So I leave work to go to a funeral one day. I get in my car and drive the two miles to get to the funeral home. I’m walking to the entrance and go in. I sign the book to let the family know I came. I go in the chapel which has very few people there. The woman who died was quite old and I feel sure any friends she had couldn’t make it or had already died. The people who attended the funeral were friends of the daughter and son. I was a friend of the daughter.
My husband was asked to be a pall bearer. He looked very dapper in his suit but being a pall bearer is not something anyone really wants to do.
I was in a somber mood because of the occasion and was thinking about what my friend, the daughter, was thinking. I thought to myself, “I’ve been there.” I lost my mother almost five years ago to cancer and it was by far the saddest time in my life.
I was sitting in the pew reflecting back on days past when a woman I know who works with my husband came in and sat down beside me. The daughter had actually worked in the same office as my husband and the woman who just sat beside me.
Do you get the gist? I was at a funeral. I was in deep thought…missing my mom. I was quietly contemplating life and death.
This woman sits down and starts talking to me. I’m not upset that she’s talking to me. We’re speaking quietly and respectfully. It’s what she talks to me about that bugged me. She says, “hey, how ya doin’?” I tell her I’m doing well and it’s good to see her and ask her how she’s doing. At that point she says, “I’m doing well. You know I’m trying the diet thing again. I’ve got to get this weight off of me. I was doing so good in 2006 when I lost all that weight.”
Ok, I’M AT A FREAKIN’ FUNERAL! Why bring this up at a funeral when I haven’t seen you in over two or three years? Is this the only thing you can think of to talk to me about?
I started thinking about this and talked to my husband about it. I told him that I felt since I was fat, people think they can talk to me about weight and diets without solicitation for such conversation. He adamantly disagreed. He said he thought people just thought I was a good listener and that’s why people talk to me about it.
I disagree with that. I have noticed throughout my lifetime that if anyone is dieting or struggling with their weight that they feel they can talk to me about it. I have a co-worker here who lost over 100 pounds in a year and the whole time he was doing it he would come down to my office and share with me all his “successes” and “failures” (which translates into his weight losses and his “bad” decisions which led to weight gain). I listened but I wondered if he wasn’t going to his thin co-workers sharing the same thing. I don’t know….maybe he did. However, I don’t believe so.
Do my looks automatically open me up for diet and weight conversations? Does the fact that I’m 280 pounds at 5′ 4″ mean I need to know all the latest diet crazes or how many calories are in the Hershey’s Kiss I’m eating? These people who talk to me about this stuff are the same ones who question me about not taking the stairs at work. I’ve politely told a few people that when my taking the stairs starts affecting their life I will consider doing otherwise. I don’t feel I owe them an explanation.
I have noticed that people who could talk to me about a million other topics will talk to me about how they’ve just joined Weight Watchers or are doing the Atkins Diet or the South Beach Diet. And some will go so far as to ask me if I want to join them. I’ve learned to politely tell them, “no thank you. Diets don’t work.” Of course, they look at me and say, “what? I don’t understand.” No, they don’t want to understand.
I guess people do think, by looking at me, that I might be able to empathize with them and their struggles. I will be the first to say that a year or more ago I would join in the discussion and bash myself for not being thinner or not having the self-control to lose weight.
I guess I just want to say that I think it’s quite short sighted of people to assume, based on what I look like, that there isn’t more to me than weight and food issues. Ask me about my family or my dog. Ask me about the weather. Talk to me about your job or ask me about mine. Give me a chance to be more than “fat” in your eyes!
~sas
Angry Gray Rainbows 
Great post! I totally agree with you. I think people make a lot of silly assumptions based on what people look like. Like when I went to France and I was talking with another American woman about the trip. Of all the amazing things we could have talked about (we were in PARIS for crying out loud) she felt the need to discuss how thin women are in Paris compared to all the fatties in the States. I happen to be thin, and so was she, so she felt it was ok to engage in this discussion. Little did she know that she was talking to a Body Acceptance blogger! Sorry to ramble…just wanted to let you know that I totally agree.
I used to get the same types of conversations until I finally started telling people I had better things to talk about than dieting and obsessing about food, that if they were happy with what they were doing, fine, but I wouldn’t be joining them and I wouldn’t be discussing it with them. Then I had to learn how to stick to my guns (easier said than done, I can tell you….lol).
I think it’s time to get one of those “Thank you for not telling me about your DIET” shirts. I think there are coffee cups too. 😉
Whenever my thin and normal weighted female coworkers get together, all I hear them talk about needing to lose weight and how they were “bad” and how some other woman lost a bunch of weight, so she must’ve been very “good”.
I wonder if responding to diet talk like (with a look of disgust and horror) “ewwww…. grossssss… you diet???” might throw these folks off and shut them up. Hehehe… might be funny to see how they react to that.
Hey Tiffabee!!! Good to see you over here!!! Love your blog! 😀
Oh. My. Gosh. Can we consider two an “audience”? Woo hoo! Thank you so much for the comments!
Tiff, silly assumptions indeed! PARIS! How wonderful. All the sights to see and she chooses to talk about thin women? Gees! She needs a reality check!
Vesta, I agree totally. I’ve got tons of things I can share with people and none of them have anything to do with weight or body size!
AGR, I love the fat t-shirts that are out there. I can’t remember which site I went to that had some and one of them said, “This is my goal weight.” hahahaha I really want to get that one!