Fleeting comments that still sting years later

[HoorayFriday]

I was early 30's and single. Dating, but having zero luck and wondering if I'd die alone at the bottom of the stairs with my cat eating my big toe.

I confided in my best friend at the time, I was feeling low about myself and sad. Fed up of the dating world.

She said, her partner had told her that "if I lost a bit of weight I could have anyone I wanted".

Was it a back handed compliment? Meant to hurt me? Meant to make me feel better? Why would she say that? I had no idea.

Years later, it still pops up in my head like that unexpected morning pimple.

I've always carried a few extra pounds, I love my food! But, I was by no means what you'd describe as "big".

Anyway, it stung. A lot. And certainly didn't make me feel better.

It made me wonder if anyone else had a carefree passing comment, that probably meant nothing to the person who said it, yet hit you to the core and stayed with you years later?

In high school a “popular girl” asked me if I’d been away. For a fleeting second thought she was genuinely interested. When I replied I had, she laughed and said “your face is a different colour to your legs” and went off with her cronies.
Im fair skinned and think my legs were paler than my freckly face. For 20 years after I never had my legs out. Always tights or trousers. Now I’m mid 30s, 2 children. The world does not end if I wear a pair of shorts.

A girl I was friends with at secondary school told me that she had made friends with me out of pity. I have quite a noticeable eye problem and was bad at games and practical things cause of this. I was also a bit of a target for bullies. She sometimes pops up on my facebook and I could easily say something after all these years.

Two boyfriends (one when I was 14, the other when I was 18) said things along the lines of 'you might not be the prettiest girl butl.......'.

When I was 18, my Mum asked me what I was going to do when I failed my A'levels.

At secondary school there was quite a dweeby lad and he came up to me at the end of the school day when noone else was around and called me a fat bitch. I think it was the fact that he wasn't showing off in front of anyone that made it worse. I was about 8 stone at the time, but was already starting to get obsessed with my work.

I was moaning to the same boyfriend I had when I was 18 about not being good at anything. He told me I was good at eating. I had a borderline ED at the time.

Last Summer in Turkey (so I was 48 at the time) on our last day, some guy came up to us trying to sell us an excursion. I explained that we were going home later that day. He looked at me and said, 'why are you so white'. Then looked at me again and said 'its probably cause you're ginger'. I usually wear fake tan, but hadn't been arsed to keep topping it up for the whole holiday. I actually dye my hair bright colours but I had roots, I'm actually off blonde (according to the boyfriend mentioned above) not ginger.

I was in Australia with my DH and MIL when I was 25, some guy shouted out 'oi rotten skin'. I ignored him and he said it again. I turned round and he then gave me a big lecture about skin cancer.

Don't let the poster who doesn't understand how devastating this is for someone with adhd get to you.

I had pretty much the same thing happen to me at 18 and it's haunted me too.

To the point where I've never really had a job for any length of time and definitely no career. I am successful but on my own terms, so I don't have to deal with assholes passing shit unhelpful comments.

If they'd said you can do x, y and z, is there anything you're struggling with or something supportive, that would be so different. Saying they're talking about you just feeds into rejection, you become totally sensitive and hyper-vigilant and that job is basically ruined as you can't relax with colleagues. So shit.

Chin up tho, you'll care more than any person knows and this stuff does get easier or probably more easily avoided. :-)

A friend commented on my big nose. She wasn’t being mean she just wasn’t a particularly tactful person. I’d never really noticed my nose before. But then I properly looked at it and realised that I do in fact have an enormous nose! I couldn’t believe I’d never realised it before! This was about 20 years ago and now it is always the first thing I see when I look at photos of myself.

A younger colleague recently told me she would hate to get to my age and still be "walking along behind patients". I have loved my NHS clinical career spanning 30+ years. I felt like a fecking failure that day. 😕.

When I was little, maybe about five, I was at home with my mum when she'd invited a new neighbour round for a cuppa. I have an incredibly vivid memory of this woman leaning down to look at me and saying to my mum 'Has that child got a squint?'

My mum very robustly informed said neighbour that no, I do not have any kind of squint, but despite this I'm now 48 and to this day I occasionally catch sight of myself in the mirror or in a photo and think 'Wait, have I actually got one though?'

Why do you think anyone cares what didn’t haunt you? That horrible remake did haunt @Excited101. Try to learn to not tell people how they should feel based on how you feel.

My dad used to say, "I used to hope you'll be tall and thin, but instead you turned out short and dumpy... like your mother."

"Why do you always have such a puss on your face? I hate how you look in the pictures! Your face ruins every one of them! Get the hell out of the photo; I don't want you in them. Go stand over there."

I was about 12 or 13 when those sayings started being used against me. I'm now over 50yrs old. I refuse to have my photo taken, because I remember how my dad said I ruin every photo. When my pic IS taken and I see the pic, I always seem to look so stupid or awkward and ask the person to just delete it.

I was about 9 and at my friend's house one day. She was having a tantrum to her mum about wanting to wear the same thing as me, and her mum kind of smirked and said 'well, she's a lot bigger than you so it wouldn't fit'.

