Dumb

I did something without thinking the other day. I posted a considerably mean and scathing Facebook status which was, hugely insensitive to females who are, for want of a nice word- fat. I had said to my housemates the night before and we had had a good laugh about it and when it came up the next night I thought, yeah this is funny I’ll whack it on FB to keep the laughs rolling.

The laughs did roll. One or two “Babe, that’s pretty mean” but I just laughed it off until a girl who is, by her own admission “fat and ugly” pointed out to me the reality of how my words could affect someone unintended. I immediately felt overcome by shame and guilt, removed the post and sent her a hugely apologetic private message in which I told her how sorry I was that something I had said had offended her. I meant it as well. In my haste in posting it I had not imagined that someone who fit my words would actually read it and get upset by it.

She was admirably positive about it and said that she knew I had not said it to offend her in particular and she could see how awful I felt about the whole situation. It didn’t make me feel any better but at least I could implore to her that I had seen the error of my ways and I would think-twice before posting something as stupid as that.

But it got me thinking. I have a really harsh view on “fat people” in general. But so do a lot of my peers, as the reaction my post showed me. What’s so ironic about that is that my own opinion of how I look is, well fairly negative. I’ve tried to slow down my “oh my god I’m so fat” outbursts when I’m not feeling good because the sheer fact of the matter is that I’m not. Sure I’m not the in shape that I would like to be, and like most girls there are lots of things I would like to change about myself. But they are all things that if I could really be bothered, I would. If I were THAT concerned about not looking my best, I’d just go running more often, or take advantage of the free gym at my work, or maybe think again when I order that late night Maccas on a Saturday night when I’m walking a little boozy down Murray St. But clearly, I don’t care that much. I whinge and moan about how I look but people tell me that I’m “pretty” and while most of the time I think they’re lying, there must be some truth in it because why would people lie to my face like that?

My natural chain of consideration lead me to ask the question of whether or not calling someone who is fat, fat, an insult? My knee jerk reaction is no. Being overweight is unhealthy. But so is binge-drinking on Saturday nights...So why is ok for me to merely state what I think is the obvious and not expect people to react negatively?

Losing weight is hard, I know that. And I do believe that being healthy means looking like a normal human being. Not horribly, little boy thin, but with meat on your bones. That’s how women are supposed to look. I worry though because in this age of “big is beautiful” and “we should all learn to love ourselves” some girls are letting that be an excuse to be unhealthy. But it’s not that simple. I’ve never been really overweight so I don’t know what that huge task in front of you would feel like. When I came off the pill I shed a lot of weight very quickly through little to no action and it came to a point where I started to panic a little bit. But I think I’ve filled out a bit since then, and I am not the weight, or shape I was before this but I’m a bit more satisfied generally. Fitting into small jeans feels good! But it’s not fair for me to then turn around and make horrid statements about girls who don’t fit into the same size jeans as me. I don’t want to be that girl. I definitely don’t want to be that girl when 90% of the time I look in the mirror and I’m really unhappy with what I see.

I don’t really know where I’m heading with all of this, other than again trying to create some of catharsis for me and feel less terrible about upsetting someone.