would you tell me if I gained weight? no, because i love you
24 February 2020
Written by Jada Harris
No, because when I look at you I don’t see someone who has or hasn’t gained weight, I see my friend who sends me memes on instagram. I see my friend who wears a lot of pink and doesn’t like it when I sleep-in past noon. Not to say that I don’t see you in the physical sense, I see you when you braid your hair or when you wear a good outfit, but in my mind when I see you I see an amalgamation of all our experiences together, I don’t see you as a body with or without weight. I think because that's not how I would want anyone to see me. The people who are important, they exist to me in all of their personhood, not as something that is tall or short or thin or fat.
I would never want someone to comment on my weight even with the best, most innocent of intentions. I would never want someone that I care about to imply that my body is better or worse a certain way, that I should or shouldn’t change the way that I look, as if our relationship hinges on how well I can fit into the beauty standard. As if I don’t deserve to be loved at my ugliest, most hideous state, whatever that might look like.
Because I would never do that to you. Because I thought we were better than that. Because we go on and on about how we’re looking for a genuine guy to date who wouldn’t trade us in for someone blonder and thinner the second they get a chance. Friendships are supposed to be deeper than that, especially among women who are already being crushed under unrealistic expectations, I thought we could learn to be above this. The slightest implication from my family or my coworkers or a guy or my phone sends me in a self deprecating spiral, a real one, the kind that ends in symptoms that can only be qualified as disordered and I would never want someone in my life who isn’t conscious of that or doesn’t think about the harm that their words can cause.
I don’t care what your legs look like or your arms or your abs or your shoulders. Genuinely do not care. Caring about how thin you are is deeply rooted in a misogynistic system that would rather you spend your time looking into the mirror than learning about the world. And believing that everyone should live in a thin, toned body is also deeply classist because the 1% create beauty standards based on whatever is most difficult for the other 99% of us to obtain, which is also always changing and unreachable on purpose. And it’s also inherently racist to think that specific bodies are better than others because some of us are simply not built that way and genetically we never will be. And most of all– it’s exhausting.
Don’t you think we deserve to be happy despite that? Do you think that people without abs or perfect skin or straight hair don’t deserve to live long happy lives anyway? Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place where our bodies aren’t constantly being picked apart and judged, where our physical form isn’t a reflection of who we are? And you’re actively campaigning against that future by picking apart your body in front of me. If you want to surround yourself with the kind of people who would police you then by all means, but I’ve never seen you that way and I never will.
As long as you know me I’ll never advocate for botox or liposuction or facelifts. It’s taken me a long time to learn that I am more than just a body, even if I don’t always feel like that, even if I have to write it to convince myself.
