You see it in the stitching or the way the logo is clipped near the zipper, and you know it’s a knock-off of a pricey must-have. It was a good impersonation, but you’re onto them now. Some people are knock-offs, too, and sometimes I worry I’m one of them.
I diet all day long to find a guy who’ll love me even if I ever get fat. That’s called fat, passing for thin, and I worry it’s just as bad as Canal Street.
There are women in this world who lipo suck and spit silicone, and I know they do it for confidence. Because no amount of tit alone makes you desirable; it’s how you wear it. I diet, and sometimes while I’m busy dieting, I somehow forget to diet. I eat fries and burgers at 2 am thinking I’ll be better the next day. Next day is full of hungover and get me an egg and cheese on a roll before I vomit again. I’m trying really hard to be the thin girl. I hate myself fat, more than I hate myself stupid.
Sometimes I put my foot in my mouth and hit replay all night, wishing I’d stayed home. More often than not, though, instead of my foot, I swallow everything else. And then I wake up with something worse than guilt: insecurity. It’s worse, even, than the fact that my jeans which were loose only a month ago now push fat out along the edges. Oh dear god, I have edges. Fuck curves; they’re edges. Lane Bryant’s marketing people are good.
That’s me, me with me fear of fat and insecurity, from a lifetime of being Moose. Save me the ‘that’s not who you are anymore’ talk. It is very much who I still am inside, regardless of my size 6 clothing. I think I’ll always be the fat girl, and you know what, that just has to be alright. While I’ve grown up into a thin woman, Moose will always be a part of who I am. And while you might be tempted to say when I realize I’ve outgrown that puffy girl, then I’ll be real, you’re wrong. Realizing that Moose is who I was, and who I will always fear being again, is who I really am. That’s real.
We’ve all got our own worries of inadequacy. “At least you have a personality and depth,” Lea says over the phone. “I mean, you can always lose weight. There are people out there devoid of passion and soul, Stephanie. And you can’t learn that. There’s no diet for it.” Yeah, but men don’t want to date passion and soul with a double chin.
Some of my girlfriends ask me to teach them to talk dirty. I laugh and apologize, “It’s not something you can really teach. You either feel it or you don’t.”
“Come on, just a little something…”
And then I share with them, in the back of a taxicab, my latest bedroom vocals.
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” Even the cab driver turns his head when I say the words “fill me.”
That’s the thing. You don’t invent it; you genuinely feel it. I even know some women who ask me when they should moan. This isn’t a theorem or periodic table with rules. You stop worrying, and start really letting yourself enjoy the moment, just as you are. I get pleasure from expressing myself, and to be honest, I’m worried. I can’t believe there are women out there who fake things. But then I look in the mirror. I’m no different; I just fake thin.
Maybe we’re all knock-offs, spending years trying to pass for the real thing. We all want to be desired and sought after, but at what price? I’ve learned my price. Bottom line, we all want someone to love us for who we really are, whether we’re conservative, soft-spoken, or timid. And in my case, loud, passionate, and sometimes fat. And we don’t become the pricey must have, the real deal, until we stop trying to knock ourselves off. We become valuable when we realize our worth just as we are.
