A Journal of My Mid-Life Crisis

20 September 1998 - Matters of Appearance

I once told someone that I was determined that my journal would be the first online journal by a woman that did not mention the subject of weight at all. But what went on this week is worth talking about even as it touches on that subject.

During the course of my travels I have been considerably more active physically than I tend to be at home. Which means, as usually happens when I travel, that I've lost weight. The difference between this and normal vacations is that I've been traveling long enough that the weight loss is significant and noticeable (on the order of 35 pounds or 2-3 dress sizes).

Now, I am not going to go off and talk about how this is a wonderful thing or say it means anything beyond a physical effect. I still think it is thoroughly ridiculous that people generalize about how much other people should weigh and I still find it especially annoying when people attach moral values to thinness or lack thereof. There are some positive health aspects to it in my case (my period being much more regular, for example). But I recognize that this may not be an issue for everyone. Besides which, it's not like I am anywhere near being thin, a state I have only once ever approached at the age of 15 when I was particularly obsessively dieting one summer. But it is noticeable. And, what brings me to what I wanted to say, it was very noticeable to Robert. Who brought the subject up.

It is not easy to be angry with a man when he is telling you that he thinks you are very beautiful. It is not easy to be angry with a man when he tells you that he's always found you incredibly sexy. It is damn hard to be angry with a man who continually tells you how amazing you are. But I am still angry with Robert.

I'm not angry with him for mentioning the weight loss, per se. He's never shown any lack of enthusiasm for my body, even when I was at my heaviest a few years ago. And it's not like he even suggested anything along the lines of it affecting his feelings for me. So why am I angry? Because he waited until we were in bed the very last night I was in London before talking about this. I know he was hesitant because he knows it's a sensitive subject - it can hardly not be a sensitive subject for any American woman of my generation, raised on Twiggy and Barbie dolls. But he could have just straightforwardly complimented me on how good I looked in general, instead of stumbling around saying things like "of course, I think about your weight all the time." There's no "of course" about it, damn it!

What gets me more is that I then found myself annoyed at my mother because she didn't say a word about my weight loss. And (as I predicted) she managed to comment on my need for a haircut. (And to snipe at me for not wearing a bra, though she assumed I was wearing a "natural" one, rather than not wearing any.)

What I want is, of course, to have it all - to be acknowledged as gorgeous and to not have anyone care about my appearance. Let's not mind any inherent contradictions there!

On an entirely different subject, I spent a few days in Boston. It was good to be somewhere where people understood my feelings about the Red Sox (who may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, sigh). But I was somewhat uncomfortable about Ron. It's increasingly obvious that he is probably interested in being more than "just friends" and, frankly, I am not interested in him for a lot of reasons. My not finding him physically attractive is a minor point - generally, I often find someone more attractive as I get to know them. (Robert was devastatingly handsome from the start, but that's a rare exception.) But coupled with my not liking his voice (okay, that is also superficial but my auditory sense is decidedly dominant over the visual and kinesthetic) and his extreme politics ... it's definitely an LJBF (Let's Just Be Friends) situation. Which I feel vaguely guilty about, which is why I was uncomfortable. Actually, one of the reasons I am not interested in him does remind me of one of the things I initially found so appealing about Robert. Ron kept asking me over and over about things I was sure I had already told him. While Robert initially remembered all sorts of trivia that had come up in passing conversation (e.g. that my grandfather was a watchmaker). It may be general attentiveness or just good memory but it made me feel like he was particularly interested in me. Definitely a nice trait.

Here I am, both complaining about and praising Robert in the same entry. Some things never change, sigh.