What’s My Body Type Again?

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There are an abundance of articles on the internet, on social media, and in magazines on how to dress for your body type, which is apparently categorized into different types of fruit and inanimate objects.

Are you apple shaped? Pear shaped? Column? Hourglass? Lightbulb? Noose?

I, personally, am shaped like Bibendum the Michelin Man and it’s difficult to find suitable advice for this.

Apples are supposed to wear things to make their waists smaller, Pears are supposed to balance out their curves, Columns are supposed to make themselves look curvier than they are, and Hourglasses are supposed to accentuate how they’ve been #blessed by the heavens due to their shape. There isn’t really advice out there for women shaped like me: a half-cooked tamale.

I guess I’m kind of apple shaped but not in the glamorous, photogenic, plus-sized model way. It’s more like an apple that you bought at Whole Foods because you were on a health kick and wanted more fiber (shoutout to fiber) and you forgot the apple in a bag in the trunk of your car and now it’s been there for five months.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining about being shaped like God’s cruel take on human cubism. I like me. So does my boyfriend (Yeah bet you didn’t see THAT plot twist coming). But I don’t understand what society expects me to do to fit what they’ve come to expect from other women.

What do I wear to a job interview that doesn’t make my future non-employer throw up in his mouth and not take me seriously? How do I dress fashionably if plus-sized clothes cost remarkably more than smaller clothes and I’m a poor college student? How do I enjoy shopping with my sorority sisters if most young women’s stores don’t carry over a size 14 even though that’s the national average? If there is no advice on how to make myself look inoffensive to society because my baseline is already disgusting to the world, then do I just curl up into a ball and die?

The weird thing about having no expectations put upon me because I’m apparently so aesthetically hopeless is that, according to society, I can wear anything because this is as good as it’s going to get. Therefore, I get to wear whatever I want. And you know what? I look and feel amazing 99.9% of the time.

It doesn’t matter if I wear a Snuggie or bodycon dress because either way society considers me offensive to the eyes. I wear peplums, jeans, shorts, tank tops, show my legs, show my stomach, show my essentially anything, regardless of my manatee body. I’m glad about it! That’s why I keep up my strict regimen of Hot Cheetos and cheap beer to maintain this machine. If my body shape ever changes to the point that I can be categorized due to a lifestyle change (unlikely) or debilitating disease (more likely: see Hot Cheetos and cheap beer) I am still going to wear whatever the hell I want.

Fuck your body shape. Fuck how they categorize you. Wear what you feel good in. Apples, wear that flowy tunic. Pears, wear jeans with rhinestones on the ass! Everyone wear Snuggies. No one needs to abide by these arbitrary rules.

Embrace the blob. Embrace your body for whatever it is. Embrace you.