Personal comments

[nailbedssuck]

I'm a foreigner in the country I live in, so there are not many people to choose from as friends and most of them are at work with me so I can't just sack them off and move on. I have a colleague/friend who is as generous and kind as you could hope to meet.

But.

She makes a lot of personal comments that get me down. She was complimenting me on my weight loss after pregnancy but it felt like a burn "Look, those trousers are hanging off your bum!" (I'd just bought them off the internet so they didn't fit properly but at least I could get them around my tum. I hadn't realised the fit was obviously bad, and I liked them until she mentioned it.)

Now she's making comments about my baby! FFS, the baby is 2 months old and it's "look how feminine her feet are" "I bet you are jealous of her long legs". They're all compliments but they fuck me off. What's wrong with how my legs look?!? Can babies have feminine feet and what does it even mean? Am I being unreasonable? I know it's just a baby and there's not much you can say about them "look how short the hair is/wow such little fingernails" but still.

They're little flea bite words. She was making comments about my baby's "low" birth weight (50% percentile) which really was a sore point because of major issues with gaining birth weight back in the first week. This is my baggage and not hers, so she probably doesn't know what she's saying is irrationally hurting my feelings. They don't make me livid or mumsnet "fuming", they just irritate and get under my skin for a short time.

I have considered saying something but people have been making comments about how strident I can be, so I think I overshoot when I think I am being assertive. I like this person and she probably thinks she is being nice but her own insecurities "leak" into what she says. I don't want her to feel as bruised as I feel after talking to her, if you see what I mean.

I have watched her say similar to/about her pre-teen daughter, while she is right there, carving her body up with her words like she's meat

"Look at these hips, I hope she's not chunky like me" sort of thing.

I said nothing because there is no way I am wading into that particular quagmire but there is no way in hell she's going to talk about my kid like that when she can understand actual words.

But what do I say and when can I start? It's not like I can tinkly laugh "you'll give her a complex" when the baby hasn't even realised that she has a body to feel insecure about yet.

Very backhanded compliments. After all, what sort of nutter would be jealous of their baby daughter's long legs?

In fact, it was one of the things I was glad to see the back of when I moved here (women saying they were "good" for going to the gym/not eating cake, making a lot of comments about their own thighs and the thighs of others.

That's why it's so depressing people are saying you're being 'oversensitive' because she's trying to be nice - what does it say about this kind of woman (and she's not unique, as you say) that her idea of making a connection with another woman is to praise her post-birth weight loss, approve of a newborn baby's body on the grounds of its long-leggedness and 'feminineness', and to let be witness to her passing on her own body insecurities to her daughter?

She may well be 'nice', but that's pretty boring, as well as pernicious.

I didn't know this kind of woman existed until I had my son and started going to baby groups. I used to sit there absolutely fascinated by the weekly chorus of 'Oh, you're so GOOD, not having any cake!' and 'Don't look at me I'm on my second piece, I'm so NAUGHTY!' and 'Look how SKINNY you are!', 'Me? I'm a HEIFER! Look at Lorna look at her TINY waist!' 'Oh, that's only this old dress - it's ancient, and a rag!' 'Two pounds down this week, girls! Don't let me near the cake!'

If that's female bonding via body obsession and performative self-deprecation, fuck that shit. That group actually included a very nice woman I genuinely liked (and still occasionally see, after I'd made it plain I didn't want to hear about her diets) whose eating/drinking was so disordered she had two meals a day as very low-calorie Nutribullet shakes, and ran through injuries, in order to 'save her calories' for wine in the evening.

Exactly, Chavelita!

I'm surprised at the majority of comments as i don't think you're being over sensitive. Sometimes its the constant little snide digs that can be glossed over as a compliment that end up hurting the most.

She doesn't sound nice at all, it sounds like she's got serious body issues and is being passive aggressive.

I'm sorry but the friend may be boring but chavelita sounds awful (apt name btw) and if you OP agree with her, please leave this poor woman alone!

her advice to tell this woman that her body issues are boring, and you don't want to hear about them any more, because you don't share them, or tell her she should go and see a professional is just nasty.

This is the person you're listening to, OP? Jesus christ.

look, just distance yourself from her and leave her alone. she's insecure and you know that. Her comments you admit are completely normal and in line with UK culture at least. Either politely and sensitively push back against them in a non passive aggressive way or leave her the fuck alone.

How interesting that you interpreted my username as a classist slur, Apple. In fact, it's the birth name of an Irish writer who is better known by her pen name.

And listening to someone continually put themselves down is intensely boring and depressing. If she were continually criticising her own driving, or cooking, or handwriting, or voice, or workrate, or parenting, most people would diagnose serious self-esteem issues -- why does it becomes more acceptable just because some women appear to think that criticising their own bodies is the ultimate in female bonding?

It's very possible the OP's workmate does intend to be friendly, but that's not the same as actually wanting to tune into her private radio station of bodily woes every day at work.