inside of me, which made me run an extra mile."

My girlfriend's response was, "Eating was weak but you did the right thing pushing yourself harder. Keep it up. Ana's watching."

Being a victim suffering alone is one thing, but encouraging others to starve to death with you in order to make sense of your feelings is a whole different sport. After a quick rinse in the shower I invited her out to dinner. If I broke it off in private she could possibly derail me with a guilt trip, and judging from the advice she was giving 13-year-olds she was definitely a professional-grade head-fucker. I needed to hide in a crowd, someplace where we'd both be kicked out immediately if we caused a scene.

We met up at a Red Lobster in Times Square. I arrived early so I could hide the bag containing all her stuff under the table. When I told her it just wasn't going to work she demanded an explanation, and since I'm not a complete dick I avoided giving her one. As I got up to leave she shouted at me through angry tears, "I think I'm going to throw up!"

"You think?" I asked.

JESSE Z.