Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's a compliment or an insult.
I was at work yesterday when someone came in to pick up a prize, saw me standing in the front entrance to the station, and said (quoting directly), “You look too skinny”. Now, admittedly, I was wearing an athletic fit shirt (one that’s not baggy on a person), but I really don’t think I looked too skinny. I just think I looked....normal.
I wrote in here a couple of months ago about how I’m having to buy size small men’s clothing these days. I used to wear a lot of mediums and even a few larges, but while my body shape & size hasn’t changed over the years, the way clothes are put together (& labeled) sure has. And now, I guess, I look “too skinny”, a comment that both Loraine and I hear a lot
First of all, yes, I am small boned. I inherited that from my grandfather, and even almost three decades of lifting weights hasn’t added much to my skeleton. That’s just the way I am. But at 5 feet 10 and a half inches and 160 pounds, I am within two pounds of being at the ideal weight for someone with my frame. I’m not “too skinny”.
It must’ve been the clothing.
8-)
In case you couldn’t tell, I guess I’m a little sensitive about my body shape and my size. I don’t know why; I was born this way, and you’d think I’d be used to it by now. But believe it or not, there are just a few days when I feel. . .strange because I’m not carrying around a lot of extra muscle or a lot of extra weight.
I guess being “normal” isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be, right?
It’s funny; you look at movies from the 40s or the 50s, and everyone had the body shape that I have these days. Back then, it was normal. But these days, standards have changed so much that when you see someone shaped like me, it apparently causes people to blurt out things like “you look too skinny”. I mean, in some ways, I know it’s a compliment, and because I exercise a lot to make sure I stay at my ideal weight, I take it as such. But on the other hand, most people wouldn’t go up to someone they see and say “you look too fat”, would they?
At least, I hope they wouldn’t.
And that may point out a bigger problem, especially in the U.S. these days. What does it say about us as a nation that “skinny” is a rarity to be remarked upon, and someone who’s not “skinny” is just the common, everyday norm? I read something a few weeks ago that said by 2030 over half of all Americans will be clinically obese, which means they’re somewhere north of 40 pounds over the ideal weight for their body frame. If I’m “too skinny” now, what will I be like then?
The mind reels at that one.
Now that I’ve gotten all this off of my chest, I feel better, and I guess I’ll take the remark from yesterday as a compliment, which is the way I’m sure it was meant. It’s just one of those things that makes you wonder, you know?
On that note, have yourself a great weekend!
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