This afternoon, while coming home from coffee with a friend, I decided to stop for an ice cream bar. Now, I rarely eat ice cream unless it's something special, like handmade gelato, because it makes me sick very fast (meaning I get little mileage out of it) and I don't actually like it enough to suffer for it most days, so I haven't had a mass-produced ice cream in probably ten months, maybe a year. But today was the first really warm sunny day since I've been back in the UK, and I've had an inordinately stressful couple of months (for reasons that, if you can believe it of me, are too personal to explain), and I was wearing a cute sundress and felt like having an ice cream bar. So I bought a Magnum in the little shop at the end of my road and proceeded to eat it on my way home.
Not two bites in, I passed a middle-aged man, fiddling with something homewares-related on his front stoop, his pit bull watching nearby. He looked up and caught my eye as I went past, and I smiled at him – it's sunny, I'm friendly, and he's a neighbor. He said something to me in a thick East End accent as I walked by, and I did what I usually do when I don't quite catch what someone's said right away and he sounds like he's being jocular: smile, nod, and laughingly agree. And then, as I rounded the corner, I realized what he'd said: That's a lifetime on the 'ips – you know that, don'tcha?
I immediately thought of a laughing, self-deprecating, water-off-a-duck's-back retort: "oh, my hips can handle it!" But then, as the unnecessary dickishness of his comment sank in and the blood began to rise to my frozen-smile-plastered face, I came up with more confident responses:
I went on like that, thinking up insufficient retorts and even hesitating a few times, considering going back and defending myself, telling him how I'd skipped lunch so actually I was well within my calorie range for the day so far – and then I realized that no response, whether defensive, self-deprecating, or righteously indignant, would have made the comment okay. Even if he wasn't saying I'm fat (which, to be fair, he might not have been; I've actually lost a bit of weight due to stress and had to belt my sundress to keep it up this morning), what right does he have to comment on my eating habits in the ten seconds in which he's seen them? And more importantly, would he have said the same thing to a young man, even an obese one, who passed him eating something unhealthy? Do we think he admonishes the boys who walk past his door munching from McDonald's bags every day?
I bet he didn't even think about it, just saw a chance to make a snide remark and took it, but I'm still unsettled by his casual (and completely ignorant) observation about my lifestyle. Our culture has made everyone, men and women both, feel comfortable judging everyone else, but the bulk of judgment falls on women. Everywhere we look, we see women's worth and their looks (especially weight) inextricably entwined, and I think we've become so used to seeing the world make judgments and comments about women's eating habits and exercise routines and whether they measure up that we all feel we have a right to our own say. But we don't. That guy had no right to tell me my business about what I was eating, to make me feel ashamed of having an ice cream bar on a hot day, just as I would have had no right to tell him he should have brushed his teeth more as a child and stopped smoking cigarettes much earlier in life.
Really, if everybody would just mind his or her own business and focus more on his or her own life than the perceived lifestyles of others, the world would be a much more civil place. I recognize that's unlikely, though – we love to feel superior to others and judging them without getting the facts is a great shortcut to that feeling. For now, though, what I can do is be ready with a barb the next time I pass his house, just in case, and keep reminding myself that nobody has the right to comment on my eating habits but myself and those closest to me, people who actually see me eating on a regular basis. Anybody else is just a mangy old douchebag who should spend more time picking up his dog's shit off the street and less time talking about other people's choices.
But that's none of my business, which is exactly why I keep my opinions to myself. Mostly...
Not two bites in, I passed a middle-aged man, fiddling with something homewares-related on his front stoop, his pit bull watching nearby. He looked up and caught my eye as I went past, and I smiled at him – it's sunny, I'm friendly, and he's a neighbor. He said something to me in a thick East End accent as I walked by, and I did what I usually do when I don't quite catch what someone's said right away and he sounds like he's being jocular: smile, nod, and laughingly agree. And then, as I rounded the corner, I realized what he'd said: That's a lifetime on the 'ips – you know that, don'tcha?
I immediately thought of a laughing, self-deprecating, water-off-a-duck's-back retort: "oh, my hips can handle it!" But then, as the unnecessary dickishness of his comment sank in and the blood began to rise to my frozen-smile-plastered face, I came up with more confident responses:
And it's totally worth it! (it wasn't – Magnums are really just too blandly sweet for me and I barely made it through half before I chucked it)
Good thing my man likes my wide hips, then! (insufferable flash of the big diamond on my left hand)
You would know, wouldn't you? (knowing nod to his hefty beer belly)
No I don't know that – in fact I'm pretty sure I could shake this one off my hips in about an hour with some hard cardio.
I went on like that, thinking up insufficient retorts and even hesitating a few times, considering going back and defending myself, telling him how I'd skipped lunch so actually I was well within my calorie range for the day so far – and then I realized that no response, whether defensive, self-deprecating, or righteously indignant, would have made the comment okay. Even if he wasn't saying I'm fat (which, to be fair, he might not have been; I've actually lost a bit of weight due to stress and had to belt my sundress to keep it up this morning), what right does he have to comment on my eating habits in the ten seconds in which he's seen them? And more importantly, would he have said the same thing to a young man, even an obese one, who passed him eating something unhealthy? Do we think he admonishes the boys who walk past his door munching from McDonald's bags every day?
I bet he didn't even think about it, just saw a chance to make a snide remark and took it, but I'm still unsettled by his casual (and completely ignorant) observation about my lifestyle. Our culture has made everyone, men and women both, feel comfortable judging everyone else, but the bulk of judgment falls on women. Everywhere we look, we see women's worth and their looks (especially weight) inextricably entwined, and I think we've become so used to seeing the world make judgments and comments about women's eating habits and exercise routines and whether they measure up that we all feel we have a right to our own say. But we don't. That guy had no right to tell me my business about what I was eating, to make me feel ashamed of having an ice cream bar on a hot day, just as I would have had no right to tell him he should have brushed his teeth more as a child and stopped smoking cigarettes much earlier in life.
Really, if everybody would just mind his or her own business and focus more on his or her own life than the perceived lifestyles of others, the world would be a much more civil place. I recognize that's unlikely, though – we love to feel superior to others and judging them without getting the facts is a great shortcut to that feeling. For now, though, what I can do is be ready with a barb the next time I pass his house, just in case, and keep reminding myself that nobody has the right to comment on my eating habits but myself and those closest to me, people who actually see me eating on a regular basis. Anybody else is just a mangy old douchebag who should spend more time picking up his dog's shit off the street and less time talking about other people's choices.
But that's none of my business, which is exactly why I keep my opinions to myself. Mostly...
Comments