How Do You Like Your Eggs?

For just over a decade, I lied about how I liked my eggs cooked. I don't mean that my tastes changed, or I grew to like them a certain way later, leading me to say "my life has been a lie!" No. I lied. Flat out.
It started innocently enough, really. I was about fourteen or fifteen, staying at a friend's house overnight. She offered to cook breakfast in the morning, and asked the reasonable question you'd ask anybody you were frying an egg for.
"How do you like your eggs?" 
"Over easy, please."

Now I don't claim to know where my friend received her training, but these things were barely cooked. The whites not yet firm through, with the gelatinous ooze clinging to the fork. I noticed. She noticed. She offered to make me another, but I protested. "No, no. They're PERFECT." Anyone else would have found a way to laugh it off. Anyone else would have politely declined, put it back in the pan to scramble, made a bowl of cereal, maybe even pretended not to be hungry. Something, anything, to avoid eating undercooked food. But not me. Oh, no. At that age, my need to be polite, and make my friend feel proud of herself overwhelmed the need to save myself food poisoning. I ate them. I got sick. It was probably more from the stress, and less from food poisoning. After all, I've eaten my weight in raw cookie dough without so much as a stomach ache. But for my fourteen year old, crumbling self esteem, insulting my friend's cooking would have been enough to send me spiraling into anxiety for days. No thanks. At the time, I didn't think that meal would affect me for any longer than it would take to sleep off my nausea, but about two weeks later, the boy I was seeing offered to make us eggs. Why? Because, as I would learn, most dudes will eventually offer to make them, if only to be cute. I panicked. Images of the underdone, self-hate inducing breakfast from weeks before began to crowd me. The thought of saying something simple like "no thank you" never even occurred to me, though my mind was racing. Memories of every time I'd ever felt self conscious came flooding back, and my face felt hot. I didn't know what to do. Someone offering to cook for you should not induce anxiety. It should induce gratitude, or hunger, but definitely not palpitations or sweating. What if he can't cook? What if he's easily embarrassed like I am? What if I hate his eggs and he dumps me? My fears overwhelmed me. It was too much. I couldn't, wouldn't risk it.
"How do you like your eggs?"
"Over hard, please."
And so it began.

At first, it wasn't so bad. I could have my food however I liked at home, anyway. What I didn't realize was that, eventually, this would spill over into public food orders. And, as a teen in a relatively affluent suburb of Atlanta, I would spend an increasingly questionable amount of time at the local Waffle House. This was due in part to the fact that my hometown doesn't have much else for teenagers to do but loiter, and partly because most of my friends were drunk. Regardless, I ate a lot of eggs. I missed over easy, but I had been dating that same guy from before, and I had already been in too deep for way too long. My betrayal only grew with each scramble. I never came clean.

New relationships found me, and you'd think I could have broken free as soon as that first one ended, but I couldn't. These new people already knew me. They were my friends before they were dates. Plus, what kind of weirdo just lies about something so small? How would they trust me with anything else, if I've been lying to my friends and boyfriends for years about something so unimportant? How would calling attention to it make it any better? I felt trapped, but at least I could have what I wanted when I was alone. Trouble was, with choking them down in public so often, I never ever fried an egg at home.
And there was soon to be more trouble, when I became old enough to live with people I wasn't related to.
My hell had gotten worse. Obviously, when I moved in with my loving man (at the time), there was no more "I can have that at home," because he'd see me. We had the same home. He'd be there. To top it off,  he knew I hated runny yolks, because I had become so entrenched in my own lies that at some point I volunteered that false information. I would even come out and say that his food looked gross when we went for breakfast somewhere. "Ugh, I hate yolk! So gross!" It was unjust. I didn't hate it, I missed it. I missed brunch. I wanted warm, fluid yolk and dipping toast, and hollandaise, and to be myself, and not worry so much, and to stop internalizing everything I've ever felt, and not let something so unbelievably insignificant eat away at me. I wanted all of that, just not as much as I wanted him to find me sane. Appearing sane was my specialty, and had been for a long time. I could only blame myself. Nobody can truly be that neurotic, can they?

During periods of being single, this particular dysfunction hardly ever occurred to me, which was nice, but unfortunately, as soon as I started another relationship, I'd begin the deception over again. It was truly compulsive. All because of what? My weird anxiety from when I was a kid? While it's true that I've struggled with self worth, and an overwhelming fear that I am actually lousy with faulty upstairs wiring, even this seemed excessive. Surely, my self doubt and my desire to be loved can't be measured this way. Intellectually, I understood this problem was only a problem in my very own head, and that I had allowed it to continue to grow into its own tiny monster. Eventually, I found myself fed up. I am in control here, I reasoned. I had every right and every responsibility to stop the madness. I had to find the ability and the courage to laugh along, because this was going to be impossible to explain to anyone, and it was only going to be more impossible if I was going to try keeping a straight face while explaining it. I had to clear away the clutter in my head. I had to take charge.

So I stopped.Just not for the reasons you might be thinking

I mean, it wasn't because it was the right thing to do. Not because I suddenly developed the self love necessary not to stress over tiny issues. Not because this is seriously, honest to God, one of the dumbest non-problems any has ever faced. Not because I realized I was worried about a habit that absolutely nobody but me would even notice if I changed. I didn't stop because of some wonderful support system that encouraged me to be completely honest, regardless of consequences. I didn't stop because I came to the conclusion that everyone, in their own way, has their own egg lie, and the world would be a better place if we were our authentic selves at all cost.
No. I stopped because brunch became wildly popular in my age group, and nothing was going to stop me from ordering eggs benedict ever again. It's delicious, and highly underrated.

Anyway, the moral is not to date your friends. They might already know how you like your eggs.
I TAKE MINE OVER EASY, SOFT BOILED, OR POACHED, BY THE WAY.

xoxo