Question: Friends?

May 18, 2010

Question: Friends?

This was originally on Formspring — after Heidi’s post on friendship I thought might be interesting over here.

My question–are most of your friends fat or thin? Do you find “fat” to be common ground?
Not currently. Most of my local friends are average-sized. (Of course, most people are average-sized. I think it’s a math thing. :) They may be technically / clinically overweight or obese, but they’re at the size where people will tell them “Oh, you’re not fat”. I also have friends who are thin, including a few who get accused of anorexia, and friends who are fat. I’m married to someone who wears men’s 3X.

I don’t have any local friends who are bigger than me, but I have some long-distance ones who are.

I would add that I done the “find a fellow fat friend” thing, most notably in middle & high school.

I have dated people who are fat and thin, but that is skewed a bit more to the fat side – most of my lovers have been at least clinically overweight or obese.

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fat acceptance, Friends

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Living 400lbs

I blog about what it’s like to be live life at about 400lbs. :)

12 responses to “Question: Friends?”

Mikuto

May 18, 2010 at 9:28 pm

Two of my best friends are 4’11 and between 90-120 pounds, whereas many of the people I associate with on a daily basis are the same size or larger than me. As for lovers, all of them have been smaller than me, although not all of them have been average or thin.

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c

May 18, 2010 at 11:42 pm

strange that you should bring this up now..I am still reeling from an evening spent with a ‘friend’ who made several unpleasant comments about how my partner (lean, fit chap) and I (blimp) look together. He has no problems with how I look, he considers me beautiful, and thankfully he wasn’t around when these comments were made.
But now I am sad and uneasy about going out with him. What if someone makes a ‘you look like the number 10’ comment when we are together? I would die inside if he was embarrassed because of the way I am..
damn these ‘i am blunt for your own good’ friends!

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1. gregsbird
  
  May 19, 2010 at 12:26 pm
  
  Please, please don’t allow your “friend” to poison your relationship with your partner…don’t make that choice for your wonderful boyfriend. And if he were embarassed by some asshat making a comment like that, I would say that he would be embarrased for the asshat, not about you. Enjoy your partner and let him enjoy a confident you. As for your “friend”, I hope you called him/her on the carpet, and if you were too flustered to do so in the moment, you will in the future.
  
  Reply
2. living400lbs
  
  May 19, 2010 at 1:41 pm
  
  Is this something you would want to confront this “friend”/acquaintance with? Or would you rather just edge away from him and hope he doesn’t notice?
  
  One of the things I’ve gotten better over the last few years is learning how to edge away from an acquaintance (or friend) that I’ve decided isn’t really good friend material, at least, not good friend material for me. Usually it’s a combination of declining invites to do things together and being superficial and polite if we do run into each other….
  
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Patsy Nevins

May 19, 2010 at 12:46 pm

You have nothing to feel embarrassed about, & if your partner were the type to be embarrassed by you, you would have known before now. Also, if he were that kind of person, you would be better off without him. As for the ‘friend’, he/she is NO friend & NOBODY needs friends like that. If the partner loves you as you are & finds you beautiful, believe & accept it…keep the partner, lose the ‘friend’.

Most men I dated were lean to average-sized, my sons’ father ranged from average-sized to somewhat fat, but was usually around 195-205 at 5’11”. I have been very thin once 35 years ago by nearly killing myself, average but considered plump most of my teen & young adult years, & from in-betweenie to smaller midsize for the past 33 years or so. My best friend is a midsize woman, as is another good friend. I guess most of my friends have been average to in-betweenie over the years.

My current (last/forever/only true love) is a tall, well-muscled ex-athlete…the stereotypical tall, dark, & (very) handsome guy who is supposed to be every straight woman’s heart’s desire. He is a former soccer player, football player, expert water-skier, swimmer, surfer, a Florida beach boy who was always VERY popular & very successful with women from the age of 13 or so. He is also 9 1/2 years younger than I am, very able-bodied, while I was born with cerebral palsy & now have arthritis. Yet this man loves me more deeply & accepts me more completely & unconditionally than any man I have ever known in my life & he has done so for over 11 years. I will never win any beauty contests, I will certainly never be young again, &, barring some serious debilitating illness, I will never be thin. Yet I am the woman Ken loves & needs, the woman who fits with him, accepts, understands, & appreciates him more than anyone else has, loves him for himself, not for his professional success (yeah, he also has a lot more money than I do) or his social status or how great he looks on my arm, but for who HE is. I expect, c, that that is the same way YOUR partner feels about you. If he wanted a thin woman, he could HAVE a thin woman, as could Ken; his first wife was thin, upper middle class, conventionally attractive, & possessed of the social graces; she was a gourmet cook & a ‘perfect’ housekeeper & she was ten years younger than I am. REAL love (or REAL friendship) has nothing to do with size, age, or looks.

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Heidi

May 19, 2010 at 1:23 pm

My best friend growing up was fatter than I was…until my ED made ME fatter. She’s still fat, though, although we never see each other, as she lives in CA and I’m in Seattle.

I have a couple of friends from college who are fat but most of my friends tend to be slightly “overweight” to “normal”/thin. I have, perhaps unconsciously, steered away from people who were critical of my size. In fact, aside from a couple of exceptions, none of them are diet people or make me feel self-conscious about my size, even the very thin ones.

I recently made a new friend here in Seattle from the Fatosphere feed (Kataphatic) and it has been wonderful to be able to talk about FA issues with her and know that she absolutely understands my experience, and I hers, insofar as it’s possible to do so.

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Lillian

May 19, 2010 at 2:33 pm

My man is quite heavy; he’s been called ‘morbidly obese’ by doctors and hates it. He’s fat and that doesn’t mean he’s going to die soon. He’s been fat since we met 26 years ago. I’m on the borderline of overweight/obese myself; I’m one of those people that doesn’t look fat. Most of my friends are people that look fat.

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lifeonfats

May 19, 2010 at 7:15 pm

I have one good friend who is a size 22/24 and the rest are all thinner than me. When I have been hit on by guys, most of them have been really skinny.

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c

May 19, 2010 at 7:29 pm

Everyone, thank you so much. As in, seriously.
And you are right of course.
As gregsbird said, I shouldn’t allow this to sour my relationship with my partner, who deserves love without any doubts. As for the ‘friend’ , a gentle edging away seems good..
thank ye muchly

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Regina T

May 19, 2010 at 9:39 pm

I am the fattest woman in my small circle of friends. Being a superfatty (like the awesome woman who writes this blog) means most people don’t come close to being my size, which means logically that most of my friends will be closer to the “norm” than I am.

Historically, I’ve often been best friends with the most outgoing or popular of my crowd. Even as an adult, I tend to forge close friendships with people that others would not expect would be friends with me. Odd couple kind of thing. I have often wondered about that pairing myself, and chalk it up to my presentation of self confidence, endless sense of humor, and willingness to listen sincerely. Over the years I have found that sometimes those qualities are exploited and often not reciprocated.

What stuck out to me in this question is asking if “you find “fat” to be a common ground?”. Part of me would like all of my friends to be my size because I believe (probably mistakenly) that I could somehow feel more at ease with someone my size who truly understands how I feel in the world. I doubt, however, that this would be the case since no one person’s experiences are the same as the others’. There is so much diversity in the world that it doesn’t make sense that friends wouldn’t represent that diversity in your own friendships. Isn’t variety the spice of life? Just as there’s more to me than being a fatty, there’s more to friendships than what you have in common. Those commonalities may be what draws you together, but diversity is what keeps your friendship interesting.

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