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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think I wasn't rude?

137 replies

Sister77 · 11/10/2013 17:04

I was out with some friends last night and the air con was in full blast, I was freezing so I put my jacket on. 2 of my friends who were a bit tipsy started laughing and said yeah we were wondering when you'd complain of cold (hadn't said anything just put my cost on). 1 said its cus you're a skinny Beatch. So I replied in the same "laughing" manner that neither of you will ever have that problem (and may have uttered fat cows).
Well it all went very quiet and one said well that was really rude! So I said why is it ok for you to comment on my weight but not the other way round?
I have health problems which mean I find it difficult to put weight on these people don't know that and to be honest they've got gorgeous figures and are pretty with the best skin ever to boot.
It's just I'm sick of people taking the piss. I may be thin but sometimes I look gaunt and ugly (actually I usually look like this).
It was then sort of swept over and they seemed ok when we left but wibu to be so rude?
They've all been told how I hate being so thin but they still carry on!

OP posts:

Nusatenggara · 11/10/2013 21:25

I hate the terms skinny and thin and think that they are insulting terms whereas slim is complimentary.

As a involuntary 'skinny' person I too get exasperated and upset when people comment on my thinness and if you pull them up on it they pretend it was a compliment. Rubbish it was, you can always tell when someone is paying you a backhanded compliment and when people tell me I need some meat on my bones, ask me if I'm anorexic or accuse me of not eating they are bloody well not paying me a compliment in any language.

How is that any less upsetting that being called a fat cow in anyone's world??? I honestly hate it and find it so upsetting and yet you have to smile and pretend that you don't care?!

Sorry always get to me these particular threads and I'm in my 40's now so should be used to it .

OP I like your friend's text though, she has obviously thought it through and realises that she has hit a raw nerve.

peasandlove · 11/10/2013 21:27

I was very thin growing up and I had a friend who'd make comments in such a way they'd never be taken as a compliment "oh you're so thin" (lip curled into a sneer), "look how long your leg is" said in a way to make me feel there was something wrong with that.. etc etc. Both parties were rude, but I agree, society dictates you're allowed to criticize skinnies but never fatties.

FrauRumpelpumpel · 11/10/2013 21:28

ok maybe you don't realise that. For me skinny and slim are interchangeable. I am neither, if that isn't obvious.

Nusatenggara · 11/10/2013 21:28

FrauRumplepumpel, take it from me it is very upsetting. Most people want to be slim not skinny or thin and that includes me.

They may not look at you and think 'idle' or 'undisciplined' but they will be thinking neurotic, anxious or unhinged - trust me I've had it all said to me over the years and it is horrible .

CrapBag · 11/10/2013 21:31

Frau so its perfectly acceptable for people to ask you when your legs are going to snap because they are so thin and constantly ask if you have an eating disorder? Or laugh at you if you wear black tights, because they make your legs look even thinner?

No of course, 'skinny' people don't ever have an issue with their weight do they.

FrauRumpelpumpel · 11/10/2013 21:37

Ok well I'm sorry you've had that experience but I have never thought those things about people who are naturally very slim, I have just envied them their apparent ability to eat whatever they like with no apparent consequences, while all I have to do is smell a cake and I've gained 3 pounds.

It is ABSOLUTELY not the case that society feels unable to criticise 'fatties'. The whole of western society is currently engaged in fatty-bashing and whilst it's obviously desirable from a health point of view to be slimmer, the level of body shape intolerance is hideous. Even if you have encountered nasty people who will try to undermine your body confidence because they are larger than you, or just plain mean, you surely do accept that being waif-like has been the only 'desirable' shape since the early 90s.

peasandlove · 11/10/2013 21:39

I got teased at high school for being skinny.. My best friend was rather fat. We made a good couple, "Oh look here comes fatty and skinny" We'd just tell em to fuck off

Nusatenggara · 11/10/2013 21:40

I honestly think that is a myth perpetuated by the media if mine and other 'skinny' people's day to day experiences are anything to go by. No-one who has insulted me over the years has ever made me feel in the least bit 'desirable' whether they be male or female.

Slim with boobs is what everyone wants to look like don't they. Skinny and looking like a plank isn't desirable in anyone's book quite frankly.

peasandlove · 11/10/2013 21:43

I had the hip bones protruding and everything, even my fat friend would comment about that. It never made me feel good. I was a 6ft scrawny boney gawky teenager.

Original poster

Sister77 · 11/10/2013 21:44

It's just over the years, they've took the piss but at some point they've all been told I don't like it. I've kept my mouth shut even at a friends wedding when I actually thought I looked good and they verbally pulled apart my clothing, made helpful suggestions eg, buy a padded bra, take of the belt, lessen the blusher on my cheek bones so I don't "accentuate my thinness".
If I eat there are suggestions I'm going to vomit afterwards, if I eat a light meal insinuations that I'm anorexic.
They care for me, they genuinely do, they've supported me through some hard times but the fact they take the piss so much means I don't want to tell them about my health problems. And it isn't just the 2 I called fat cows it's other group members too.