40 years later, it still bugs me. I wasn't a 'big' child, and why the hell would you make that kind of comment to a child anyway?

Ahh my mother is the queen of the backhanded compliment. "You look much better today" is a frequent one that springs to mind. Aka: you looked like dog poop yesterday.

Age 17, reading a text on a friend’s phone from another boy about my friend - ‘hope they are fitter than Gail!’

My MIL commenting on my DD having inherited ‘short stumpy Gail legs’

My ex DH told me I wouldn’t get a particular job I wanted to apply for as I ‘wasn’t pretty enough!’

2 years after splitting up, I applied for that job and I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years now! 🤣

An ex colleague said she ‘didn’t realise horse riders had such chunky legs’ (I had horses in my youth & rode daily)
Looking back at pics, I’ve now realised my legs were actually really muscular but it left me paranoid that I had huge legs 🙄
Now in my 50’s I don’t GAF & happily wear shorts 🤣

I left my ExH, as I found out he'd cheated on me several times, over our 20 years together.

When he realised his pleading for forgiveness wasn't going to work, he said :

"Oh well, sleeping with you was like fucking a corpse anyway"

Have to say, I rarely think about it now, but this thread brought it back. It was utter rubbish, and just showed him up for the arsehole he was. Absolutely no point giving these people brain space. It says more about them than you.

I got glasses when I was about 10. First day of wearing them at school and our teacher, Mr T Davies said, "look at me" so I did. His lip curled in disgust and he did that laugh that I now know isn't real laughter, just a cruel gesture / noise to hurt a little girl's feelings good & proper. Arsehole.

So many more about the size of my nose. Like I hadn't noticed!

School Mum: "You look quite pretty when you wear makeup"

I was a big girl, at uni about 25 years ago I was walking through the town centre, I’d not eaten that day and it was mid afternoon and I was h7ngry, so bought a Milky Way to eat on my way to uni. A man with his girlfriend stopped me and said “careful, you might get fat” while I was eating it. That’s stuck with me forever.

Yes I was big but I was already several years into disordered eating and had zero self esteem. I didn’t eat again for several days and it took me a long time to eventually lose weight, and I’m about three stone less than I was then, and more comfortable in my own skin, I’ll never be skinny, but those words still sting.

My first bra fitting when I was 12, at M&S. I was overweight and the fitting assistant tutted and said I was an “awkward shape” and couldn’t recommend a bra (although I had boobs). My mum agreed with her and we left with nothing. I’ve never been for a bra fitting since, I measure at home after that awful experience.

My son has SEN but is mainstream. We were discussing his programme with the headteacher and he mentioned that the main support worker started with him at 9.30. He sighed and said 'ah we wait for the angel saviour to come'. I have never forgiven him for that comment.

Feeling for everyone posting so far but that one made me hit the quote button. What a guy!?!

Not to do with physical appearance, but about my character as my FIL saw it. My late FIL, who I grew to hate, was always having a go at me. Sometimes it was really cruel such as blaming me for dd's pneumonia in front of other people.

When my DH was on strike in the eighties, he was out for 3 months. My lovely parents wanted to give us some money, but I said no. They then suggested we did some work for them at their house, decorating etc and they would pay us for that. I agreed because I felt I wanted to earn it and things were very tight with a new baby.

Somehow he translated it (and publicly) into " I cannot believe you are charging your own parents to decorate their house Elsie, you really are disgusting". I was so shocked I said nothing. I have never forgotten it or how ashamed it made me feel.

I can see now he wanted control over us and was trying to stop my own parents helping me and our baby. Still pops into my head and I need to get over it.

I also had from MIL the fact I was pear shaped and was I having another one a day after I gave birth. But strangely it was the FIL one which stuck.

My mother told me whilst wedding dress shopping that I looked like I was pregnant with triplets in a particular dress. The shop assistant just gasped.

On my actual wedding day (last July) she told me, again, as I sat down next to her with a bit of food in the evening, that I looked pregnant with twins.

I was a size 16. Ok not the slimmest but I'd lost about 2 stone (not easy with an underactive thyroid). I live abroad. Saw her over Christmas, I got angry about the comment she made, she refused to apologise, then told me a day later I was shit at maths (she's always said that, I did maths a level and use statistics every day in my job but "that's not real maths"). Anyway I'm not speaking to her again.

That’s heartbreaking. 🥺

My dad used to say something similar. "You're nothing special. You are just one little girl in a world full of little girls. There's nothing special about you. If you disappeared, nobody would even notice."

“A skinny cow will never be a slim doe.”

Said to 16-year-old me by my mother.
Reader, there’s been a body of salty water between us these past 20 years…

My mum after a parents evening when I was about 16: "well, you're no genius." Never claimed to be, mommy dearest.

Maths teacher when I was 13, handing back tests: "oops. That's not yours, obviously. There's no way you'd manage THAT score."

My boss at a pizza takeaway place after I made a mistake (about 18): "this is the last time we give a bimbo a job."

My BIL as we were hugging goodbye last time we saw him: "get yourself sorted out, yeah?" I keep wracking my brains but just cannot figure out what he meant!