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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To wonder why on earth my friend doesn't this?

101 replies

Phillipaa · 06/04/2017 19:02

She's about 5ft4 and a size 16. I'm 5ft7 and a size 12. I'm not skinny but a normal, healthy weight. She is medically overweight.

Yet she constantly (as in every time we meet up) comments on how much weight she's lost and how she's slimmer than me. She makes comments that she would give me her clothes but they wouldn't fit me. If we go clothes shopping she informs me that she's a size 12, I need at least a size 14 or 'that would fit me but not you'.

I'm considerably thinner than her and unless she has a serious delusion she must know that.

She buys stretchy size 10 clothes and they look absurd on her as they don't come close to fitting. Just buy a size 16.

She tried on clothes and he size 16 always looks best but she refuses to buy them in that size and buys a 14 which is too small yet she insists she likes clothes baggy! 😂

She's not a bad person but she makes an idiot of herself with this as she makes these comments in front of mutual friends too and we all know I'm considerably thinner than her.

So why on earth do it? AIBU to think this is very odd behaviour?

She has low self esteem. None of us give two hoots about what size she is.

OP posts:

Chloe84 · 06/04/2017 19:40

She's not a bad person but she makes an idiot of herself with this as she makes these comments in front of mutual friends too and we all know I'm considerably thinner than her.

But she's only picking on YOU, not any of your mutual friends.

That's what makes it unacceptable.

I would have to say something to her, even if she gets annoyed.

Maryhadalittlelambstew · 06/04/2017 19:41

She sounds like she needs to put you down to feel good which obviously isn't a good quality in anyone. You say she has low self esteem which is a horrible thing to live with but she isn't doing herself any favours by adopting such a nasty technique to deal with it. Have you ever actually flat out called her on it? I think if I were in your position and she was a friend I wanted to keep I would try approaching the subject firmly but kindly, tell her that her constant comments about her being smaller than you make you feel bad and you'd like her to stop. I think her wearing clothes two sizes too small for her is up to her, me and my friends will always tell one another if something doesn't look good but not nastily and if the other disagrees or chooses to ignore it thats up to them so I don't think you can or should change that but its not on for her to make you feel bad in order to make herself feel good, that needs to change.

ImperialBlether · 06/04/2017 19:43

I'd be carrying a set of weighing scales with me whenever we met up and insist on both getting on them.

Lambzig · 06/04/2017 19:43

My sister does this. Not the comparing, but she is I would guess a size 16 (I am a 10-12, but we are similar height and shape) and she goes on and on about how tiny she is and how it's difficult to buy clothes that fit as most size 6s are too big and swamp her. She wears leggings a lot and they are stretched to bursting at the seams, you can see the stitching super stretched. I don't know what size she buys.

I usually just ignore it, but I do worry why she needs to do this.

BreatheDeep · 06/04/2017 19:43

I think I've read it before too. Maybe there are many deluded people

Obsidian77 · 06/04/2017 19:51

Some people are genuinely poor at gauging size, or maybe they have a kind of reverse body dysmorphia.
Someone I know MIL always bitches about how fat "Betty" across the road is, how she has really let herself go etc. When I met Betty, my jaw dropped, she's no sylph but she's less fat than MIL.
I also had a uni mate who used to say that she and I were the same size... A bit like your friend. Not proud of myself but I put a swift end to it by saying "well why don't you borrow this skirt of mine? Should look nice since we're the same size" She was genuinely astonished when she couldn't fit into it.
Otherwise you'll have to suck it up and just appreciate the fact you are in good health.

Mrsemcgregor · 06/04/2017 19:51

I also remember a very similar thread.

Ellapaella · 06/04/2017 19:52

Yes I've read something similar on here too.. I think I'd have to play her at her game and pretend to be mortally offended every time she makes a comment, tell her she is ruining your self esteem with her tactless comments and see what she says...

blankmind · 06/04/2017 19:55

Take a few photos of you both side by side then send them to her.

PoorYorick · 06/04/2017 19:58

Deja vu aside, if this happened to me I think I'd just laugh. If I were as confident as OP is that I had a good figure and that I was not overweight while my friend was, it wouldn't bother me. If she's insisting on something that's not true, and that everyone who looks at us can see is not true, I really would not care.

Goodasgoldilox · 06/04/2017 20:02

This sounded mad - but suddenly reminded me of a similar oddity. My grandmother always spoke as if she believed that my mother was 'enormous' and that she herself was small.

She would buy my mother 'outsize' clothes as presents - and always at Christmas, 'extra large' tights.

My mother had a 24 inch waist. (I wish I took after her.)

My grandmother was a great trencher-woman and could move vast heaps of food from her plate -right until she died (in her late 80s). She was a sturdy and well-padded woman. (I wouldn't dare say 'fat'.)

