I’m not a girl. I’m a fat girl.

And really, it’s not the same thing.

Almost every thing in my day is linked to being fat. If someone looks at me, I think they’re looking at my paunch. If a guy friend calls to hang out with me, it’s ‘coz I think he wants me to call my hot friend, so he can hang out with her.

Sometimes I even think I would do better at work if I was thinner.

Tonight I went out with two very close friends – a girl and a guy – and we had a really good time, with lots of laughs and free shots. Then, somewhere during the night, the two of them spent 5 whole minutes discussing their mutual attraction for each other. It made me feel completely left out, and also a bit sad. Why wasn’t I the one being flattered with confessions of attraction?

And the most haunting question was, as long as I’m fat, will I ever be?

Say cheese. Kill me please.

There was a time I had over a 100 albums on Facebook. Recently, I went through them all and cringed every time I saw something I had thought fit to let pass at that point. Photos where my double chin was high-lighted. Photos where my stomach curved into two tires, both captured in gruesome detail by the all-powerful flash. Photos where every other person with me looked gorgeous, and I stood out like the sore thumb. Or basically the fat girl.

So a girl who once loved photos of her and her friends, now hides from the camera. I’ve devised ways to look semi-decent in my photos. Here are some of them:

1. Hide behind a friend and sort of peek out from his/her shoulder.

2. Hold the camera upwards at an angle, and then look up at it. (Warning: this doesn’t really work when you ask a third person standing far away to take the picture.)

3. Always stand at the end in a group picture, so you can crop out your body and arms if need be.

4. Always carry your own camera for events and insist on taking all the photographs, so you have complete power to crop/not include unflattering photos of yourself.

5. Dim light always looks better, as double-chins are sort of hidden in shadows.

If you have any more tips, I’d be happy to add them! Don’t say lose weight though! I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands.

I hate shopping.

Trial rooms.Are they built to make you look fatter? Are the mirrors engineered to make you feel disgusted with yourself? Your eyes suddenly look more sunken in, with shadows and fine lines around them. Every spot and blemish on your face is highlighted. And your bulges! Your stomach and double chin and arms…one by one you examine them in horror.

Of course the clothes you’ve brought in never fit. Even the XXL you were convinced would be too ‘loose’. Pant and skirt buttons never shut and jeans? If they make it up your thighs it’s a hallelujah moment!

Often you’ll be confronted with tops that don’t even fit one arm. And if you do somehow manage to pull one over your head and over the mountains called your bosom, the way your stomach bulges in it, will make you want to retch.

And then you turn around and look at that trial room mirror. And you feel like your life has no purpose. Maybe it’s the grotesque lighting. No it’s just you.

Wonder of wonders, if you do manage to find a top that hangs flatteringly, covering your large stomach (probably from the maternity section) you will definitely want to pick it up in every colour possible. Who knows, this moment may never come again.

I’m trying!!!

Look, it’s not as if I’ve never tried to tackle my weight. 5 gyms, 1 aerobics class, 1 yoga class, 1 mini gym at home, 3 weightloss DVDs, 1 Feng shui consultation, 1 Kerala ayurvedic stomach balm, 2 dieticians and 4 ‘how to lose weight’ books later, all I’ve lost is hope. The weighing scale never seems to be on the right side of 70 kgs. Even weight fluctuations are a thing of the past. And all I hear from people is how I can’t waste my life away – especially my 20s away, being fat.

Also, there’s the eternal elephant in the room. The big FAT elephant. Sitting there silently during every conversation I have with almost every family member or friend regarding my love life. At this weight, how am I ever gonna find a guy???
Would I be attracted to a fat guy, everyone asks.

Sadly, my answer is always, ‘no’.

The one wrong thing

Okay, my life is really not as bad as I’m making it out to be. I may be fat, but I’m also very popular and have been told by practically everyone I’ve encountered through life, be it my mother or a colleague I’ve met in the ladies loo that I have a gorgeous face and “if i could just lose 10 kgs, I don’t know how gorgeous I would be!” Oh well…

But somehow somewhere, no matter how happy I am, no matter how many guys are showing interest in me, no matter how many plans I have lined up for Friday night, there hangs my fatness. Like a sword over my head. Like a constant drone in the background…’you’re fat you’re fat you’re fat’…. *sigh* something must be done.

Boys…and fat girls

He passed me in the corridor. His eyes looked through me as usual. Somewhere half an inch above my head.I stole my usual glance at him. I don’t know if he notices me or not, I can’t tell. Then, as I do with most other things in life, I tell myself, why would a guy who looked like him – all attitude and ease and curly hair – go for a round human being, albeit with a cute face, but round nonetheless.

I think of all the guys who have liked me in the past, and how my standard HAS to raise. Then I think my standard will only raise when I lose weight. Even when a guy does look my way, I always think self-deprecatingly, why on earth would he be interested in me? I’m fat!

Of course, when I go out with friends, and guys give our group attention, I’m automatically assuming that the attention is for the other girls in the group. And not me. Never me. Boys always like my friends. Never me.

I plod on through the rest of my day, listlessly exercising in my head, going through how I would work out to lose that double chin and round paunch. One day…