Come on Ladies...

It occurred to me last Sunday as I sat in a theater full of nervously excited women watching "Magic Mike" that we, as a gender, are extremely hypocritical. Consider this: you break up with a guy and as you're leaving to start a new amazing life somewhere else, he shows up at the the airport. And you don't remember giving him any flight info. Creepy, right? Unless he's hot. Because, let's be real ladies, we have a bit of a double standard in operation, currently. We think we want what happens in romantic comedies, but when regular guys pull the very same stunts (coming to our house to serenade us, tracking down our phone number, trying to stop us from leaving) we label them stalkers. Unless he's hot, right? Then he's your soulmate, and he just can't bear not to text you every five minutes. Guys, if you don't think this is true, congratulations, you're probably one of the hot ones (call me!). And ladies if you're still shaking your head, just ask yourself: if you were whistled at by construction workers would your reaction be different if they were Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer (google "Channing Tatum"+"shirtless" and answer honestly.)?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. As I lose weight (I'm down to a size 10 now!) people are treating me differently. It's pretty weird, because obviously I am the same person I was a few months ago, but suddenly I'm getting more eye contact, random people touching me during the course of a conversation, and compliments on my clothes. This last one freaked me out a bit, since I thought at first the woman who said it was mocking me. Lest ye forget, I'm a single student mother on a shoestring budget, so it's a lot of Ross and Target for me. I'd like to think it was the clothes, but like our double standard for men, skinny bitches can wear just about anything and look totally amazing (google "Megan Fox"+"burlap sack"). Whereas, I know from my experience, the larger you are the fewer things you look truly stunning in.

Which brings me to my final, and most disconcerting realization of the week. As I get smaller I become more judgmental of my big and beautiful sisters. Part of me thinks, "If I can do this, so can you!" But, of course, that assumption is a fallacy. I'm by no means where I need or want to be health-wise, and how could I begin to guess about or judge another person's health? I think we--ladies, people in general, and me--need to stop basing our conclusions on what we think we see. We can be blinded by our assumptions, and the solution is to not assume anything. So next time you meet someone try to imagine if your reaction to them would be different if they looked like Channing Tatum (or Blake Lively, for you gents). You might be surprised. Or then again, given how crowded the theater was on Sunday, you might not.