One of the women I regularly swim with but haven’t seen in a few weeks (she’s been away) told me today, “you’ve lost weight!”
I shook my head, bewildered. It wasn’t feigned. I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. She said maybe it’s because she’s getting bigger (she’s pregnant) so I look smaller by comparison, and I said she SHOULD be getting bigger, and she agreed, and we chatted about her pregnancy and how excited she is and how I work at a baby store. End of that.
But the comment has stuck with me a bit. I mean, I know she meant it as a compliment, despite the fact that it’s untrue. Maybe I looked particularly good in general tonight. Maybe the swimming and ab workouts I’ve been doing have changed my shape slightly (I don’t think so, though). I wish I could completely ignore this, but it has me wondering what she saw that made her think I’d lost weight. And I’m pissed at myself for putting any stock into this at all because IT DOESN’T MATTER.
the good fight
because fat is a feminist issue
January 8, 2009 at 8:02 pm |
Last week someone said to me “Are you losing weight? Your belly looks smaller.”
I said “No, you are just getting used to looking at me.”
January 9, 2009 at 6:07 am |
I like that!
January 9, 2009 at 3:12 pm |
That is a great response! Isn’t it sad, though, that our defacto comment to always toss someone’s way has to be about how they look? I mean, wouldn’t it be so much better if we had something more to talk about with the average person than how we look? Like “Your brain is just firing on all cylinders today!” or “Damn, you smell like a bed of roses today!” Actually, scratch that last one as that would imply that any other day you might smell like a flattened skunk on the side of the road, and that would just be uncool. I think if we tried to say that to too many people it might result in unfortunate slappings, heh.
January 9, 2009 at 4:23 pm |
Yeah, I’d have been cool with “wow, you’re swimming well today. Did you train over the holidays?”
January 10, 2009 at 7:19 am |
“You look great. Have you lost weight?” really seems to be the default “compliment” of this day and age. There is nothing more important and worthy of social reward than thinness, is there?
I sometimes get it too and my response is either some sort of a sarcastic “Yeah, right” (because: Me? Weightloss? Yeah, right. Also, WTF? Am I the kind of person with whom you’ve had a conversation about diets, exercise or weightloss, like, ever? I didn’t think so. Shut up.) or I immediately divert the conversation elsewhere.
Either way, it’s always quite triggering… but I hope it’s not bothering you *too* much, Julia!
January 10, 2009 at 8:05 am |
Thanks, Bee.
Nah, it’s not bothering me too much. It was meant as a compliment, after all. And it’s good practice to learn how to deflect those types of remarks into a positive conversation.