Fatty Fatty Two-by-Four

It's interesting to me how everyone's self esteem is different; there are people who are perfectly content with their bodies and people who loathe the way they look, and on both ends of that spectrum are people who, to our own eyes, shouldn't feel the way they do.

I was mocked and teased my entire life for my weight; I heard snickers and whispers as I walked by a group of people, many of my friends said incredibly hateful things behind my back, and once when a friend and I were having a heated argument she said "I only keep you around because you make me look that much hotter in comparison." Despite having a family who took every opportunity to tell me that I was beautiful, I never believed it. I had self esteem that was in the gutter and I was insecure about virtually everything in my life. I hid behind being loud and laughing a lot and making jokes, often at my own expense, to cover up how insecure I felt in the shadow of my beautiful friends and the rest of the world. I felt like I had to apologize for who I was.

One of my dearest friends, someone I've always found to be pretty much the epitome of beauty, has had a lifelong weight fluctuation. For a long period of time she lived a life that many people would envy, traveling with celebrities and seeing the world while working a glamorous, high-profile job; in addition to that, every time she would post a photo she'd get hundreds of people gushing over her beauty or calling her adjectives like 'flawless' and 'radiant', myself included. Yet she sent me a message today asking me if I noticed a difference in the way people treated me pre-surgery versus the way I'm treated now, and if it bothered me how intensely people seemed to celebrate it.

And it definitely made me think.

I grew up loathing my body; my mother certainly loathed hers. She was single and never had much luck in the dating department despite her outgoing personality and the fact that everyone who met her loved her. She had a ready laugh, a beautiful smile and a heart of pure gold but men were turned off by the fact that she wore a size 26/28 and bought her clothes at Lane Bryant and couldn't sashay around in miniskirts and high heels at the bar. She was an incredible mother and a great friend, but men came to her to ask her to help hook them up with her more traditionally-attractive friends. She participated in every fad diet of the 80s, 90s and beyond, buying workout tapes and exercise equipment, joining gyms, even hiring a personal trainer. She lost 100 pounds on her own steam the year before she was diagnosed with MS, when a six-month bout of being bedridden caused her to gain it all back and then some. She fought with her body her entire life.

I wasn't as pessimistic about mine at first, and I tried to encourage her to dress younger, to buy rock t-shirts, to dye her hair a more vibrant red, to wear sparkling eyeshadow and paint her fingernails green. I wanted her to let go of that idea that she couldn't be beautiful just because she was big. After all, I was modeling for plus-sized pinup sites. My friends assured me that I was pretty 'for a big girl'. I didn't think that I was ugly even when I was at my heaviest; I was just fat.

Yet in our society, fat is ugly.

I didn't go on a single 'date' in high school, even while my friends went steady and made out with each other on the weekends. Instead, I helped hook them up, was an alibi if they needed to avoid their parents for awhile, or I tagged along and waited awkwardly in a Denny's while they frantically got in their kissing time in the parking lot before curfew. I was set up on a few dates by friends, but they were obligatory and fake and none of them led to anything. It was just guys being nice to get in good graces with my friend, or to repay a favor from something. A boy I knew for years, who I was crazy about, made out with me in secret and then told me that we could never actually 'date' because he couldn't be seen going out with a fat girl. Even though, he assured me, he really liked me.

In college my boyfriend was never like that, but he also has a tendency to date girls on the bigger side because that's his preference. It doesn't diminish how we felt about each other, but it was an important factor in the how we started flirting. If he'd only been into skinny girls, he would've never gotten to know that we both loved reading in bed or making silly jokes or trading mix CDs. 

I went to LA last week and my weight loss was really noticeable to me. But not for the reasons you might think.

LA is a city of beautiful people, and by LA standards (most standards, really) I'm still grossly overweight, obese, undesirable. And yet in LA, this time, I felt more comfortable than I probably ever have. I walked miles up and down the Venice boardwalk with my beautiful friend Stephanie, who is a model and complete eye candy, and I didn't feel self-conscious. I bought several shirts on the boardwalk and never had to ask "What size do these go up to?"; I just found the larges and, in one case, a medium without incident. I didn't have pain in my ankle from walking, and I wasn't drenched in sweat or short of breath despite us walking in bright sunlight in the middle of the day along the shoreline. Steph and I went to restaurants and I didn't have to worry about fitting in the booth without my gut being pressed against the table. We went into stores like Popkiller and I didn't have to stand and study the sunglasses while my skinny friend tried on clothes; au contraire, I was the one who tried on shirts while Steph browsed. 

On the plane, I didn't bulge over the armrest into the lady next to me's territory. I didn't have trouble fastening the seat belt, or dropping my tray table. I didn't have any problems at all. But moreover, when I boarded, a very cute boy helped me get my bag into the overhead compartment. He flashed me a smile. I smiled back and that was the end of it... but I remember boarding that same flight last October at my biggest weight, and I was wrestling with my roller bag because it wouldn't fit down the aisle easily and was too heavy to pick it up. Multiple people sighed, rolled their eyes, looked away from me as I struggled. No one offered to help. Now can I directly tie that to my weight? No. Maybe that day the plane was just full of assholes and this day a nice guy lent a damsel in distress a hand. But maybe not. 

People tend to avoid fat people; we're the last acceptable plague, a blight on humanity. We're not supposed to wear swimsuits where others can see us, or wear shorts if our thighs have cellulite and dimples and flab even if it's a hundred degrees out. It's 'gross' if we buy pretty thong underwear and even the 'big-girl-friendly' stores like Lane Bryant, Torrid and Cato's preach the importance of layering your body in Spanx and girdles before you wiggle into those muumuus because you wouldn't want to offend anyone with your fat. Even in places that are supposed to be friendly, our bodies are the enemy.

While I initially did this for a myriad of reasons, I DO notice that the way even my own friends perceive me is different. I recently went to shoot a band; I've been friends with them for nearly two years but haven't seen them play live in almost a year. I showed up at the show and it was their first time seeing me; both the band and their girlfriends were freaking out about my weight loss, and two individual people--- both well-meaning, and I didn't take it the wrong way--- said "Oh my god, look how hot she is now!" I'll admit, even though I knew they were coming from a sweet place with it, it made my hackles raise a little. When I post photos of my weight loss progress on Facebook, sometimes there are comments like "You're becoming such a beautiful young lady" or "Wow, you're looking amazing these days". I know that people don't mean anything by this, but I think it's another subconscious way of saying fat is bad; this is better. And while it's true--- I feel better, not only physically, but I'm much more confident and less self-conscious than I used to be--- that being more slim and healthy is better than feeling out of sorts with my body the way I used to, I don't like that weight loss is considered synonymous with better or, worse, beautiful. 

I've seen gorgeous people of all sizes, and I happen to find a lot of plus-sized people very attractive. It depends on so much more than the size of your jeans, and I hate the emphasis that people put on the idea of weight loss. We're obsessed with the very nature of it. But if you post something on your Facebook --- "Got on the scale, down 3 pounds!", for example--- just watch how many likes, comments, and accolades you get. We celebrate weight loss because we think that the slimmer someone is, the closer they are to true attractiveness and beauty and worth in our society. That is an epidemic that needs to stop. Weight has nothing to do with beauty, or value. 

I'm learning so much about myself as I see the way the world perceives me changing. 

With every pound I lose, I am gaining perspective. And I just wish I could go back and hug 348-pound me and say You're beautiful now and no matter what, you always will be.

But knowing me, I wouldn't have listened anyway.