Livin' Large.

So I was stood up tonight.

Yesterday in an e-mail with M. I mentioned casually that I am somewhat (very much) more rotund than I was when I saw him last (three years ago). I did this both to clear my conscience of the great sin of being a big chunky fatass and also to provide a warning:

"Lookout Below! Danger! Falling Fatass! Do not expect the Jen of slim thighs, for she has been swallowed by a lardmonster! I am telling you this for your own good!"

I did this because I am stupid, and because I am obsessed. Whether I talk about it or not, my weight is always first and foremost in my mind. There might as well be a digital scale implanted right between my eyes with the red number flashing brightly for the entire world to see, because it is always there.

I forget that most people do not think like this, but I feel like I have to apologize for being alive and large. I am not one of those, "Yeah, I'm fat, so what," people. Good for you if you are, but I am not and never will be. For me every extra pound carries ten pounds of shame, and I don't believe that any amount of therapy will cure it, remove it, release it, or numb it. Maybe this is cynical, but right now I have to accept it for what it is - reality.

"I'm sorry, I have a big, fat ass. I know that the sight of it must offend the fucking hell out of you. I would sit in the Big Ass section if such a thing existed, but for now I am unfortunately plunked right down here with the normal folk, who are forced to look at me in all my flabby splendor. I'm so sorry. I don't mean to singe your eyeballs this way. Forgive me. I try so hard to cover it up, but there is only so much material I can buy."

This does not mean that I find large people disgusting. Generally, I don't. I find my own body disgusting, as well as abhorrent, frightening, absurd, sick, worthy of ridicule, strange, foreign, rude, impudent, rebellious, uncontrollable, cruel, shameful, and horrible.

Basically my body is like a really shitty apartment in the projects. I fucking hate it here, and it needs a lot of damn work done that I can't afford. Granted, I could probably do a lot of that work myself, but I'm not so great with tools and when you've been living in the projects your whole life you learn all the wrong skills.

Anyway, M. sent me an e-mail last night stating that we could postpone our date if I was feeling uncomfortable, which I thought was considerate of him albeit unnecessary, because the man in question is a person who has seen me naked in a wide variety of compromising positions, and I would not feel very uncomfortable in front of him because we were once very close, and also because the man himself is no SoloFlex advertisement.

I sent an e-mail back late last night saying that no, I was fine as can be, and that I looked forward to seeing him today. Which I did.

Today came. I exfoliated, primped, scraped together a very passable outfit, dressed, put on my face, and all that other good shit. I felt good. I looked pretty damned good, actually. Sometimes I'm able to shove all of that body hatred into a handbag for a small window of time and strut my stuff, and it feels great. I have these high-heeled sandals that are really just too much.

By five o'clock, I started to wonder what the fuck was going on, because I am an anal-retentive type of person who likes to have plans laid out at least four hours in advance.

By six-thirty, I had to shake my head.

No call, no e-mail, nothing. I had planned to take the six o'clock train and meet him downtown, and nada, no phone call, zip.

I have never known this person to be rude or otherwise inconsiderate, nor have I known him to be the spineless type of human being that would blow a person off with no phone call, so I'm completely flabbergasted. He would have called. Had he wanted to cancel, he'd have called.

My mother, witness to my greatest moments of dating shame, looked at the stricken expression on my face and said, "Maybe something happened. You take these things too personally."

Why, yes. Yes, indeedy doo. I take these things very fucking personally. When someone treats me as if I don't deserve a fucking phone call or even a lousy stupid fucking e-mail, blessing to the pansy-ass plan-canceller; then for the love of Jesus, I take it very personally indeed. When someone punches you in the crotch, do you take it personally? Sure you do.

And when I have most ignorantly committed a stupid, stupid, stupid electronic faux pas and am left to wonder whether the idea of me plus more fat equals a thing not even worth responding to, I feel like complete shit.

I can't take these potshots at my already tenuous self-esteem. Really. If this is modern dating, then count me out.

I don't really want much. I don't want much of someone's time. I don't want a huge committment or constant validation or expensive dates or some crazy serious relationship that is going to make me emotionally exhausted.

I just want to have some fun, date, hang out; and it doesn't happen. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't why it hurts so much or why I feel so damned rejected when these people treat me like I'm just some girl that doesn't matter worth a shit. When the hell did I become that girl?

The only thing that makes sense when I do the math is that I started to get treated like dirt when I became fat. And that sounds so shallow and stupid and unnecessarily harsh, like I'm blaming my fat cells for some glaring personality flaw, but I swear I believe it's true, because I am not an asshole, I am not a bitch, and I am not a dull person devoid of personality. I can hold my own in a social situation, or I used to be able to before I became The Blob, and it didn't start to all fall apart until I started to take up the space of two of me.

It's one thing when it's some ass from a bar or some stranger from a stupid personal ad, but this is someone who really knows me, someone who seemed genuinely interested in resurrecting some sort of relationship (and I use that word loosely), and someone who I believed genuinely gave a crap about me.

So why leave someone all dressed up with no place to go on a Sunday night? I just don't fucking get it.

And before someone chimes in with the whole ridiculous load of crap that is 'you get dumped on because people sense your low self-esteem', save it. I am a past master at Keeping It In. It's what I do, it's what I've always done, and although I bitch and scream and moan in this space, I don't walk around wailing about the size of my ass.

I am starting to firmly believe that I get dumped on because men don't want a thirty-year-old fat-assed woman. They want a twenty-two-year-old blond doll that is a size six, a pretty little toy that smiles and nods and wears cute pastel halter tops and has no stifling moments of self-doubt because Jesus, why would she, she's Fucking Perfect, people smile at the sight of her, she's everyone's wet fucking dream.

And these women are out there, they're everywhere, skipping up and down the street in their goddamn expensive shoes and talking on their little Nokias to men that stutter at their approach, and I guess if I had the choice I'd rather have one of those than one of me, too. They're a lot easier to maintain.

They're less bitter, too.

I know. I used to be one.

Goodnight.

8:04 p.m. - 2004-04-25
25 comments