“But you have such a pretty face…”

I’ve always been the chunkiest girl in my circle of friends — the fat one, if you will. My friends are amazingly beautiful, inside and out, and I know that they’ve never thought of me as their fat friend, but that’s how I felt for a long time (and, to an extent, still feel). It doesn’t help that I’m fairly tall (over 5’9″) while most of my friends are a petite 5’2″ or 5’3″. My fellow Amazonian women, you know how it is.

When I was single, I would always try to blend into the background, no matter where I was. I mean, no guy would possibly hit on the fat one, right? (If my self-esteem issues have not yet become apparent, then you really need to re-read my blog posts.) Happily, I discovered that many men actually looked past my weight (shocker!) and got to know me as an actual person. That, and they liked my ghetto boo-tay.

While I am still insecure about my weight, I don’t let it bother me as much. I am now confident enough to recognize my own skills and strengths (self-control not being one of them, natch) and realize that my weight doesn’t measure my worth as a person. You know, love thyself and all that jazz.

Despite that, I still absolutely loathe the statement: “But you have such a pretty face…” when someone tries to comfort me when I’m having an all-too-familiar fat day. To me, that statement comes across as: “What a waste. Any semblance of attractiveness is completely overpowered by the fatty rolls on your back and your inability to stop porking out on chips.” I may be reading too much into that, and I’m sure a lot of people have said it with good intentions, but, as a fat girl, I feel like poop every time I hear it. It’s taken me long enough to reach this level of self-acceptance as it is!

Maybe that sounds harsh, and like I said, I’m sure that most people don’t mean it as a backhanded compliment. But the statement still stings, a glaring reminder of my (formerly) always-increasing weight. At the risk of sounding incredibly superficial, I hope that one day, my weight isn’t the focal point of my appearance. What do you think?