You’re walking along, minding your own business … maybe you’re on the sidewalk, in a mall, or perhaps you’re standing in an elevator. I’ve noticed these situations seem to happen in elevators a lot.
You become aware of people behind you. It’s usually two women, but it can be a whole gaggle of them. Every once in awhile it’s men … but more often that not, it’s women. You hear them babbling their inane little chatter about some blouse they just bought or about how they went to their nephew’s birthday party the day before. You feel their beady eyes on you, boring through you like invisible power drills.
Suddenly, one of them says something like, “I really need to get back to the gym” or “I really need to lose this last 2 pounds.”
You realize that your body … the personal, sacred vessel that contains your soul … has just been used as a source of diet inspiration for someone. They may not have been talking directly TO you, but they are talking AT you. Their commentary is about you. They have examined your body, made a negative judgement about it, and are discussing it like a general source of mutual disgust. You kind of get the feeling that they hope you will overhear them for your own benefit … that you, yourself, may benefit from their observant assessment.
You feel violated. You feel angry. You feel like turning around and saying: “Bitch, don’t waste your time at the gym. Go to the bakery down the street instead. Get yourself a few donuts and scarf them down. Hopefully, the extra pudge on your ass will make you look more like me.”
But you count to ten, take a deep breath, and smile wisely to yourself. It’s not easy to be a constant source of inspiration … but you are. We make a lot of people uncomfortable. People look at you and then they assess themselves. Something inside them just doesn’t feel right, and they think they can fix it by going to a gym or going on a diet. After all, that’s what they’re told, day in and day out. Lose weight and your life will be perfect.
They look at you and assume that you are unhappy because you are big. They probably think that if you had the chance, you would trade places with them in a second so that you could go shopping at H&M, Costa Blanca, Abercrombie & Fitch, Garage, and Aeropostale and wriggle yourself into the same skinny jeans they do.
If only they knew just how fabulous you are, and how much contempt you have for their way of thinking and assessing people. But of course, they have no clue. They never will, for they are the majority … and the majority never has to change their thinking, because their way of thinking rules the world.
Or so they think.
usually they dont use a gym its just a reminder of their own eating disorders...starve yourselves or puke it back up girls...im sure they were at the mall because they lost their way to the lieberry speaking of which shove your devices your berry girls but make one more appointment to cry at the shrink and to blame others for their shit
ReplyDeleteI love that scene in the Gus van Sant movie "Elephant" (which was based on the Columbine shootings) ... three cheerleader types wander the halls, leer at potential sex partners, talk about shopping, and then after taking a bite or two of salad, retreat to the girls' room ... where they each go into a stall and proceed to barf up the ounce or two of food that they ate.
ReplyDeleteRight on, Mr. van Sant. Boy did you get that right.
This is a very fucked up part of myself. I don't want to be fat, so Everytime I see a fat woman I always think, I don't want to look like her I have to watch what I eat, or I have to hit the gym. It is the same reaction that I get when I gain a little weight.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't like to be a shallow judgemental bitch like this, and after I always feel bad about it, but I can't avoid it. I never say it aloud, but I always think it.
Most women do. It's been brainwashed into you practically from birth: fat is ugly, don't be fat, I must not be fat. It's so sad because fat does not equal unattractiveness. Many, many fat women are extremely attractive but the media and our culture constantly tells us we are not.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think a lot of us distract ourselves from other things we need to attend to in our lives by obsessing on thinking of losing weight as the solution to all our problems or the key to a perfect life. (I'm not saying this about you personally, just women in general. Men are becoming more prone to this too.)
Thanks for reading and commenting. I hope you come back often. :)