I was accused of having an eating disorder tonight. . . . she said, "Are you eating? You look thin." . . . .My London friend said, "But your face looks thinner, too." Then she turned to the guy I was talking to (who happens to be my crush) and said, "Make sure she's eating!"
Great. Now my crush thinks I'm anorexic. Just what I wanted.
Oh, dear. That's no fun at all. I've never personally had that problem, yet my good friend/ex-coworker/ex-fellow grad student, Korri, has the same problem. She's very thin, and so people are constantly trying to get her to confess to being anorexic. It's definitely frustrating for her.
Anyway, we had the opposite experience growing up. She'd be teased for being so waif-like and I'd be teased for being whale-like. :-/ Ah, kids can be such jerks to each other.
The thing is, her rail-thin physique runs in the family. Most of her siblings and a bunch of relatives are tall and thin, too. Besides, Korri has such a sweet tooth that even Willie Wonka himself would be in awe!
Also, she has a normal diet and doesn't exercise all that much. Yet there she is, extremely petite, no matter what she eats. Ah, if only I had such a metabolism.
But, nope, I had to work dang hard to lose the weight I've lost in the past year. (90 pounds!!
). Still, I sympathize with anyone who has the opposite problem. Food and the act of eating are such complex signifiers of so many different aspects of our culture--both positive and negative. I actually wrote my master's thesis about food. Okay, it's a little more complex than that, of course. I guess I might as well give my title: Along a Postmodern "Food Trajectory": Cornucopia and Corporeal Corporia in Roth's
American Pastoral and Rosen's
Eve's Apple").
Shameless plug: This fascinating, lively master's thesis is available now at the HBLL! Don't delay, check it out today! Then when I come home to UT for the holidays, I'll get the blessed thrill of seeing that my thesis was actually checked out by someone! Anyway... here's hoping that the guy you're interested in won't take that girl's comments seriously!