Like many if not most women, I'm insecure about my shape. My teenage preoccupations were with my feet and my teeth (I still tend to hide my smile when I can) but these days it's all about my size. Small breasts, a soft belly and a lardy bum. My weight is one of the few taboo subjects I have. I will occasionally joke about my fat arse and will often joke about my non-existent diddies but I find I can't speak to anyone about how I really feel about my looks without getting teary eyed. It's embarrassing that at 27 years of age I am still so insecure about it.
Twice recently I have raised it in a very matter-of-fact way with friends and I got the impression that both of them were shocked by what I said. The Jock and I were out carousing and she was telling me about a friend of hers that she wants to set me up with for a blind date. She reckoned we'd be a great match, I wasn't so sure. I was pretty confident that I'd like him, but terrified that he'd meet me and wonder why she had set him up with some fat bird. So I said as much. She looked appalled. The second instance was in a text I sent to GingerBeard; I was smarting from another little disappointment and his sympathetic "his loss" text message elicited an angry "why it's really not his loss" response from me (centering around the fact that I think I'm fat and maybe mental). He got angry with me, disgusted that I'd say such a thing about myself.
I paused in front of the mirror this morning as I dried myself after my shower. Let the towel fall and took a long look at myself. Not posed, not poised, just nude. Drank in the curves, the paler-than-pasty skin, flushed with the heat of the shower. Thought of all the lovers I've had who were less than perfect physical specimens but whom I've lusted after regardless and tried to see myself as a lover might see me.
Twice recently I have raised it in a very matter-of-fact way with friends and I got the impression that both of them were shocked by what I said. The Jock and I were out carousing and she was telling me about a friend of hers that she wants to set me up with for a blind date. She reckoned we'd be a great match, I wasn't so sure. I was pretty confident that I'd like him, but terrified that he'd meet me and wonder why she had set him up with some fat bird. So I said as much. She looked appalled. The second instance was in a text I sent to GingerBeard; I was smarting from another little disappointment and his sympathetic "his loss" text message elicited an angry "why it's really not his loss" response from me (centering around the fact that I think I'm fat and maybe mental). He got angry with me, disgusted that I'd say such a thing about myself.
I paused in front of the mirror this morning as I dried myself after my shower. Let the towel fall and took a long look at myself. Not posed, not poised, just nude. Drank in the curves, the paler-than-pasty skin, flushed with the heat of the shower. Thought of all the lovers I've had who were less than perfect physical specimens but whom I've lusted after regardless and tried to see myself as a lover might see me.