OP posts:

FrauRumpelpumpel · 11/10/2013 21:48

By the sounds of it OP you need new friends, not to worry about your figure...

Original poster

Sister77 · 11/10/2013 21:50

Oh and one of the best comments made by one of these 2 girls was your setting a bad example for the girls (we've all got kids) they'll think its ok to diet. Yep cus I want my daughter (or anyone else's) to have an eating disorder.
NOT THAT I HAVE ONE!

OP posts:

LittleMissWise · 11/10/2013 21:50

I totally get where you are coming from OP.

I am thin, always have been, but my weight dropped to about 7stone 4 a few years back. A larger lady kept telling me to "eat a good meal" or "to put some bloody weight on!" It really, really riled me. I wasn't not eating, I was just not gaining weight.

One day she was doing it, while eating a whole tube of Pringles. I snapped and said to her"if I said stop eating those crisps and lose some bloody weight, you'd think me really rude!" She admitted she would so I told her I found it no less rude that she was forever commenting on my weight.

She never did it again.

MrsDeVere · 11/10/2013 21:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CrapBag · 11/10/2013 21:53

Sister sorry but they do not sound like good friends. They sound like utter cows who are putting you down to make themselves feel better. Their comments are terrible.

I'm glad you said what you did. Maybe it will make them shut the hell up. I wouldn't apologise for it either. They bloody well deserved it.

FrauRumpelpumpel · 11/10/2013 22:05

I agree referring to people's weight is rude, and I don't do it, whatever their size is, because, actually, it's meaningless, and of course it's cliché, but it's what's inside that matters. How someone behaves (and obviously that includes how they talk to you and make you feel about yourself) is all that matters.

But my experience is of slim people permanently talking about it. As in "ooh I feel really fat today", "I'm trying [insert current fad] diet at the moment", "No I mustn't, I'm watching my weight" and you just can't get away from it.

Nusatenggara · 11/10/2013 22:24

Jeez I've never once claimed to have an ounce of fat on me, I'm not anorexic therefore I recognise that I'm too skinny but can't do anything about it as that's not the way I'm made.

MrsDeVere, spot on as ever.

I'm not sure that they are not good friends. I have a dear friend (nearly 30 years of knowing her) and she references my weight every now and then, she calls a spade a spade and upsets me but I know she means well.

magentastardust · 11/10/2013 22:32

I guess that people can say -Oh look at you , you have lost weight -you are looking skinny.
Skinny can be used as a compliment -You know yourself though whether they were saying it that way though.
Fat can never be used as a compliment -even if you said to someone who was trying to gain weight-oh you are looking really great , you would never say You look great , you are looking a bit fat!

People really should be more considerate of slender peoples feelings too though -I am overweight and well aware of the negative comments associated with that but my dd is very small build and is very thin and petite.
I have really noticed over the last year how people have started to comment to her on- how skinny her legs are , how there is nothing of her etc etc. She is only 6 and it does worry me that people feel they can just comment on her size and what affect that will have on her.

MrsDeVere · 11/10/2013 22:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Lilacroses · 11/10/2013 22:49

Op you:ve really made me think tonight. I can now see exactly what you mean. I have noticed alot that if people see a very thin woman they frequently make comments about her having an eating disorder etc. It is very rude of these women to keep on at you about it

HesterShaw · 11/10/2013 22:49

I can't believe people are saying "it was a compliment". The phrase "skinny beatch" is not a compliment. Skinny is not a nice word - it implies no womanly curves, bones sticking out, unfeminine (to me anyway, one of life's skinnies). Slim would have been a nicer word.

An overweight colleague once called me a "bag of bones". I guess that was a compliment too? . However there's no way I could have turned round and called her a lump of lard and not upset her. She upset me though.

OP, YANBU.

CrapBag · 11/10/2013 22:56

I agree, skinny is NOT a compliment. Slim is. Thin isn't either.

TheBuskersDog · 11/10/2013 22:58

I guess that people can say -Oh look at you , you have lost weight -you are looking skinny.
Skinny can be used as a compliment
I would not take that as a compliment - I would assume the person was saying I looked gaunt and scrawny.
I don't think skinny is ever used by slim people, it is used by overweight people to describe slim people.

I would actually say slightly differently to MrsDeVere that skinny is to curvy as slim is to fat, skinny or curvy are used when what is meant is slim or fat. Curvy is not the same as fat, you can be slim and have curves.

Even worse is the phrase 'real women' usually used to describe overweight women and to infer that somehow slim women are not real.

HesterShaw · 11/10/2013 23:03

you surely do accept that being waif-like has been the only 'desirable' shape since the early 90s.

Sorry, but that's bollocks. Kelly Brook is held up as being a "real woman", a "woman with curves" blah blah blah. She most certainly is not a waif. Look at the amount of skinny bashing there is whenever any woman with a boyish figure is photographed in the Mail and rags like it. Cue comments such as "Give me a real woman any day, I've seen bigger boobs on a ten year old boy, eat some pies, EAT SOMETHING......!" and so on and so on.

Deeply tedious and very insulting.

CrapBag · 11/10/2013 23:11

I would kill for Kelly Brooks figure!!!

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