A few weeks ago, I was sitting with an old friend at a bar enjoying (in my opinion) the best martini in Houston. I was happily slurping away, the bartender there a like-minded creature who, believing the martini glass an evil invention that makes everyone look sloppy, had kindly delivered the chilled, pretty-dirty beverage in a high ball glass. Thumbs up.
So euphoric was I with my delicious cocktail, I almost missed the double-entendre-statement my drinking companion tossed my way, that went something like this:
"OMG I love hanging out with you! Everyone I usually hang out with is so super skinny and tiny and they make me just feel huge."
Call it testimony to the scrumptiousness of my cocktail that I didn't "accidentally" tip it into her lap.
I've been sitting on this in the meantime (flattening it out with my apparently elephantine figure), wondering what the hell would prompt one to make a remark like that. Initially, I decided to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt: she couldn't possibly have meant it that way. I have a whole list of reasons why no one in their right mind could say something like that to me, all of which boil down to this one, singular fact: I'm gnome-size. Seriously. I can wear children's size coats, and can still fit into my favorite fifth grade pair of jeans. No pair of pants, not even the "ankle length" (whose ankle? Shaq's?) can be worn un-hemmed. I have to drive with the chair pulled so close to the wheel I can barely exit my freaking car, and I rue the day Austin Powers declared small hands "carnie." Unless you're five, using me as your counterpoint to feel tiny is delusional. Case closed.
The comment was almost written off as such, but a few nights later the situation seemed to shift into auto-focus. After making some off-hand remark to a fitness trainer friend not to look at us for exercise talk because we don't work out, I, sans delicious but distracting drink, informed the ignoramus that um, no, actually I work out 4-5 days a week. And then homegirl said, with all the disbelief, shock and outrage she could muster, "Reeeealllyyy??????"
Look, I'm not delusional. I know that while I may give immediate meaning to the term "Shawty," I am no pixie (I said gnome, remember?). As you may recall, my breasts came in when I was nine years old. Well, they came with friends: a pair of hips and an ass that rely wholeheartedly on the solid foundation of legs built like a shetland pony's. The Boogs and I affectionately call all my lady lumps "Maluendas," after the side of the family who so lovingly bestowed them upon me. I'm half-Chilean; you can see it in my ass.
Had the incident occurred this time last year, there's a chance I would have done what so many insecure, American women do and internalized the thing as my problem. I don't know how we were trained to function this way, as though the passive aggressive insult is constructive, important, or even accurate, but the impulse cussing blows. So let's play a game: using the incident at hand, let's test its weight (ha) against these three attributes: accuracy, constructiveness, and importance. Maybe I'm wrong, after all. Maybe I should go hide under a rock until I lose 30 lbs. Let's be scientific about this before I do anything rash like, I don't know, move on with my life.
1. Accuracy
I think I pretty much covered this above, but I'm willing to expand for the sake of diligence. While I'm certainly not Shakira, I sure as hell ain't no Snookie neither. Being small and curvy does leave a little wiggle-room to wonder what's "right," and most women have developed their own methods of understanding when they're in a good place, and when they've maybe over-indulged. I know I'm in trouble when I can't fit into my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle onesie, for example.
Obviously, if we're measuring accuracy, the question of the speaker's figure must come into play. While I'm disinterested in carping on someone I've decided has some serious body-image and self-esteem issues, I will say, for the sake of our thorough investigation, that if I'm an Ewok she's Chewbacca. But that's only if we're getting technical.
2. Constructiveness
You may wonder how it could ever be constructive for a friend to comment passively on one's weight and size while out in a bar, and you're bewilderment would be well-founded. But, full disclosure, I do have a pact with the Boogs to inform me when the Maluendas are getting a little out of control (and I would inform him if ever he garners some man-maluendas), so I think it's possible to gently address a loved one's weight gain. The real issue here is timing: let's say I have suddenly put on 20 lbs that can't be attributed to medication, pregnancy, or extreme muscle mass. Would it be helpful for me to have a friend tell me how much she appreciates my new plumpy figure for how thin it makes her feel? Yeah, about as helpful as her chosen background for delivery: the bar. Nothing I want to talk about more than body image while I'm out on the town. Martini's only taste okay without a healthy dose of body-bashing, duh.
3. Importance
While I've concluded that my general response to this whole incident was to let it go, to maybe feel a little sad for the commenter, and you know, to blog about it, I'm not going to deny that I wasn't a little bothered. Unfortunately, the vestiges of American body-image brainwashing haven't totally vacated my internal monologue, and I definitely felt more conscious of my Maluendas in the days that followed. But what bothered me far more than any insecurity the comment could have bolstered was how mean it was. Not to mention just flat-out weird-- both remarks were made in bars, where one goes with friends to generally laugh and have a good time. Who busts out bitch in those situations?
The thing is, our idea of body image is completely bat shit to begin with. Whether fashion begets the figure or the figure fashion is chicken and eggs (though I'm pretty sure we can blame the designers if we wanted to get down to it), but to function as though Calvin Klein's 90's ads are the pinnacle of ideal women's figures is absolutely coo coo bananas. Sometime in the 80's, someone decided clothes look better on hangers and thus died the supermodel and all we got for it was Kate Moss. Clothes may look better on hangers, but women sure as fuck do not.
I used to lament my bad timing. But it's all a matter of perspective: with my pale skin (ivory complexion), high forehead (noble brow), and voluptuous figure (T&A), I could've been a relatively successful centerfold in any number of eras ranging from the middle ages to the 80's.
But why miss what I never had when I've got what I do now: a body women essentially pay to construct themselves. My Maluendas make impants of any kind completely unnecessary; I don't need surgery to feel like a woman (I was Kim Kardashian before Kim Kardashian was Kim Kardashian, yo). And though I'm independently pretty happy with my curves, it doesn't hurt that I live with a man who, after 5 years together, still drops whatever he's doing like a dumbstruck teenager when he sees me naked.
I hate it when I read that one has "made peace" with their body because it sounds like they've just sucked it up and compromised with mediocrity. I do not have a mediocre body, and I sure as hell don't want to feel that way about it. My body is amazing. I am continually impressed with what I can do when I push myself, like when I came home from a run and, on an endorphin high, challenged David to a man-push-up contest. I did 25. Straight. I can do the splits and touch my nose to my knees. I can balance myself on my hands, with my shins resting on the backs of my arms. I can stand on the tips of my toes for almost 5 full seconds. I can also finish an entire pizza, a 10-cup pot of coffee, a whole pumpkin pie and a bottle of wine (separately). Boo-ya.
So how important is it that this one friend felt the need to remark that I, in her warped little world, made her feel small? Not very. In fact, I'm happy to help out. If a friend of mine is so starved for positive body affirmation she must create illusions that fortify her confidence than please, let the make-believe begin. I am a gnome after all.
