One To Watch: this summer's must-read romcom to fill the Love Island-shaped hole in your life
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TEXT MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT, JULY 8:
BEA SCHUMACHER & MARIN MENDOZA
Marin [9:33am]: “Let me get back to you”?!?!?!?!?!
Marin [9:33am]: No
Marin [9:34am]: No
Marin [9:34am]: I’m sorry
Marin [9:34am]: No
Marin [9:34am]: He did not say that to you!!!!
Bea [9:36am]: He … did
Marin [9:36am]: What did you say?
Bea [9:37am]: Nothing. I didn’t say anything
Bea [9:37am]: I don’t know what to say to him
Marin [9:38am]: What do you want to say?
Bea [9:41am]: I don’t know, hi Ray, I think we’ve loved each other for almost a decade, even though it was always some new excuse for why you had to live in some new city, be with some new girl, and now you’re engaged, but when we slept together it felt like my whole life suddenly clicked into place, like maybe my story was finally ending, or starting, or something, and then you just left like you always do, because you’re a coward, but I love you anyway. And I wish I didn’t. And I wish you’d just come back.
Marin [9:42am]: I don’t think you should say that.
Bea [9:43am]: I hate my life
Marin [9:43am]: Stay right there. I’m coming over.
FOOD2YOU DELIVERY RECEIPT:
ACCOUNT HOLDER—BEATRICE SCHUMACHER
DELIVER TO:
Beatrice Schumacher
1841 Avalon Way
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Stouffer’s frozen meals: Macaroni and cheese (25 units)
LaCroix Sparkling Water (Pamplemousse flavor) (6 cases)
Doritos Corn Chips (Cooler Ranch flavor) (10 bags)
Doritos Corn Chips (Nacho Cheesier flavor) (10 bags)
Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches (original flavor) (6 boxes)
JIF Extra Creamy Peanut Butter (5 jars)
Original Saltine Crackers (5 boxes)
Diet Coke (12 cases)
Z-quil Sleep Aid Medication (2 boxes)
Cottonelle Rippled Toilet Paper (18-roll pack)
NOTE:
Do not ring bell. Client waives signature requirement. Leave groceries at front door.
TEXT MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT, AUGUST 25:
BEA SCHUMACHER & MARIN MENDOZA
Marin [2:28pm]: Hey, have you left yet? Sharon made this white peach sangria and it’s VERY GOOD you should def get a car instead of driving
Bea [2:30pm]: I think I might just stay home? I’m so behind on work stuff
Marin [2:31pm]: Bea, NO! You didn’t come to Sneha’s thing yesterday either, she was pissed!! Did you go on your date last night?
Bea [2:35pm]: I couldn’t
Marin [2:36pm]: Okay
Marin [2:37pm]: But babe, you’re not going to get over him if you never meet anyone new
Bea [2:38pm]: I know. I’m just not ready.
Marin [2:38pm]: I wish you’d come to Sharon’s. We’d all really love to see you.
TEXT MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT, AUGUST 25:
BEA SCHUMACHER & RAY MORETTI
Bea [7:48pm]: So are you really never going to respond to any of my emails? Not one of them?
Bea [7:48pm]: I’m not trying to ruin your life. I just want to talk.
Bea [7:49pm]: I hate this, Ray. I miss you.
SELECTED MESSAGES FROM THE TINDER MESSAGE FOLDER OF BEA SCHUMACHER
Jim: Yo!!!!!!!!!!!
Bea: Hey there:)
Jim: GIVE. ME. THOSE. CURVES.
Bea: I … what?
Jim: GIMME EM BEA GIMME THOSE CURVES
***user unmatched and blocked***
Todd: sup b
Bea: nm, T. how are you?
Todd: can I come over
Todd: address?
Bea: do you think we maybe skipped a couple of steps there?
Todd: wut
Bea: Hey, Alex! Love that Paris pic. My fav city. :)
Alex: Sorry, I don’t think this is going to work.
Bea: Excuse me?
Alex: You need to show your body in your top photo. A headshot is dishonest.
Kip: Hello, Bea. How’s your week going?
Bea: Hi, Kip! It’s pretty average, a little work, a nice hike now that it’s actually starting to feel like fall.
Bea: (Oh god, am I the boring girl who talks about the weather? Sigh.)
