A friend of my mum paid me a compliment today when we bumped into each other as I’d popped in for a visit and I accepted it with good humour, but as I’ve reflected on our conversation I’m starting to feel just a little bit mugged off. When is a compliment not a compliment..? I’d hazard a guess and say when it’s served up immediately before a long silence that contains no spoken words whatsoever but the implied meaning says more than words ever could.
I can think of a few really obvious examples. When someone says you’ve got such a pretty face, without exception we all know what they really mean is shame about the rest of you, if only you’d lay off the pies, but they’re too polite to come out with it. Whenever I put weight on, it goes to my face first and I’ve always hated that.
I remember reading teenage magazines with make-up tutorials way back in the day and I used to lay on my bed and seethe with resentment that with the best will in the world no matter how much I yearned for a heart-shaped face mine could only ever be described as round. It felt really unfair, like I’d been dealt the joker you know? A little dab of this week’s free blusher here, and a bit of shading there and my face still looked…well, round.
When someone says I like that top, it gives you a really nice shape, it feels like what they really mean is you generally look like a sack of spuds but that pattern hides more of your lumps than the one you wore yesterday. And yes, I get that the way you interpret stuff has got a lot to do with how you see or think or feel about yourself but still, some compliments are framed thoughtlessly and they sting, intentionally or not.
As a fat girl you kind of get used to bumping into comments like that, and whilst not everybody serves them up, you quickly get to know the people who do. If you’re anything like me you’ve probably shrugged them off a lot of the time and beaten yourself up for being oversensitive and maybe that’s even true some of the time. But not all of the time, right?
My mum’s friend wouldn’t have deliberately upset me for the world. I know that. But right after she told me how good I was looking, she followed it up by saying mind you, you’ve always been good at losing weight haven’t you…
Now, is that me, or were the words shame you can’t keep it off said without actually being said? Of course they were. Emphasis on the word losing, then the words just sort of hung there in the silence whilst I studied my feet before the conversation moved on to other things.
The annoying thing is, she’s not wrong. But it’s not her place to point it out you know? Which she didn’t, exactly…except she did, in not so many words. And now I know that she thinks that I can’t help feeling a bit offended, like I’ve been judged and found wanting. What she really means is you just keep on getting fat. You keep on blowing it. You SUCK at being a skinny string bean…I already know all those things and knowing she thinks that too has landed. Bad lands, remember..?
Best thing I can do is prove her wrong I suppose. And I fully intend to. In the meantime I’ve whiled away a good couple of hours fantasising about what I wish I’d said in return. I should’ve said yes, that’s so true but I’d rather keep trying than just accept …you know…whilst throwing a glance at her own not unsubstantial midriff. Pointing out her face looks like a melted welly boot might have taken it a bit too far.
Even though it does 🙂
