The pot calling the kettle fat

News from the Overstated Cliche pile: Women have body issues. I'll pause while you recover from that revelation. I know, its shocking. Take all the time you need to regroup.

Sometimes we call ourselves (and each other) fat. Some of us go through life hating the fact that our thighs rub together. Fad diets and injury-inducing workouts can combat whatever "flaw" we perceive, yet sometimes all it takes is one snide comment to knock us down on our well-padded asses.

Some women overcome this, some refuse to face it. Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about and some of you have admitted defeat and resigned to a disgusting, slobbish existence.

Whatever, that's not the point. My job is not to write about a topic that hasn't been fresh since before the invention of the Thighmaster.

I'm merely setting up for, yes you guessed it, an observation. In order to set up my perspective here, let's agree that we all have issues of body-consciousness in some capacity. Today I happen to be talking about weight. Insert "love yourself and put down the Twinkie because it won't love you back" type feel-good statement here. OK now that that's done, here we go...

I've struggled with my looks and my weight for years. Luckily, I'm slowly but surely coming to a place in life where I'm comfortable with my figure. This was a huge silver lining to an otherwise glum quarterlife period. I was always considered "curvy" or at times, "thick" and was fine with it. However the older I got the less active I became and yes, it caught up to me. I was able to shed some pesky pounds and become the curvy girl once again, albeit a slightly larger version of her.

I learned to dress for my size and accentuate my curves and finally felt mature, confident and free. For the first time in a long time, I was free of obsessing about my shape, the number of calories consumed or whether or not guys would like me. As long as I could go up a flight of stairs without being winded and still do all of the things I wanted to do, I saw no reason to combat my natural shape. I was finally at peace with how I looked.

Or I was, until I met Brandon. On the surface he was a pretty good guy: funny, talkative, good job. We had plenty of mutual friends so I was fairly certain he was not a serial killer which is always good to know. But there was a problem. About 140 of them.

The guy was only 5'6" and weighed 140 pounds. At one time, 140 was my goal weight. I would've killed to weight 140. Let's just say I never reached that goal and learned to be comfortable about 25 pounds north of 140. Brandon was good looking, just kind of...diminutive. He was not scrawny, his frame held plenty of lean muscle (emphasis on the lean part) from his outdoor job and sessions at the gym. He was what I would call compact. There just wasn't much there.

And as shallow as this may sound, his thin build bothered me. A lot. And I didn't know what to do about it. If he were a serial killer I would know what to do-cut through the restraints and run like hell. Easy. But this? How should I know.

After sitting on the fence somewhere between "wow he's fun!" and "wow I might crush him if we have sex", I realized that me judging Brandon for being "too skinny" is just as bad as him not wanting to date me because I'm a little chubby. If that were the case, I'd eviscerate him publicly and privately. How dare he try to step on my new self-aware and confident attitude! Knowing this, me not accepting him for his God-given shape is the most hypocritical thing I could do.

It's one thing to accept yourself "just the way you are". It is another thing entirely to accept the fact that someone else will do the same. When he would make a flirty comment or compliment me, I just rolled my eyes and shrugged it off. He must have a big girl fantasy, or something like that. Whoa. Did this judgement that I passed on Brandon mean that I wasn't as comfortable with myself as I thought? It's like I was constantly telling myself, "No No No he's fit you can't have him you're too big he's too good for you..." That peek into my subconscious scared me a bit. I had more to learn about body confidence than I thought.

Sadly, Brandon and I didn't click for other reasons. We're still friendly but not dating. That's OK with me though, because he taught me something and I don't think he even realizes it: I like the way I look, and the right guy will too. Size does not determine if I'm "good enough" for him. I feel like I should thank Brandon for this realization. Would a cheeseburger and large milkshake be inappropriate?