However my mother was tall (5ft 9) and my grandmother just over 5 ft. I always wondered if she was thinking height and assumed that 'big' clothes were for tall women.

It is the sort of accidentally offensive thing she was quite prone to.

Trills · 06/04/2017 20:03

She sounds annoying and boring.

Don't you feel that you could be better off spending your time with someone less annoying and boring?

Emmageddon · 06/04/2017 20:06

I work with someone who has reverse body dysmorphia.

She's fat, and so am I, before anyone thinks I'm being a cow. I've been losing weight since the beginning of the year though, and have gone from 16 - 18 to 12 -14 (and intend to keep on losing, until I'm wearing 10 - 12).

Anyway, most of our colleagues have been commenting on my weight loss in a positive way, but she says she's glad she doesn't have to lose weight, she's lucky to be a perfect 10, she'd hate to have to go on a diet, she's lucky she has a speedy metabolism and can eat whatever she wants.

I think she genuinely does see herself as having a perfect figure - a bit like a reverse Shallow Hal. Which, I guess, is a good thing. She has no hang-ups about her body, she wears bodycon dresses with panache, and doesn't go through the 'does my bum look big in this' shit that a lot of women do.

Allthebestnamesareused · 06/04/2017 20:08

She may be larger but at least she isn't on here bitching about her so-called friend!

If she is comfortable with how she is why are you so concerned about what she looks like.

VeryButchyRestingFace · 06/04/2017 20:11

She may be larger but at least she isn't on here bitching about her so-called friend! hmm

Is that the best you've got?

Oliversmumsarmy · 06/04/2017 20:16

Years ago I worked in an office.

Girl at the next desk probably a size 10-12 quite slim but with a broad back was asking about borrowing my evening dress.

I said I was quite ok in her trying it but didn't think it would fit her as it had a 30 bust. She scoffed and said I had obviously measured it wrong.

I brought it in, she tried it on and it didn't fit by a long way.

Thattimeofyearagain · 06/04/2017 20:17

My smil used to do a similar thing, bought me a size 18 jumper when I was a size 10 and told me she had the receipt if I was too small

PoorYorick · 06/04/2017 20:22

She may be larger but at least she isn't on here bitching about her so-called friend! hmm

-Is that the best you've got?

I agreed with the initial poster, actually. The friend might be deluded and insecure but starting a thread in the obvious hope that we'll all pile in on her didn't exactly smack of grace. It's not as though OP's confidence has been affected (it shouldn't be).

Zaphodsotherhead · 06/04/2017 20:31

I'd second the slipping off your jacket/coat/any other easily shucked off clothing and asking her to try it on. Or giving her one of your cast off skirts to 'try on and see how it looked'. Maybe the stark realisation that it doesn't fit will help her see things properly.

smurfest · 06/04/2017 20:33

I knew someone like that - not that she would refer to herself as comparatively thinner than others, more that she would say that she was a size 12 ...whereas in reality she was a size 18 squeezed into size 12 trousers with a massive muffin top come out over the waistband. It must have been highly uncomfortable!

Really it is very dull when people go on about weight - I have a friend who is a size 8 and she's always on about calories and exercise, which I think is rather tactless given that i'm considerable larger than her.

pilates · 06/04/2017 20:35

Are you a first time poster?

propertypriceguide · 06/04/2017 20:41

For all those thinking they've read the thread before there are clearly many many people acting in the same deluded way so bound to seem familiar.

As for coming on here and bitching, it's an anonymous forum fgs.

murmuration · 06/04/2017 20:42

As people have said, she could actually believe what she's saying. When I was obese I literally didn't see it at all - six stone lighter now and photos of me then I look huge! But I didn't see. I did know what size I was, though. I just thought if I was wearing a 24, then all those 'fat' people I saw in the street must be in a 30 or something (no, looking at photos, they probably were 18s or something).

If that's the issue, it's probably more than a few words from someone that can change it. I have no idea if it's possible, even. If it's her being aware but ignoring or trying to increase her self esteem by putting others down, perhaps saying something could help, or could just put her on the defensive.

I'm wondering if a better tactic might be to respond to such comments with information about 'body positivity' and 'healthy at any size' and such - perhaps if she can hear and absorb that, she might be able to accept herself better. Or at least if you tell her you don't discuss weight because of those things, she can at least stop saying it to you!

PoorYorick · 06/04/2017 20:44

As for coming on here and bitching, it's an anonymous forum fgs.

Well yeah, but that doesn't mean it's better than the behaviour they're complaining about.

propertypriceguide · 06/04/2017 20:48

How so? The OP has to put up with that behaviour in her daily life, she has come on here to try and understand what is going on, how is that the same?

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