Come out, come out, wherever you are.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m an advice column reader. I’m fascinated by people’s issues and what sort of solutions are proposed to them by both the columnist and (if the website has comments enabled, a’la Salon) readers. For better or worse, I tend strongly toward trying to solve my own issues, which…has…worked out so well? *ahem* Anyhoo, I read Carolyn Hax in the Washington Post and this particular nugget caught my eye:



Part One and then the follow-up (thank Christ for posting it the same day as I’m stumbling through trying to express my thoughts): Part Two

Read it and then come back. I’ll wait.

I’m of two minds on this particular subject, which in and of itself is quite vexing at present. On the one hand, I’m super-annoyed in general by the “oh sweet lord God you don’t mean to TELL ME…THAT SHE GAINED WEIGHT?!?!?! *trumpets of doom*” tone from both Carolyn and the letter-writer (let’s just say the letter-writer would not be a winner-winner-chicken dinner in my book with his need to emphasize just how HOT his fiancée was and the lackluster tap dance of “well, it’s not the ONLY reason…HOT!”). Carolyn’s is, of course, playing the Concern Troll. But on the flip, I’m kind of feeling the “presenting a false front” angle. I understand the irritation—NOT the primary reason he wants to jettison his fiancée, but the irritation at being hornswaggled, PLEASE NOTE in glittery text and fiery exclamation points. I swear I will get to the fatness angle eventually (you know it takes me 18 hours to arrive at a point – pack a lunch). I feel it with women who intentionally present themselves as less intelligent so as to appeal to men—a friend of mine called it her “cute and stupid” persona. I much preferred it when she’d use her far more interesting and honest “smart and wicked sense of humor and still remarkably adorable” persona (thankfully, her honest self won out when she met her husband – they’ll be celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary on Halloween). I feel it with men who gamely trail behind their wives/girlfriends at various activities or events that they’d much rather not be involved in, but feel like they “have to”. I mean, maybe I’m pie-in-the-skying, unrealistic and dumb, but if my Imaginary Boyfriend didn’t like the Cure, I’m not going to demand (either right out front or passive-aggressively) he go see the Cure with me because I’m a damn grown woman and I can go to a goddamned concert by myself. Or I can go shopping by myself. Or I can go to the movies by myself. Or any number of activities that my Imaginary Boyfriend might not be interested in, and vice-versa. To me, that’s logical and fair. In my head, I would have enough in common with my Imaginary Boyfriend (I really should give him a name one of these days) that we could unite in doing the things we both like to do and not have snitters over doing things on our own or with friends that does not include our partner. However, my learnings from the internet, advice columnists, and hearing tales from my friends who have non-Imaginary spouses/partners would tell me that there seems to be no place for my logic. Personally, I would find it weird and wrong to pretend to be interested in my Imaginary Boyfriend’s hobbies/activities if they weren’t compelling to me. If I pretended to be super into spelunking simply to attract a mate, imagine how fucked I’d be when the time came to don my helmet with the shiny light on top and receive the request to belay somebody. It would be a sad day at the cave, my friends. A very sad, tragic day.

But to get back to the OMG FAT BRIDE thing for a mo’...it’s a tough friggin’ sell in my book to screech “I didn’t get what I bargained for (i.e. my fiancée didn’t stay what I consider to be HOT)” and put on a show for sympathy, no matter how hard Carolyn's on board with his boo-hooing. When I think about whom I might marry one day and all the things that might change about him physically or personality-wise, I think finding out he bricked his pet cat into the basement wall or he had a shoebox full of heads of women that he was acquainted with and had meticulously carved out of photographs that he would then paste onto centerfolds from porn magazines and masturbated to every day* would be a much bigger dealbreaker than him putting on 40 pounds after engagement-ringing me. But the brawl between those who think it’s acceptable to lose their shit over their significant other putting on pounds and those who think that attitude makes them superficial jerks will rage for all eternity. The only thing any of us can hope is that we stay as far away from those men and women and let them impose their regulations on each other.

But then it makes me think about other shit, about men and women tiptoeing around what they look like, particularly in the online dating universe. It’s fucking nerve-wracking as hell winging up photographs of oneself on a dating profile, let alone pictures that are in focus, not taken in shadows, and not cutting oneself off at the chest line so as to minimize what one imagines being one’s worst “flaws”. I spent quite a while deciding what pictures I was going to put on my various profiles floating around the ether. The most important thing to me was being up front about my appearance, and I realized I’ve always been like that. Way way way back when, when I first got internetting, I was a weekend fixture in the X-Files chatroom on AOL (I’d say...1995-ish, perhaps). I didn’t have internet access or a PC at home, so I’d truck out to my parents’ house every weekend to “visit the parents” but mostly to bullshit with online friends about "The X-Files". A fellow took something of a shine to me and I was quite frank that I was a fat girl. The one thing I remember the most about the entire silly situation was his insisting that I was lying in order to “test” him or that I was exaggerating when I said I was built like a linebacker. It pissed me off that he was insinuating that I was trying to garner sympathy by being the sad clown fat girl or fishing for compliments somehow because I was simply being my special brand of honest. I don’t like surprises, and I don’t like surprising others (except with, say, a Hallmark card or a Tower of Treats from Harry and David). So my pictures at my dating profiles feature how my face double-chins when I smile, my semi-slouchy posture, my belly, my smallish rack. I’ve only one picture where I’m wearing make-up because I rarely wear it. I don’t want to come away with a story where I wind up meeting a guy for tea and the first thing I see is his face falling at the sight of me. I want to screen out fellows that aren’t down with my appearance. And I don’t want to bullshit someone into thinking I look like someone I’m not. I understand the fear men and women have. Christ, do I ever. We all want to appear like the most fabulous cats to ever walk the earth. But if you’re going to kick off a potential relationship with fear-based fudging, what good is that? Where’s the honesty in it? And it makes me think: what else aren’t you telling me? What else am I in for?

Look, I’m absolutely a huge proponent of the inner being more important in the long run than the outer. I would hope whatever man that might dig me would be hot for my brain and my carcass. But I’m not willing to hide myself or disguise myself because that is what we are told to do every single fucking day. All of us, not just the fats. The message is clear every single day that our basic selves, with the zits and the rolls and the receding hairlines, will not do and that we must change, change, change in order to meet that ever-elusive standard of “good”. Instead of aspiring for that mysterious good, I’d love for everyone to show themselves, and show themselves without the self-deprecating commentary (“uggh, I look terrible in that picture/it’s 50 pounds ago/I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep the night before/I’m so old”) that we’re conditioned to throw down.

Show yourselves.

(in comments, even!)


*true story...(didn't happen to me, but to someone I know)