Bea: How’s your week?
Kip: Ha! As residents of Los Angeles, I think we’re legally obligated to mark the seasonal transition from high of 84 to high of 78.
Kip: My week’s alright. Would you like to meet for a drink?
Bea: Sure, I could do that. Thursday?
BLOG POST FROM OMBEA.COM
7,849 Reblogs . 22,378 Likes
Hey OMBeauties! Okay, I need to level with you: I’m smiling in this photo, but I’m not feeling great right now. I went on a Tinder date tonight—my first date in a while, in fact. As you can see, I wore my patented First Date Uniform: faded black skinny jeans and a form-fitting V-neck top from Universal Standard that miraculously flatter curves on every body, Stuart Weitzman ankle boots fabricated in the Technicolor floral tapestry of my fantasies, and bright-green statement earrings I found at a street market in Barcelona last summer. I wear nearly this exact outfit on every first date (future suitors, be forewarned!), because I find that when you’re stressed and anxious about meeting someone new, having a go-to look that makes you feel comfortable yet confident, laid-back yet sexy, can alleviate some of the nerves.
And beauties, I did feel great tonight—until I walked into the bar my date had chosen.
Usually, when I go out with dates or friends, I’m the plan-maker. I pick the restaurant or bar so I can make sure it has comfortable seating (seriously, can we ban bolted-down booths forever?); I order the car and pay the surcharge for a sedan or SUV so I won’t feel cramped and claustrophobic in the back seat of an itsy-bitsy hatchback.
But tonight, my date was pumped to try a chic new cocktail bar in our neighborhood: a crowded haunt with cozy little high-top tables for two sprinkled throughout the narrow space. The entire time I was there, I felt like a pariah mumbling, “Sorry, excuse me,” to every person I inevitably bumped into, praying I wouldn’t accidentally cause even a drop of drink spillage, feeling like no matter where I stood, I was always in someone’s way.
Going on a first date can be scary for anyone, but I find that for me, natural insecurities can spiral into an echo chamber of all the horrible things society has ever implied (or outright declared!) about my fatness. Even though my date tonight didn’t say or do anything to make me feel unattractive, being in that bar surrounded by thin people (ah, Los Angeles), it was perilously easy to backslide into this ubiquitous idea that I’d be so much happier if only I looked like them. As though if I could make my body fit on one of those tiny barstools, I’d be in a perfect, fulfilling relationship instead of forcing myself to get through this date, wishing I could just disappear.
Of course, I know that none of that is true. That I can’t change my body type (and don’t even want to!), that thin women are no more happy than I am, that these insecurities are seeded and tended in my brain by the weight-loss industry, which profits from our collective self-loathing to the tune of $70 billion every year—despite the fact that 97 percent of diets fail. (Side note: What if we put all that money toward solving actual health problems instead? Could we cure ovarian cancer, like, tomorrow?) I know all of these things. But sometimes, like tonight, I just can’t feel them.
Okay, beauties, enough rambling from me—I’m off to bed. Thanks for keeping me company; you guys brighten up even the dreariest night. More soon.
xoxo, Bea
Comment from Sierra819: Sorry your date was a bummer Bea!!! But you look amazing!!!!
Comment from djgy23987359: youre lucky anyone would date you go see a doctor before the diabetes kills you
TEXT MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT, OCTOBER 3:
BEA SCHUMACHER & MARIN MENDOZA
Marin [10:53pm]: Just saw your po
st—you ok?? How was Kip??
Bea [10:56pm]: Hey, I’m fine. He was fine. It was all fine.
Marin [10:57pm]: That’s the most terrifying the word “fine” has ever sounded.
Marin [10:57pm]: Do you think you’ll see him again?
Bea [10:59pm]: No, it was awkward. We didn’t really have anything to talk about.
Marin [11:00pm]: Give me a break, you could banter with a cardboard box if you had to.
Bea [11:02pm]: I don’t know. I just felt like there was lead in my chest, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Maybe it was too soon.
Marin [11:03pm]: Ugh, I’m sorry babe. Do you want me to come over?
Bea [11:04pm]: You’re an angel, but I’m okay. I’m gonna kill the rosé in my fridge, watch some old eps of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and go to sleep.
