Ghostfruit:
specifically looking for other women to respond, but i’ll also take men if their experiences line up with what i’m asking:
i’ve gained weight pretty slowly over almost 6 years. i rapidly got chubby in a year or two, and then the rest just creeped up over time. a lot of the people in my life (friends or coworkers) have known me before and during my weight gain. because of that, i’m pretty sure that my friends have noticed that i’m no longer thin, but before quarantine i’m not sure they realized how big i’ve gotten. now i’ve not only continued to get fatter, but people haven’t seen me in four months and when they do, i notice them looking at my belly (it doesn’t help that all my shirts are too small and constantly riding up). i think they’re realizing i’m bigger than they remember.
the awkward thing is, no one has or will ever mention my weight to me. i’m a girl and i think it’s a girl thing!! friends will talk about their own weight around me, occasionally complaining about how much they’re eating and such. in the past, i wouldn’t really engage bc i was afraid it would call attention to how fat i am.
but now i’m realizing that people are finally seeing how fat i really am for the first time, and i want to kind of “come out” as knowing that i’m fat, so that i can talk about eating and food again and help my friends be more comfortable around me and my body. i think if they hear me acknowledge that i’m fat, it’ll make them more comfortable.
but i don’t know what to tell them! i don’t want to explain to anyone that this is a sexual thing. to me, it’s more than that: it’s how i’ve always wanted to look and feel, but i don’t want to explain that either.
for other girls who also got fat and didn’t know how to explain it to others, what did you end up saying?
(asking for girls bc i think with boys it’s very different! weight gain among men is much more normalized)
tl;dr: what excuse did you tell people for why you got fat?
I have a lady friend who throws it out there first and says things like, "I've decided to work on my figure... with burgers." Another lady friend would slip in comments like, "I'm just getting sexier every day" and put her hands on her hips and sashay a little.
