My resistance, invisible?
I came home (Quebec City) for the holidays last week. I have been gone for over 3 months so seeing all the wonderful people in my life is pretty awesome.
On thursday, I went out with friends to our favorite dancefloor, Le Drague, a club we go regularly when I am in town. We love to dance and be lavishly glamourous, ya dig? ;)
Having a smoke outside with my best bud Alex, we stumble upon a friend of his partner, a guy we both met several times before. His conversation lead on how he is thankful because on his facebook picture he is 24 and he’s 32 now and people don’t see a difference. Then he turn to me. He can’t believe his eyes on how I “melted.” I was not bad looking before but, now “WOW”.
I don’t thank him, I have that look on my face when a conversation is annoying to me.
But he keeps going. “You must be so happy now that you’ve reached your goal.”
He assumed this was a goal of me.
He assumed I did not like myself when being fat.
He assumed I wanted to lose weight when I was fat.
He assumed he had a right to tell me anything about my body.
He assumed he was paying me a great compliment and was surprised I did not say thanks. Instead, I told him how uncomfortable this whole conversation made me feel. How I don’t ever want people to assume anything about my body, even when it changes. And how I don’t want people to touch my waist and belly. And how I would rather him not assuming things about me in the future, reminding him that we don’t know each other very much.
I turn around to go have a smoke with that super cute butch I just met.
Je suis plus que ce que tu vois.
A similar encounter happened with a good friend on monday. “Don’t tell me this is not a compliment” she said. Well, no I don’t see it as a compliment. “How can you just assume all this you are saying…” This brings a lot of frustration in me.
Frustration because very few people take me seriously now when I talk about body acceptance. I am also frustrated because this weight loss has been something hard to deal with for me. I miss it sometimes, I feel like an imposter. And this, not a lot of people in my life understands. Thanks to a close friend, Julia.
Tomorrow night, I am going to celebrate at my Grand Maman’s. Similar things will probably happen. I will write more about how I feel in the next days. It is all in my journal in front of me, I just need a little more time.
my incredible friend annemarie