Marin [11:04pm]: Yesssssssss I love this plan!! Watch as much Rosa Diaz as possible and become a queer woman so you never have to date men again!!
Bea [11:06pm]: Is that how queerness works?
Marin [11:06pm]: Listen, was I born gay, or did Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You *make* me gay? It’s literally impossible to know.
Marin [11:06pm]: Get some sleep, and don’t stay up until all hours drafting emails you’ll never send to you-know-who, okay?
Bea [11:08pm]: I won’t. I promise.
UNSENT EMAIL FROM THE DRAFT FOLDER OF BEA@OMBEA.COM
FROM: Bea Schumacher
TO: [no recipient specified]
SUBJECT: [no subject]
Dear Ray,
I don’t know what to say to you, but I feel like I have to say something.
I still miss you. So much, not every day anymore, not every minute, not like it was, but when I remember for half a second how good it was, God, I’m just gone. Isn’t that ridiculous? That after all these months and years of you jerking me around, disappearing from my life and dropping back in when it suits you, of doing anything and everything I could think of to put you out of my mind, you still infest my flesh, my blood, like you’re some vital chain binding me together. And I fucking hate you for it, and I fucking hate myself for being party to this absurdity. Because, what, what, am I an idiot? Am I this pathetic that the second a smart, handsome man shows me attention, no matter how bad he is for me, no matter how deeply I know it, I fall for him anyway?
I feel like you’re a pit I can’t climb out of. The clawing and craning skyward to try and find some shred of light is so exhausting, and it’s so much easier to let the ghost of your arms pull me down and down and down. If I let myself remember how you taste, my breath gets hard, my body heaves. If I let myself consider you inside me, I can’t function.
I don’t know how I handed you this power, it makes me so insane that you have it. And I fucking know, I know it’s probably just me and my own shit, that you don’t have a damn thing to do with it. You’re just some vessel holding all my sadness, glowing with the nuclear energy of my loneliness. If I try to imagine you letting me go, I don’t feel free. I feel untethered, unbound. Like I’m nothing and nowhere.
But if I imagine you holding me, I crumple. Ray, I’m running out of ways to exist.
This sounds so crazy, I know I sound crazy. I’m not sending you this. I would never send you this. But God, Ray. Don’t you miss me? Not this mess I am now, but the me who was, until recently, your best friend?
I don’t know where I am, Ray. I don’t know where we are.
TEXT MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT, OCTOBER 14:
BEA SCHUMACHER & MARIN MENDOZA
Marin [4:15pm]: So tonight, 7:30? I’ll bring wine, you order takeout?
Marin [4:16pm]: I’m kind of feeling that good bougie Thai place, the one with the crazy pad kee mao? But idk I could be talked into burgers. OOOH OR DONER
Bea [4:22pm]:?????
Marin [4:23pm]: IT’S MAIN SQUEEZE PREMIERE NIGHT BEA OR HAD YOU FORGOTTEN
Bea [4:26pm]: I … had forgotten
Marin [4:26pm]: Well great news we’re watching at your house so there’s no appropriate way for you to cancel.
Bea [4:27pm]: I’m gonna order vegan
Marin [4:28pm]: Ugh don’t be spiteful. See you soon!!
TWITTER THREAD FROM USER @OMBEA
@OMBea Hey there, OMBeauties! Totally forgot tonight was @MainSqueezeABS premiere night, but now my bestie and I are on my couch with tacos & tequila and we’re ready to live-tweet every plot twist! Join us?
@OMBea Is it just me, or do the people on this show keep getting more boring? Jayden is the whitest white man in history and every one of these girls is basically performance art of straight femininity.
@OMBea Like what would happen if one of these women wore PANTS? Or had SHORT HAIR? Would the world end?
@OMBea And obviously they could NEVER be above a size 4, Jayden’s poor sad penis would break beneath the crushing weight of an average-sized woman.
@OMBea My friend @MaybeMarin wants to know if we should drink every time one of the girls says she needs a man to complete her life. I say no bc we might get real real wasted, but what say you???
@OMBea WHO IS THIS GIRL TAYLOR AND WHY IS SHE SAYING ALL THESE FACTS ABOUT PERSONAL FINANCE MARRY HER JAYDEN
@OMBea (we’re doing the drinking game)
@OMBea Ok here’s another thing though. These women are supposed to be “real” but these bodies are not realistic AT ALL. Who actually LOOKS LIKE THIS?
