What It’s Like To Be The Fat Girl
By Mary O'Neil
What is it about being fat that so deeply repulses us to our very core? Why is it the worst thing we can think of to call each other? When will I get to a point where I can stop sobbing uncontrollably immediately after I have been called it? I am an intelligent woman. I have interests. I am fantastic with children and dogs.
I read a lot, and I can write (sort of). However, does any of that stop me from hating myself? Not a chance. I am overweight, and there I will stay for the rest of eternity. People on the street will never not completely ignore me while staring wistfully or leeringly at my thin best friend. I will also be consistently looked over for job promotions because of my weight.
Now my last statement has a lot of people shaking their heads I’m sure. “She’s being so dramatic. She can’t prove something like that.” Bullshit. I totally can. Nobody takes a fat girl seriously in life. They just don’t. Men can’t even speak to us without being slightly insulting just because they are scared they might be ridiculed for being nice.
We are a pariah. If you fuck one of us, you use the “you were too drunk to remember” response as a default answer. It will obviously never happen again. Except it will though…when you’re lonely and remember that no one else will fuck you. She will obviously take you back with open legs because what else is she supposed to do? We aren’t exactly a commodity here in this life, and everyone needs to feel loved in some way every once in a while.
On a daily basis, when I just have a normal, everyday, unremarkable type of day I hear no less than about 30 references about weight. I hear it from my mother who looks at me disapprovingly whenever I reach for a soda and asks, “Do you need that?” I hear it from the sitcoms I watch. The best example of this is probably How I Met Your Mother, and how the main character Barney Stinson played by Neil Patrick Harris consistently sleeps with women who are exceedingly unintelligent.
I’m talking about the kind of girl who believes China is a continent. However, he makes at least three jokes a season about how he’d never “fuck a fatty.” I understand that he is a character and not a real person, but he is a type, and an uncomfortably common one at that. Never mind that I can hold an intelligent conversation, I have rolls and cellulite so quick! Shield your eyes before I see you!
What is even worse is that I feel the impact it has in my friendships. I see the men I like go after my friends instead, and it kills me inside. It absolutely tears me up to my very core to know that I will never be worthy of that kind of attention. Now, what I need my friends to understand is that it is not their fault in my mind at all…it is mine…my entire embarrassing fault. I am like this because of my poor choices.
I am like this because I am too used to my life the way that it is. I also have a part of me that is being stubborn and refuses to conform to society’s ridiculously high beauty standards just so I will be accepted and loved. I want that on my own merit. However, if I want stick to that train of thought, I should also be prepared for the consequences that come along with it, and that consequence is probably never being properly loved.
That last horrible issue I must deal with on a daily basis is the fact that talking about any of this makes everyone else extremely uncomfortable. I am not allowed to complain about my weight for fear of being judged too harshly. I can’t say how badly it sucks when someone you truly love asks you about your friend’s relationship status at the moment because “she’s really hot” and “I’d like to date her”.
I can’t express the hate I feel towards my mother for never accepting me as a daughter because I was not what she wanted me to look like, or how she actually encouraged my eating disorder wholeheartedly. I can’t even talk about the anger I feel. The anger I have at society for never shutting up about this problem for long enough so that I can begin to actually build up some self-esteem.
Even the encouraging ads you see on TV about loving who you are for your own shape and size make me want to cry simply because they still only show thin women, and it still is hinting somehow that there is something wrong with women who are not. Also, The anger I have for myself for myself for not being addicted to the gym and salads, and also for myself for ever expecting anything different when I wake up in the morning.
I can’t talk about any of this, because I will inevitably get everything turned back around on me. I mean for Christ sake, rapists and cold blooded killers can shed a tear on TV and get a little bit of sympathy from society whereas a fat girl can be seen crying about her current weight situation and all she will ever get in return is cruel jokes and further ridicule and criticism. How can we even begin to fix this colossal problem?