Starve, Blaspheme, Hate

A recovery center for people who tried to Eat, Pray, Love.

Photo by Katarzyna Zygnerska on Unsplash

Every year, in Pasadena, California, a special group of people convenes and heals. They are the Recovered. They are the Broken. They are the men, women, and non-binary travelers who ruined their lives trying to Eat, Pray, Love.

In one section of the Starve, Blaspheme, Hate Recovery Center, we have the Eats. These are the people who learned Italian on Duolingo during their lunch breaks, booked Airbnbs in Rome, failed to instantly amass rich friends, and blew their entire savings on carbonara dinners. They conduct their discussions about nutrition and financial responsibility entirely in Italian. They mutilate Elizabeth Gilbert portraits. Most of them still take cholesterol pills.

On the other side of a long, rectangular pond flanked by cypress trees, orange trees, and redwoods, we have the Prays. These are the people who had enough money to make it through Eat, only to discover that they did not enjoy organized religion. They had not enjoyed it when their parents forced them to go to church as children, and they did not enjoy it when it was presented to them under the guise of exotic cultural tourism. In their meetings, they set yoga mats on fire.

Up a marble spiral staircase that reaches into the lavender minarets of the Starve, Blaspheme, Hate Recovery Center, we have the Loves. These are the people who had both the money and the aptitude for cultural appropriation necessary to make it all the way to Bali. Some of them found love, often in the form of underprivileged locals with whom they went no-contact immediately upon leaving Indonesia. A few lucky ones managed to marry rich Brazilian men — and good thing, because every one of the Loves realized that after spending a year abroad, they no longer had jobs back home. The Loves spend their meetings learning basic Excel and coding skills, since they are all 47 and unemployed.

Elizabeth Gilbert sometimes stops by for attention and to apologize for almost murdering her best friend, but she never makes it past the gate. The director of Starve, Blaspheme, Hate does not allow toxic narcissists into his rehab; he forces Gilbert to deliver her apology to a miserable security guard through an intercom. Gilbert then shrugs it off and leaves to spend $2,000 at Zara.

Ryan Murphy, too, stops by occasionally; he had a fling with the SBH director and is considering a limited series about the Center, which he will fully fund, write one episode of, and then hand off to an intern.

After the annual week-long SBH retreat comes to a close, the Eats, Prays, and Loves all gather beside the cypress pond for a graduation ceremony. The director hands each of them a one-way ticket home and a copy of Eat, Pray, Love. They incinerate the books in a feral display of all-consuming primal rage. The tickets are non-refundable.

Oh, and don’t forget — the Starve, Blaspheme, Hate Center has an excellent success rate. 80 percent of patients eventually return home, get jobs, and stop referring to vacations as “journeys.”

The other 20 percent write memoirs.

So, what are you waiting for? Book now with the code “ElizabethGilbertIsASociopath” for a 15% discount! See you soon, you miserable troll!