Here is a conversation that happened this evening at work:
Him: Yeah, I’m from around here, well, now I live in Sechelt but I grew up in this area, went to such-n-such school, blah blah blah
Me: Oh, hmm, that’s nice.
Him: So are you from this area? Where did you go to school?
Me: No, I moved here from Edmonton.
Him: Oooooh! An Albertan girl! I could tell you are from Alberta because you’re so big boned. Yup, a big boned girl from Alberta.
Me: *stares in shock* What?
Lady who over heard convo: You should stomp on his foot, while wearing heels.
I excuse myself from the situation and go do something else. He follows about 5 minutes later and laughingly apologizes, but the kind of apology that means diddly squat because you know he doesn’t actually mean it, he doesn’t think he did anything wrong and while pretending to apologize he infringes on my personal space by trying to put his arm around me and be all chummy.
What. The. Hell?!?!?!
I’d like to say I responded with a scathing remark but I was at work and had to stay professional so I had to appear to shrug it off and go about my business. I’d also like to say I promptly forgot about the insensitive jerky comment and it didn’t bother me but that’d be a big fat lie. It is still bothering me now and it has been hours, not a couple of hours, more like 9 hours. *sigh*.
I know that only I can give permission for other people to affect me but ya know what, what he said affected me and I don’t care if it is me giving him permission to affect me, or low self-esteem, or deeply buried anger because I couldn’t respond, or years of learned responses to how men treat me but whatever it is, it is affecting me, and I don’t like it.
What gives this guy, this guy that I met for the first time this evening the right to not only comment on what I look like but to comment in a negative way? Since when do our social norms allow anybody to do that without some sort of consequence? Oh wait, it’s been ok for, well…as long as I have been alive. *double sigh*
What the hell does “big boned” even mean? Is that another way of saying “fat”? Or is it a specialized way of saying “fat”, is it supposed to be more politically correct? Maybe it is the female version of “husky”, I’ve heard guys described like that, “oh he has a husky build” like he is a breed of dog or something!
I just don’t get it.
The whole situation makes me so angry. Angry that this guy seemed to think what he did was perfectly ok, angry at myself for not responding in a stronger way, angry at men in general because I can only aim so much anger at myself before I have to deflect it elsewhere and well, men in general are an easy target if I pretend they are all like this guy.
Ok, calming down now…
After work I was restless, I wanted to do something to work off my annoyance but on my drive home I found myself a bit teary eyed which is so not like me. That stupid little man had made one comment and it had me questioning all kinds of things about myself, what I look like, how I was dressed, what I ate today, how active I have been, am I bigger than I thought, am I big boned? Even though I don’t really know what big boned is supposed to mean I couldn’t stop wondering if I am that, is that what people see when they look at me, someone big boned? A big boned Albertan girl?
Since I finished work at 9:30pm and there really wasn’t much to do I came home, cuddled with the cat and made the conscious decision to not let how I was feeling affect my eating plan. I am doing Weight Watchers and the last thing I want is for some bump in the road to derail my weight loss. Normally when I am upset I either (1) eat everything! or (2) eat absolutely nothing, even if I am legit hungry. What can I say, I go to extremes. If I didn’t eat anything when I got home I’d be under eating for the day, if I ate the entire tub of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream that was calling my name I’d be waaaaay over my food budget for the day so I stuck to the plan, I made a healthy-ish snack, ate my points for the day (that is a Weight Watchers thing, if you count calories it would be like me saying I ate my calories for the day) and well, that was it. I didn’t let my emotions control my eating (or not eating), I didn’t derail my weight loss plan thereby making myself feel even worse about myself because of this comment and I will hopefully wake up tomorrow feeling better about things, cause time is supposed to heal wounds right?
Does time also heal anger because I still want to punch that guy in the face, or put on a pair of pointy heels and stomp on his foot, better yet steel toed boots!
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 