disappointedFinally when no one sat on the other side of these people they moved over one seat. Then I felt ambivalent--relieved and yet even more self conscious that I'd just been shunned like Typhoid Mary or something.
Fortunately the show was wonderful and took my mind off them for long periods of time. It was just a pointed reminder of the loads of shit we fat people take in this society. A milder manifestation than some others I've faced, to be sure.
There was the Pink Floyd concert where my son informed me that the woman sitting next to me there was actually making faces behind my back whenever I turned away. We switched seats so I didn't have to sit by her any more. I had been so careful to not infringe on her space, too.
Once there was an elderly couple, they were pointing and making gestures towards my back at the mall; my daughter turned at just the right moment to see them. Weren't they old enough to know better? A carload of teenagers yelling "you're fat" out their window while driving by, a carload of men leaning out to ask my bra size, a man grabbing his dick and asking if I'm hungry, Jay Leno's constant anti-fat crusade ruining his show for me...what compels these people, I wonder? I just don't understand. Do they all think we totally lack feelings? We're just big, fuzzy punching bags to dump all their anxieties into?
Maybe they are trying to shame us thin. Well, if that worked there wouldn't be a fat person in all of America. We couldn't possibly have had any more shame heaped on us.
I just keep hoping that people America will get over their fat hatred and see us as human beings. Is that really too much to ask?