@OMBea Before you come for me about that one plus-size girl who was on the show one time a) she was A LITERAL MODEL and b) she got eliminated the first night so don’t even
@OMBea And obviously I know, it’s just TV, it’s all staged and fake, but they bill it as reality! Here are real people, finding real love! Except you, all 95% of humans who look nothing like this.
@CisforCatie PREACH, BEA!!
@dcfan822828 you actually won’t find love tho so like …
@EmmaCsYou love this!!!!!!!! more please!!!!!! can you do a post about this????
TEXT MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT, OCTOBER 15:
BEA SCHUMACHER & MARIN MENDOZA
Marin [7:29am]: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Marin [7:29am]: Are you awake
Marin [7:30am]: Probably not, right, okay
Marin [7:31am]: When you wake up … maybe look at Twitter
Bea [9:41am]: Oh god why, who’s canceled now
Marin [9:42am]: Bea.
Marin [9:42am]: After I left last night … you wrote a blog post?
Bea [9:43]: Well my laptop is currently upside down on top of a pile of lipsticks (?) on my kitchen counter (??), so … it’s possible?
Bea [9:43am]: Oh wait, yes, I definitely did
Bea [9:43am]: Wow I was really feeling my rage, huh????
Marin [9:44am]: Please just check your Twitter.
VIRAL ROUNDUP OF THE WEEK: 10/18
by Patrick Matz, mashable.com
We thought for sure the most shared content of the week would be an already-infamous video of a tabby cat being catapulted off a seesaw by an overexuberant toddler (if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and click here), but a late-breaking surge of support has brought us a new champion: Plus-size blogger Bea Schumacher’s scorching critique of reality romance juggernaut Main Squeeze has now been shared more than a million times across Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We estimate the viral post has reached more than 15 million people, a staggering 3 million of whom have clicked “Like.” Read on for the rest of the week’s viral content, including a can’t-miss tweetstorm detailing the conspiracy theory you never knew you always needed about Hillary Clinton’s dogs.
“PACK YOUR THINGS AND GO”:
PLUS-SIZE BLOGGER ANNIHILATES MAIN SQUEEZE
by Danielle Kander, bubblegiggle.com
Plus-size blogger Bea Schumacher loves Main Squeeze—and she’s not alone! Who among us can resist watching one man or woman choose from 25 potential suitors, narrowing the field week by week until we’re left with one lucky winner for a fairy-tale proposal, a whirlwind eng
agement, and a low-key breakup six to eight weeks later?
But I don’t love the show’s total lack of diversity—and neither does Schumacher. Monday night, she went on her blog OMBea (if you’re not following her, you’re doing the internet wrong) to post an epic takedown. She addressed the show’s “appalling” lack of racial diversity, its “perplexing” erasure of queerness, and most of all, its “abject refusal to include any woman who wears above a size 4, despite the fact that two-thirds of American women are size 14 and above.”
“Main Squeeze is the most successful romance reality show in history,” Schumacher wrote. “It defines what it means for ‘real’ people to find love—except according to its own standards, fat people aren’t real. We aren’t worthy. We don’t even exist.”
So far, Schumacher’s scathing post has been shared more than a million times on social media, resulting in a flood of new traffic to her blog and Instagram, where she now has more than 600,000 followers. For our part, we’re THRILLED that more people will see Bea’s body-positive message, and we can only hope her post will lead to some actual change on Main Squeeze—and on television.
SELECTED DIGITAL HEADLINES RUN DURING MAIN SQUEEZE SEASON 13
MEET THE WOMAN TAKING DOWN ROMANCE “REALITY”
Bea Schumacher is plus-size and proud!
ONLINE PETITION PUSHES ADVERTISERS TO BOYCOTT MAIN SQUEEZE
The petition, launched on the website change.biz, has more than 40,000 signatures.
“I LOVE MY THICK BLOGGER”–WOULD YOU BANG A BIG GIRL?
According to our new survey, 60 percent of men say they’d sleep with Bea Schumacher.
ANGRY INCELS SEND CASES OF SLIMFAST TO PLUS-SIZE BLOGGER
Twitter war explodes after Men’s Rights Activists publish Bea Schumacher’s home address.