Do I look Fat In This?

Every woman has those outfits in the grey. We know the outfits that don’t fit our bodies and the ones that look great. But often there are the ones that are hard to tell. It’s unfortunate that the one outfit that always looks great doesn’t fit every situation.

The Best Hubs Ever, ever since I’ve know him, had made the “I know a trap” joke whenever I’ve asked for help. It makes me livid. He thinks he’s being cute, so much so that he jokes about it with our friends.

Did I mention it makes me livid?

I have for years pointed out that I am not trapping him. In fact, our whole relationship story has been about how he slow rolled me into marrying and having a family with him. Regardless, he has refused to tell me if I look good in nearly anything. Thus, I have assumed that since he knocked me up (because he wanted a baby), and I got fat, he hasn’t found me attractive. Sucks. Thank God he’s a down-with-what-he’s-got kind of guy.

Here’s the thing. The whole “do I look fat in this” trope that is used against any woman who just needs an outside opinion on an outfit and is supposedly men’s downfall, IS A TRAP OF THIR OWN MAKING!!! Imagine Rachel Green (aka Jennifer Aniston in Friends) asking if she looked fat in something. Idk if it’s a real thing or like Curious George’s tail, but I can see it in my mind’s eye. You know Ross, Joey, and Chandler would all duck and run despite her being very skinny and looking great in everything.

When TBHE started using that joke, I was Rachel Green skinny. But I was also very eating/exercise disordered. So I had no gauge. I had been taught by the cultural powers that be (men who were later #metoo’d) that being skinny was the only way to be—nerdy girls made over into hot girls was a long running movie trope—and that the male-gaze was the only gaze. So, “does this make me look fat” and any variation was and is a very valid question. And since men are the arbiters, why not ask them? But then those ass-holes put it back on us women like we were crazy for even asking; like answering would cause a pregnancy and trap them into marriage. It’s gaslighting. They made and upheld the rules of female beauty, then made us feel crazy or like we’d failed that standard by asking. If you have to ask you’re obviously not meeting it.

And yet, TBHE still brags about his “knowing better than to fall in that trap.”

Some programming is hard to unlearn because taking responsibility for the trap you created feels like a trap. But fuck you; take responsibility, and tell us if we meet your fucking standards of attraction. Or just let us know if the outfit we can’t decide on works or not. It’s not that hard, or that big of a deal.