Yesterday I was in the bathroom at work when one of my co-workers walked in as I was ready to leave. I asked her if she was still doing the Weight Watchers program, as I’d noticed she had slimmed down quite a bit recently. She thanked me for the compliment and told me she’d been doing it “on and off.” I told her that I was also trying to lose weight and wanted to lose about 20 lbs. or so. She looked at me, puzzled, and said, “You don’t need to lose any weight. You have the perfect body.” Huh?
I glanced into the full-length mirror on the wall and said, “Perfect body? Are you kidding?” Then I took it a step further and lifted up my shirt to reveal to her exactly why her last statement was incorrect. She chuckled and said, “That’s nothing. You don’t even have any stretch marks. So what if you have a little bit of ‘extra’ ’there’ and ‘there?’” as she pointed to different areas. I still did not have her convinced, so I pulled my shirt back down and then held it snug against my body to show the “inner tube” of fat around my stomach and lower back.
She just shook her head and repeated to me, “You have the perfect body.” I shook my head in response and told her, ” ‘This’ (as I pinched my inner tube) should not be here. It is ugly.” The woman smiled and looked me up and down again and reassured me, “Guys don’t like girls that are super-skinny. They want someone who is healthy, and they like to have something to grab onto. I honestly wish I had your body! You have ‘like’ the perfect body.”
I walked out of the bathroom feeling disoriented. Later, I went back in and lifted my shirt again when no one was around. I was trying to figure out how she could say I looked perfect when I was staring at fat pockets in the mirror. Was I being too critical? Or are her standards too low?
This raises an interesting question. What is considered the normal standard if everyone’s tastes are different? Obviously what I see as excess body fat is someone else’s image of the perfectly healthy, womanly body. I began wondering if I am too critical of others because of the way I talk about myself. It must be the perfectionist in me that has been bellowing out all of these years. “Perfect! Perfect! Must be perfect!” I always assumed that men were not interested in me because they saw what I saw - body fat that wasn’t supposed to be there; evidence of over-eating; proof that my repeated attempts to lose weight have failed miserably; my love affair with carbohydrates.
I do not want to come across as a woman obsessed with her weight and self-image; ironically, I heavily criticize women who are addicted to trying to make themselves look perfect, who conform to what everyone else is doing and wearing and saying and thinking. I never want to become that person. However, what exactly am I doing when I look in the mirror and refuse to accept myself as the way I am? Aren’t I behaving like all the Paris Hiltons out there (minus the dog in my purse and my nightly visits to Club Leopard with my bodyguards in tote)? Actually no, because Paris Hilton doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of her. (Maybe I should act more like her, then?)
My sister once told me that I was looking for “Mr. Ready-Made” and wished me luck because I would never find him. I disagreed with her. This was shortly after I’d gotten rid of a man who had lied to me and had proven to be nothing more than an aging slimeball whose morals were slipping off the polar end of the spectrum opposite my own. I am looking for someone better than him, yes – that is true. “Ready-Made?” That sounds more like a pancake mix than a human being. I am definitely not that shallow. A little unbalanced and indecisive, but not shallow. And definitely above the name of a pancake mix. Or below it; however you choose to perceive it.
