The Dangers of Hardass Love

Yesterday, I had an email from a friend.

As far as I know, this friend hadn't, at the time, clocked that I'd started Disappearing again. I've checked with her before using this, because I know what some of my friends are like, and they won't be happy about it.

Took me a little while to get right with it myself, because it seemed to come out of a clear blue sky - but I know it was meant well, and in a kind of hardass, personal trainer, no-bullshit, get better spirit, that this pal's particularly used to because we first encountered each other when I edited her manuscript (not to brag, but... Ah, hell, no, let's really not brag), so she's used to getting that from me about her work in a professional capacity, and we've become strong, good friends during that process, so it's part of the way we're allowed to talk to each other.

And while that's true, and we're cool, it stands as an example of the kind of thing people believe they can come out of a blue sky and tell you when you're fat...as if it's actually their business to point things out to you, so I figured I'd share it with you.


Here's the mail, before we go any further:

Title: You Mad Bastard!

 

Tony! What the hell! I've just seen your picture on Facebook and I'm so upset. What are you doing? People like me need you - and there you are looking like you might drop down dead TODAY.

Get back on that bloody diet man!

Do not eat a fucking thing unless you have not eaten for three hours!

Do not eat anything with sugar in for the next 24 hours.

If you feel like shit, then let me tell you, you look like it too! Here is a poke with a shitty stick! You're strong willed. You CAN do this. Move your arse, now!

I'm going to demand a report on the past 24 hours food and drink at 9.45 tomorrow, so fucking-well act like a man and get on with the bloody sensible eating and excercise plan, you big idiot!

XXX

So - there you go.
Now, since then, this pal has been so upset at what I look like in recent Facebook photos that she's been unable to sleep, because, in her own words, there's nothing she can do to save me but throw words at me, and she's also in fact been upset that 'people around you have let you get this way.' So, as I say, this wasn't badly meant, but it's an interesting example of a more general social trend: the idea that fat people need people to point out what they look like in order to 'motivate' them into doing the 'right' thing.

We really don't. I mean...really, really.

The thing is, as it happened, I'd started Disappearing again, and so was in a 'Let's deal with this shit' place when this arrived in my inbox. If I'd been feeling particuarly delicate, or perhaps more likely, if I'd woken up yesterday thinking 'As days go, I'm not looking so shabby, today's a good day,' there's no telling what it might have done to me.

Here's the thing: nobody 'lets us' get this way. We do this to ourself - whether driven by demons or drawn by cream cakes. And more often than not, only we can get ourselves out of the situations we're in. However well meant advice on what we look like and how we're likely to fall over and die may be, it's actually very rarely effective in terms of getting us to do anything positive. It's very difficult to actually shame us into doing something you think we should do, and more often than not, it hardens us into a 'Fuck you!' response, and a desire to run...or at least get a cab...to the nearest cake shop and buy EVERYTHING, because there's a degree of self-hate but also a degree of self-comfort and protection in eating foods that give us an immediate emotional buzz, like cakes and chocolate (or whatever we've associated as 'comfort food').

Now as it happens, my friend and I are cool, and I'm already in the Disappearing Zone. But generally, reacting with horror and forecasting death - nnnnnotsomuch the way to get your fat friend to do things that are good for them. Being a hardass is all well and good if your fat friend's a hardass too. But some aren't, and even some who seem to be in front of all the world are actually self-hating with a crispy sugary casing of hardassery they've had to master just to get through the day.

As I say, I know my friends, and I'm not posting this to start a chorus of angry responses - can the torch and pitchfork stuff. For me, from this friend, this was fine. Just in general, be sure you've judged your friend and their responses well before you go down the 'What the hell have you done to yourself?' route. We have to be pretty hardass to get through society being significantly outside its metrics of acceptability and attractiveness. Be VERY sure our hardassery's not just the candy shell we wear, and that you're not about to stake us through the heart before you deploy your own hardass love.