Slenderness not a crimedad_mMarch 7 2009, 17:17:24 UTC
Because I am seen to eat sweets and still look thin, if not as scrawny as I was in my twenties, people sometimes express envy: "It's not fair, you eat anything you want and never gain an ounce." (Not entirely true, but close enough.) This sometimes sounds as if they think I do it on purpose to rub it in that they have to watch their diet carefully to stay at a healthy weight, or that because they don't, they're not. Sometimes I say there's a price for this metabolism: I start feeling very cranky, and can't always manage to be good company, if I don't give my body calories when it expects them. This doesn't always convince. My best beloved used to say that if we ever divorced, it would be because of what I did and said while driving home from church, often my hungriest time of the week. (I'm managing the Sunday morning caloric intake better nowadays, thanks in part to snacks at Sunday School, which is why she "used to say" it.)
This is a real problem for some people. There is an amply proportioned woman who calls herself Mo'Nique (just the one name, like Madonna and Zane) who's written a book called Skinny Women Are Evil : notes of a big girl in a small-minded world. I think the title shows her to be as small-minded as she is large-bodied, but maybe if I read the book I'd think differently. When I sat down with a "Death By Chocolate" sundae at the Renaissance Festival years ago, a plump woman nearby said to her companion, "Oh look, that skinny little man's going to eat that great big dessert all by himself." I later told the story to someone who said, "That's so rude," but to me it was only funny. I think the thing to do is to accept "You're perfect" (at least it wasn't "You're so skinny") as a compliment, or as a funny thing someone said, and not think about it too much.
This is a real problem for some people. There is an amply proportioned woman who calls herself Mo'Nique (just the one name, like Madonna and Zane) who's written a book called Skinny Women Are Evil : notes of a big girl in a small-minded world. I think the title shows her to be as small-minded as she is large-bodied, but maybe if I read the book I'd think differently. When I sat down with a "Death By Chocolate" sundae at the Renaissance Festival years ago, a plump woman nearby said to her companion, "Oh look, that skinny little man's going to eat that great big dessert all by himself." I later told the story to someone who said, "That's so rude," but to me it was only funny. I think the thing to do is to accept "You're perfect" (at least it wasn't "You're so skinny") as a compliment, or as a funny thing someone said, and not think about it too much.
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