Tell Me I’m Pretty
I like it when people call me pretty.
There is something about being called pretty that gives me butterflies. You don’t hear it a lot.
Being called beautiful makes me uncomfortable. I feel a sense of disbelief when I hear the word out loud. Fall foliage is beautiful. Sunsets are beautiful. Babies. Architecture. Burritos. Stuff like that is described as beautiful.
Hot or sexy is always nice to hear.
One time I was talking to this boy I went to high school with and I kept telling him I didn’t get hot until three years ago. He reassured me it was more like five. Another said I was pretty hot in high school but I think he was being condescending. Still made me smirk. It’s the little things that drive the ego, am I right?
When I get called cute I feel like a little kid. I still have chubby cheeks that make my eyes squint when I smile so I get it. But I am a refined, mature woman! I have a 401K, hip dysplasia and I snore. That’s not the makings of a “cute” woman. Every hey cutie opening line I received when I was on dating apps made me want to swan dive into the Hudson River.
Now pretty? Pretty will always make me bat my eyelashes and blush.
And listen...I completely understand what I am talking about is trivial. The topic of physical appearance, especially when it comes to women, is taboo and needs to be talked about in the most specific ways. And, at the end of the day, my whole life I’ve heard variations of beauty being in the eye of the beholder and it’s what’s on the inside that counts. You’re not fat, you’re beautiful. Blah, blah blah...I don’t care.
You see when you grow up fat and continue in your adulthood certain beauty standards and ideologies don’t pertain to you the way they do to your thin peers. There is a whole separate set of rules. And it’s more about what is being perceived on the outside than what is being perceived within. At least that’s how the modern society has made me feel the past couple decades.
Life is very different when you’ve always been fat. When fat is all you know.
A few September’s ago I was at the bar feeling bad about myself on a night out with two friends. My hair was greasy and my pants were too tight. I kept finding more things wrong with me in every reflective surface I walked by. Nothing about me looked right. I felt like a prisoner in my skin.
As the night progressed there were two men circling my friends. My thin friends. The girls welcomed them with open arms hanging on their every word. Treating me like wallpaper. It got to a point where the only thing I could do to salvage whatever was left of my self-esteem was to sneak away. Nobody noticed.
You see I am genuinely a very confident person. There have been times I’ve been told I’m too confident. But there are those days when you get so run down that you can’t break out.
I was sitting at the corner of the bar sipping beer out the bottle like it was some sort of chore and I asked the bartender if I was hot. My asking made him laugh. I’m good at that. I’m very good at making men laugh.
He said yes.
I am an overstimulating person and that is something I realized relatively recently. Loud, clumsy, and always moving. I think that’s why sometimes I am a difficult person to like. It’s the only logical explanation to understand how lonely I feel sometimes.
Last year I was eating dinner with my Paison and by Paison I mean the Italian slang that is a word for a person you’re not necessarily related to but it’s more like a cousin than a friend. Our grandparents lived next door to one another as kids and our father’s grew up together. There was a brief moment in time when her father lived with my grandmother. A match made in heaven.. A widower that didn't sleep and a young guy that came home late at night ready to play cards. I hope there’s a book written about that some day.
Paison is significantly taller than me, a red-haired beauty who creates art with the clothes she wears and stories she tells. Her interests range from old movies to Disney to knowing the lyrics to every song ever created. I adore her.
She and I are considered big girls. One blessed with height, the other blessed with width. Personalities to match. We laugh loud, talk fast and are unapologetic about our passions. I think the world would be a better place if more women and people in general were like us.
Between bites of pizza and conversations filled with meaning and some of nonsense we landed on the subject we can’t stop talking about. We wonder about why we can’t seem to get somebody to ask us out on a date. Or someone to fall in love with us.
I came to a harsh conclusion.
Men don’t like us because we’re not women… we’re broads.
When I said that to her she looked at me smiling but confused.
We are big women with big personalities who try not to make ourselves small to make others feel better. We terrify men and we confuse women. How and why are we comfortable with who we are when we live in a society that rejects us? The eighth wonder of the world, really.
It’s fascinating how other people treat you when you convince them you don’t hate yourself.
