The Weight Issue

With a tone of gen­uine con­cern, as if I was being con­sumed by some dis­ease, Abdallah told me he noticed I was get­ting thin­ner. Perhaps this is true. I was recov­er­ing from an episode of IBS, and con­trol­ling my food intake. Maybe its my sets of nar­row, flared pants I’ve been wear­ing late­ly on Julie’s sug­ges­tion1.

Louise tells peo­ple I don’t eat a lot, which is true only when we’re out 2, and is also the only time she’s seen me eat. It makes me even more ill at ease when I’m already feel­ing unat­trac­tive, as if it was my fault and I was­n’t doing enough about it. Others will com­ment about the size of my waist, or make a pass­ing remark about how they wish they had my metab­o­lism.

I try to take it all in stride, but it’s not easy when the sub­ject is con­stant­ly brought up.

According to my doc­tor, I’m aver­age weight — the aver­age being a range, with me being near the bot­tom. I know this, but it does­n’t make it eas­i­er. Bronwen once told me that I have a weight issue, and after think­ing about it for a while, I real­ized that it was true. Even though it’s some­thing I can joke about, it’s still a source of self-con­scious­ness, lead­ing back to mem­o­ries of my par­ents telling me that no one will love me if I’m this size for­ev­er.

Sometimes I won­der if I’ll ever get over it.

  1. Her the­o­ry is that bag­gy pants do noth­ing to hide thin limbs and make skin­ny peo­ple look even skin­nier. []
  2. Usually because I don’t like to be too full when I’m out. []

11 comments

  1. I don’t know what it is about peo­ple that makes them decide a need to share their opin­ions on some­one else’s weight. The “ide­al” is a nar­row den­tal floss to bal­ance on.

    Parents told me I was­n’t to sit how I was because it made me look fat­ter. Kettle pot and water and duck.

    Sometimes it pays best to (men­tal­ly) tell some­one that they have a prob­lem but it need­n’t be made mine.

  2. Baggy cloth­ing does make skin­ny peo­ple look even skin­nier, it exag­ger­ates the skin­ni­ness, or “empti­ness”. Slightly loose cloth­ing best suits skin­ny peo­ple, it cre­ates an illu­sion of full­ness. I’m the expert on skin­ni­ness :). By the same token, short peo­ple should nev­er wear ultra-high heels.

    As you’re look­ing for a cell phone, your aunt Vivien just bought a SonyEricsson cell phone (low end mod­el). It sends a lot of extra­ne­ous back­ground noise to the receiv­ing end, a sales lady (who also has a SonyEricsson) lat­er told us it’s a flaw of this brand. Bad choice.

  3. My mum said I was the “dark­ie” in the fam­i­ly.

    She made me car­ry a para­sol (aka umbrel­la with lace sewed to the edges to make it look fan­cy) when I walked home from school (south­ern ca) so I would­n’t get dark­er. If I stayed that dark, no one would want to ever mar­ry me when I grew up.

    There were oth­er rea­sons why I was not mar­riage mate­r­i­al:

    too many videogames
    could­n’t cook
    did­n’t do laun­dry well enough
    read fic­tion too much
    was going to be a writer (not desir­able)

    bleh

    Oh, and I’m under­weight. I’ve learned to be okay with it. Everyone in MI is gross­ly over­weight. I’m lucky. And healthy.

  4. My weight’s always been a top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion. I’ve only been gain­ing weight the last few years and even as I gain, then I also get the “oh don’t gain too much or you’ll get chunky.” so what’s the ide­al weight? No one knows, it’s what­ev­er makes you feel good. If you hap­pen to be on the thin side, who cares? I know skin­ny peo­ple who wear bag­gy clothes, I used to do it all the time and it did­n’t real­ly both­er me if it made me look extra skin­ny. I’d rather be skin­ny than fat.

    I was­n’t mar­riage mate­r­i­al either because I was lazy, did­n’t do any house­work, I slouched, could­n’t walk straight, had weird toes, nose was too short, etc etc. I don’t know why moms say such hor­ri­ble things to their kids and then deny it lat­er as though it nev­er hap­pened.

  5. just here to point out that doug was heavy when he got sara lol maybe you shuld be more like him feel­ing loud and tact­less yet jeff my boy?

  6. @Pearl — I think most peo­ple believe that they’re being nice when they feign envy of my weight. You’re right about the men­tal prac­tice, and it’s how I’m cur­rent­ly deal­ing with it.

    @Uncle Joe — I’ve real­ized that bag­gy cloth­ing isn’t just to hide my limbs, it’s also my style. In addi­tion to this, slight­ly loose cloth­ing is still very small and makes me look small, so there lies my dilem­ma. Your short peo­ple with heels illus­tra­tion is per­fect.

    Thanks for the heads-up on the cell phone. I’m sur­prised that the sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive told you it’s a flaw with the sys­tem. Very poor cus­tomer ser­vice.

    @maeko — I think one of the rea­sons why we relate so well is because of our expe­ri­ences with our par­ents. It’s okay for a girl to be under­weight though; for guys it’s less “accept­able”.

    @Sophia —

    it’s what­ev­er makes you feel good

    As sim­ple as it is, I nev­er real­ly real­ized how true this is until you men­tioned it (with­in rea­son, of course, any extreme is bad). I’ve also heard from a lot of peo­ple that it’s bet­ter to be skin­ny than fat, which I sup­pose is the less­er of two evils.

    It’s fun­ny that your mom denied say­ing all those hor­ri­ble things to you. Mine did­n’t deny it, but jus­ti­fied it by say­ing that’s how she was raised.

    @Rob — Hahahahha…maybe if I want a…no, too mean. Next time I see you, I’ll tell you what I was about to say.

  7. telling me that no one will love me if I’m this size for­ev­er.

    There is so much mate­r­i­al for a satire of how to be a Chinese par­ent. I grew up hear­ing this too not only from my par­ents, but from my grand­par­ents. That girls want­ed big strong men. Brains over brawn I say. :)

  8. Oops. I for­got to close that tag. :P

  9. I nev­er got it too harsh­ly from my grand­par­ents. They would men­tion it in pass­ing, but I nev­er felt like they nev­er loved me because of it. My par­ents, on the oth­er hand, made it seem like an ulti­ma­tum, and the only way I could earn their love was from grades and attrac­tive­ness.

    I’d agree with the brains over brawn thing, but it’s not work­ing for me. :D

    And don’t wor­ry, I closed your tag.

  10. I’m famil­iar with earn­ing love via grades, but attrac­tive­ness too? That’s tough, I mean it’s some­thing that can’t even real­ly be con­trolled.

    Really? I should con­nect you with friends who go for the lanky types. :D hehe

  11. Yeah, there are cer­tain aspects of attrac­tive­ness that you can’t con­trol (i.e. you’re born with or with­out), but there are things you can con­trol as well (i.e. phys­i­cal size, man­ner­isms, over­all mas­culin­i­ty). All oth­er things being equal, my par­ents would hold an attrac­tive son as more “valu­able” than a less attrac­tive one. No one said that love was fair, I sup­pose.

    And I always thought that girls who like lanky guys are a myth, up there with big­foot, the abom­inable snow­man, and girls who don’t mind dat­ing guys who are short­er than them. :)

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