The last one, the most notable of them all, was last week as I was leaving work. I was dragging myself down the sidewalk in uncomfortable shoes, in uncomfortable clothes, after a very long day of sitting in front of a computer screen. I remember my back and hips feeling achy from sitting for so long. I remember thinking I was going to throw away my tired, scuffed up, too-stretched-out shoes when I got home (and I did). I remember thinking I hated what I was wearing, that I was going to put my ugly top in the Goodwill box when I got home (and I did). I was feeling ultra pissy because I couldn't believe I spent $60 on jeans that looked great in the mirror when I put them on at 7am but then stretched like bubble gum throughout the day, ending up looking like a baggy, shapeless, fucked up mess on my legs by 5pm.
And then, I spotted them: two guys in their mid-twenties standing on a balcony overlooking the street, where a minor car accident had just happened. They were watching the accident, I guessed, but I had a feeling they were going to fat-call when I walked by on the street below them.
(whisper whisper) (snickering)
Guy 1: Hey, gorgeous!
Guy 2: Owwww!
(more snickering) (sound of high five)
I chose not to say anything in return because that's technically the best defense in these situations. I've learned that if you say something back, it better be a bullseye or else you face even worse, more vicious fat-calling. Expect excessive snickering and high-fiving if you choose only to flip off, because they know they got to you. I guess that's the point of fat-calling... to get to you.
I got in my car afterwards and was stewing about it on the drive home. All of a sudden, I picture myself on the sidewalk again... "Hey, gorgeous!" I turn around and with a crazy, cartoonish happy look on my face I say, with a crazy, cartoonish and quite loud Elle Woods affect: "Oh my god, I think you're super cute too! I love the 50 extra pounds around your middle, sir, but most of all I love your friend's limp-dick ponytail! Have a nice night, byeeeeee!"
Only, I'd actually said (semi-yelled) this aloud in my car, with the moon roof open, at a stop light with many other cars and bicyclists and pedestrians too, while I was having my revenge ideation. Phew, embarrassing. And yes, I had totally profiled those dudes standing on the balcony as I was approaching them, having the gut feeling they would say something to me. I saw paunchy, stout Guy 1 standing there with a baseball cap backwards on his head (there is no surer sign of a fat-caller than the backwards baseball cap, trust me) and I saw tall Guy 2 with a long, scraggly ponytail next to him. They were no prizes themselves. They were also, I will admit, men of color.
I've been thinking over the past couple days about my potential bullseye response. Would I have been "brave" enough to actually deliver that retort with the volume and attitude required? In the vein of Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right, is it wrong to make fun of a fat-caller's fat when that's the very crime he has perpetrated on you?
I've also been thinking about how it felt to be fat-called in that particular situation. As opposed to the other calling I've gotten recently which have been variations on a theme (such as the "Oww!!" yelled from a moving car as I stand waiting on the edge of the crosswalk), this one rocked my world. It's the first time I've ever thought to myself afterwards, "Oh my god, I'm ugly." I actually think that's the normal, generalized feeling I always have after being fat-called, but I've never articulated it further and stayed with it. Naturally, I've always tried to push that thought away because it's so uncomfortable, so punishing.
I actually think in some ways that it was a good thought to stay with and feel. If you're always pushing away the uncomfortable feelings without further articulating why they are a problem for you, then it's an unresolved cycle. I'd honestly never thought through what it might mean to me to be "ugly". Fat is something I can live because I've more or less come to peace with it. Ugly is somehow far more damning than fat. Ugly is something you were born into, something you probably can't change much, and something that belies what's on the inside of you, what's in your soul.
And what a load of bullshit that is, huh? I needed to challenge my bias around "ugly" to realize how loaded that word, that notion, is. It's like what my old friend Teresa used to say about the word "weird":
Don't just call something "weird", because "weird" doesn't mean anything. "Weird" means a million things at once and yet nothing at all. Worse, "weird" is a derisive term people use to describe things they don't understand or relate to. It's the laziest word you could ever choose to use.
"Ugly" (and it's opposite, "pretty") is subjective. It's also something that gets thrown around a lot where fat people are concerned, which is a problem for me. Whether I'm ugly or not, especially to two random strangers, is here nor there in the grand scheme of things. I'm not ugly on the inside which is the most important thing of all. Those two young men saying that I'm ugly... that's pretty darn ugly, if you ask me. It's really fucked up to consciously set out to make someone feel as low as I felt in that moment and in its ensuing wake. That has always weighed heavily on my mind, having been bullied to the point of severe depression as a young person, and weighs all the more heavy on my mind now that I'm raising a child.
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