Yesterday I posted a facebook status saying that I was taking the week off from everything blog related, and I had planned on sticking to that statement, but last night as I sat down and watched Huge I knew that there was something I wanted to address and since the blog post instantly came to me I figure why the hell not indulge in a little posting. I guess the creativity comes back when you take the pressure off huh?
Well since I am not under pressure i’m not really going to talk much about what happened in the episode, if you want a play by play check out Fatshionista’s Recaps. Basically this post, just like our other weekly Huge posts, is just a reflection from one instance of the show, one small moment. Amber and George (the hard bodied couselor) were getting their makeout on, which i’m not quite sure how I feel about, and he got a bit grabby and touched her stomach and basically she kind of freaked out. This ended up making him think that he was moving too fast, but we find out it wasn’t really the speed that was the problem, it was her insecurity with her stomach. First off let me just say he is a counselor at her FAT CAMP, i’m pretty sure he knows she isnt a size 2, yet he has been all up in her pretty Hasselhoffness and doesnt seem to have a problem with it and is far more concerned with the fact that she is under age then the size of her jeans. None the less this triggered a bit of reflection for me cause as ridiculous as it is we’ve all probably been there right? We’ve all probably found ourselves in the middle of a makeout session and worrying about what will happen when the person we’ve had our lips attached to for the last hour feels the layer of fat that coveres our stomach. Or what will happen when our top comes off and our lover see’s a roll, or a patch of stretch marks or anything else that we think is wrong with our bodies and hide from the world.
When I was 15 I met a guy from another school. He was a football player, the kind of all American popular guy, had a killer smile, a fairly ripped bod, and basically the thought that he was God’s gift to women. He and I hit it off right away though and had a lot more in common then I ever really thought we would since I was the cute but chubby funny girl and he was Mr. Everything to Everyone. We got along great and to even my own suprise he asked me out about a week after meeting me. We went on quite a few dates and eventually became an item. We talked on the phone till all hours of the night and we spent some serious time with our tongues shoved down eachother throats in the back of movie theatres. As we got more serious you would think I would have become more secure in the relationship but I didn’t. I never wanted to meet any of his friends because I was afraid after seeing me they would give him shit and that he would realize that I wasn’t attractive enough to be dating him. I also was constantly worrying everytime his hands would roam my body that he was going to feel my fat and be disgusted and realize that I wasn’t the girl for him. Before our dates I would spend hours dressing myself to look my smallest, and thinking of how if things got hot and heavy I could somehow distract attention away from my stretch marked hips and petruding belly. It got to the point that I couldn’t even find myself enjoying the moments with him anymore, I was too busy overanalyzing any thing he could possibly be thinking in regard to my body, to my fat. Eventually I physched myself out enough that I was convinced that he was ashamed of me, that even though I was the one turning down group activites that I was somehow his dirty little secret. That I couldn’t be with someone who thought I was less than them. I ended up breaking his heart and mine with my own insecurity and ruining a relationship with a guy who never had thought one single negative thing about my body. All because I couldn’t see past my own insecurities.
I know that losing a possible love at 15 isnt that big of a deal but is something I carried with me for a long time. For years everytime I got naked with a lover for the first time I still found myself worrying what they were going to think when they find out whats was underneath the clothes. It took quite a few years to realize that anyone who was worth getting naked for would love my body just as they loved every other part of me. That women and men even those of the gym rat variety could still find an appreciation for a soft stomach, and a juicy ass. That my fat wasn’t a secret, that they knew it was there before getting my clothes off and that it hadn’t changed their opinon of me yet and wasn’t going to. I realized how ridiculous I had been and how all my insecurity had done was make me appear ridiculous. I was confident in myself fully clothed and there was no reason that my confidence needed to deminish when the clothes disappeared.
xoxo
Samantha