You Make the Whole World Go Around

I have to say this.

Because it’s weighing on my mind a lot (pun intended).

Being fat is not funny. I don’t want to be called “Ruebenesque” (even if it’s spelled properly, which it very rarely is) or “curvy”. It’s horrible. I hate it. I hate everything about being fat.

One of many, many, many reasons I hate “Love, Actually” with the burning rage of a thousand angry suns is because such a big deal is made of one of the characters in that movie falling in love with a “fat girl” – a) the actor isn’t fat; b) the message that “people can fall in love with fat people too” makes me fucking livid.

And as much as I love Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls, it makes me sad.

I’m not lazy. I don’t have bad eating habits. I don’t care what’s worked for you, and I don’t care what your sister’s friend’s husband’s neighbour’s girlfriend said about the fucking paleo/Atkins/blood type/vegan/weight watchers diet. Just. Don’t. Even.

I don’t want to hear about how you prefer big girls. I don’t want to hear about how the media portrays an ideal woman as such-and-such of this and something else of that. It doesn’t matter. Because I’m not talking about anyone other than me. I just hate being fat.

Looking at some photos a few years ago, I was shocked at the fact that I used to have a jawline. It wasn’t even that long ago. I don’t know who it is I saw in those pictures that were taken of me recently. It isn’t me. It can’t be me. That woman was a fat woman.

I don’t want to hear suggestions about how to fix it. I’m not interested in self-help books or daily bloody affirmations.

Yeah, I think I should be eating this. Thanks for asking. Yes, I’ve tried eating five small meals a day. No, I don’t eat very much at any one meal. No thank you, I don’t want seconds. Really. I don’t want seconds. I don’t. Want. Seconds. Yes, I’ve tried intervals. Yes, I’m in the process of talking to doctors. No, I am not an ’emotional eater’. Yes, I drink enough water. Do you think I don’t hear my own voice telling me not to eat this or to spend 20 more minutes on the treadmill? If I followed my own advice, I’d spend all day at the gym and I’d survive on vegetable juice and fish.

What pisses me off the most is when someone says “you’re not fat” to me. Because, bullshit. I have more chins than a Chinese phonebook. Yes, that’s culturally insensitive. Sorry, Mrs. Chin. When I run, there are parts of me that don’t stop moving for days. When someone says they want dinner rolls, they invite me to sit at the table. Don’t blow smoke up my arse. You’re not fooling anyone, least of all me. And even if you were, when you say that, it means I have to say “is there something wrong with being fat?” And then things have to get Awkward.

Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to sit in some doctor’s office and have to recount, over and over again, how you’ve been tracking your calories, how you’ve been journalling what and when and how much you eat for over a year, how you’ve been going to the gym fairly regularly for two years, how you’re still fat? Do you know how humiliating it is to go to the shops and pull “2XL” off the rack, only to find out it’s nearly bursting at the seams when you try it on? To have the salesperson suggest you take a look over in the corner, where they also stock clothes that weren’t even attractive in the 70s? I suspect this is just as humiliating as going to a shop and pulling an “XXS” off the rack and finding out it looks like you’re draped in a burlap sack. To try to find ‘shapely’ clothes that simply don’t fit because you just weren’t built with curves. To have people tell you that you should really go and eat a sandwich.

Folks assume I overeat, and they assume I’m lazy, and they assume I have a bad diet. Just like they’ll assume that you’re anorexic, that you take diet pills, that you’re obsessed with fashion and trying to “look good” because you’re thin.

I’m not going to go on about ideals and all that bullshit. I’m not going to go in to body acceptance and all that crap. I just wanted to tell you that I assume people who tell me blonde jokes are mouth-breathing idiots (I’m blonde, ftr). And I assume people who try to be funny about fat are also mouth-breathing idiots. Yeah, I’m angry. I’m angry at myself. Because I’ve let myself get like this. Because I’ve judged other people who are fat. Because, God help me, I see the humour in the ‘fat kid’ stories. Because **I can’t stop it**. Because when I hear someone say they think I’m attractive, I know in my heart they are lying. Or mistaken. Or actually talking about someone else. Because I’m not.

I don’t think fat is attractive on me. I will never be a member of the “fat acceptance” movement. I will never “learn to love myself the way I am”. Go ahead and tell me you think that’s sad. Because that really helps. Telling someone it makes you sad because they can’t see their own beauty. Oh? You feel shitty about yourself? Here, have some guilt to top that off because you’re doing yet another thing wrong.

There are far more things about me that are awesome. I don’t need to be “not fat” for those things; they don’t change with my weight. But they also don’t change the fact that I. Am. Fat. And the fact that I hate it. And the fact that I can’t talk about it without making people uncomfortable. It seems like when I talk about this, all y’all feel the need to console me or to try to commiserate or to try to …I dunno. And I get it; we’re pack animals. The way we reinforce our social bonds is through empathy. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. Sometimes, we just need to bitch about stuff without having someone step in and try to fix it (I’m the worst for that. ‘Oh, you have a problem? Look, I know a solution!’). The only thing that’s going to fix this problem is for me to un-fat. And since it doesn’t look like that’s possible, I’m going to have to learn to live with it.

Just like when your best friend dated the trucker who insisted on grabbing her left breast every time they drove past a sign that said “squeeze left”. I mean, the guy was a total dinkwart who thought he was funny, but we all just had to live with him because SHE was “in love”. So maybe I just need to look at the state of my body as something like my best friend’s dinkwart trucker boyfriend. Of course, eventually he dumped her because all she ever wanted to do when they were together was read books and that activity bothered him.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

6 responses to “You Make the Whole World Go Around”

  1. Coyote Avatar

    I am fat too, and everyone keeps saying ‘no you’re not.’ I am, I have trouble with stairs, my hips constantly hurt, and I’m not healthy. I am fat. I don’t want to be. So, what she said. (BTW, don’t think of this as pack mentality, think of this as the laziest form of plagiarism possible.)

  2. melistress Avatar

    I don’t know what else to say except I am so sorry you are struggling. And that I love you. (((hug)))

  3. Cara Avatar
    Cara

    (sigh) sing it. I echo the damning useless advice in my head to others but really, it’s all bullshit and fat is more complex than that.

    Is there a the group rate for lipo?

  4. jillalice (@jillalice) Avatar

    I’ll listen any time you want/need to bitch.

  5. Amy (KidFreeLiving) Avatar

    That was awesome. Period.

Leave a Reply to melistressCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.