I spoke with a dear friend of mine this evening whom I haven’t seen in over four years. I was overjoyed to find out she was flying into the Country and that I would be able to see her and spend some time with her during her brief visit.
In the middle of the conversation, seemingly out of nowhere, my friend said to me, “I know you are critical of overweight people, so I want you to know, before you see me, that I have gained a lot of weight since you last saw me. My friend used to be a highly photographed cover model, and so gaining weight, for her, I assumed, was something that was hard for her to accept and thought for a moment that she was projecting her issue with the weight gain onto me.
After a brief reflection, that thought no longer rang true for me, and I was baffled by her statement. I, myself, have struggled with my weight my whole life, and have been personally very sensitive to it. So, of all things, I am ultra sympathetic to people who struggle with weight issues or body image. I also have been committed for quite some time to strive to judge less and less anyone else’s issues, and instead focusing on my own, more and more.
I was at once feeling sorry for my friend that she felt so insecure about herself and our friendship, that she felt the need to warn me of her weight and at the same time for thinking that of me.
I didn’t want to let this go without getting to the bottom of it, so I asked my friend, why she thought I would judge her because of her weight, and her answer surprised me. She told me that she was present one evening, eight or so years ago when I, in her words, was harsh on a” poor woman” and told her she was too overweight. Her answer surprised me, because I knew the exact incident she was referring to, and all these years, I thought she had been on my side of that unfortunate event.
In fact, I have recounted that incident, leaving out the name of the young lady, “poor woman,” in question, and have said that I learned many lessons from the incident, but I have always said, that I was fortunate to have had a woman there with me to have watched it all go down and back me up on the fact that I technically, did nothing wrong.
And here was my friend, all these years later, who was there at the scene, tell me I was in essence, wrong for what I did, when all the while thinking she sympathized with me and felt for the position in which I was backed into.
I felt the need to refresh my friend’s memory, or to tell her the story as I experienced it and remembered it. After all, though she was present that evening, she may not have been paying attention. There was lots going on, and I will explain.
Here are the facts leading up to my purported harsh comments about a “poor woman’s weight. My friend and I had gone to the theater to see a performance of another friend of mine, the “poor woman.” This young lady was a singer and was doing very well in her career. In fact, the theater sat 2,000 people, and was filled that night. My friend and had seats in either the front row or the second row, I don’t recall exactly. The young lady’s performance was very good and I enjoyed her and the show and consequently, went backstage immediately after the show to congratulate her with glowing praise.
This young lady used to be heavier and she was proud of the way she looked and she indeed did look very nice. So, when she asked me how I thought she looked, I told her exactly that, that she looked very nice. Moments later she asked me how I liked her outfit, and I told her that I liked it. She then asked me if I thought the skirt looked good, and I told her that I thought it all looked good, and as far as I was concerned, was done with the conversation.
Now, any man reading this blog post who has had a wife or a girlfriend ask him these questions is cringing about now, to be sure. To set all my male readers’ minds at ease, I say, rest assured, I know what you’re thinking and I was thinking that during the “interrogation,” so I knew all the right things to say, and I said them. Besides, she really did look good and I was proud of her for feeling good and having worked so hard to get her body to the place that it was.
However, I will say this. As you may recall, I was sitting in the first or second row. Being that it was such a big theater, I wasn’t the only one with such an upfront view of her standing and walking around on the raised theater stage. Now, though my friend, the performer had lost much weight, she wasn’t skinny, by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, as far as I was concerned, I though she looked great.
Well, than being said, you know how when you feel a little thinner you think you can wear some of the things you haven’t been able to wear, even though they don’t quite fit? I have had that experience one too many times myself, and again, I sympathize with all who have.
So, maybe because she was so much thinner, and maybe because she felt so much sexier than she had felt in the recent past, she felt comfortable in, or chose to wear a short, short skirt.
I don’t know about the people in the back, but my friend sitting next to me and I, and all the people in the first few rows, could see up her skirt. Now, how do I say this? Though some might think this sexy, I was distracted by watching her fairly thick legs rubbing up against each other and sticking… the whole performance. And that’s probably more than I need to say, you get the picture.
So, as a performer, I am sympathetic to other performers, especially when it comes to how we look on stage and on putting our best foot forward, no pun intended. So, here is where it gets sticky, again, no pun intended, or maybe just a little bit intended. My friend the performer continued to interrogate me about her outfit and the way she looked. And though I was stuck to what I knew to be true about women, she was relentless. And then she said the words that I recall sounding something like this, “I’m wondering if I should be wearing this outfit for the next few shows or not and I really want your opinion.”
I should have just walked away. But instead, I really thought she was asking my advice. And thinking about her performing for thousands more people, and having the first few rows of people look up her skirt and be mesmerized by her thighs instead of by her beautiful voice made me feel like it was my duty as a friend and fellow performer to tell her what I thought might help her.
In my mind, to my recollection, I said something like this, “Well, if you are asking me because you are wondering what looks the best on stage, you might want to consider wearing something that is not as short.”
That was it, that was all I said. This is what made my friend think all these years that I was harsh on that “poor woman.” Maybe that was all she heard me say. In fat, maybe everyone backstage heard me say it. It was as if time stopped and a yet another man fell for the oldest question in the book, “Does this skirt make me look fat?” Argh!
I truly thought I was doing her and her adoring public a service and saving her from any possible embarrassment or rather any more embarrassment, as I saw it then.
What happened next only made it worse. I tried to explain myself, to speak “rationally” about it. Of course, this just caused me to dig a bigger hole for myself. I don’t even remember what it was that I said. I think my right mind stepped out of my wrong brain and walked away leaving me there to babble.
And when I was done telling my friend on the phone the whole story, she said, “Oh yeah, I had forgotten about our view from the audience. But I’m not a performer, so don’t be harsh when you see me!”