Secrets of a Former Fat Girl (26 page)

The Issue: You Want to Be the Girlfriend but Don't Know How

This was a tough one for me, even though I became a Former Fat Girl when I was twenty-nine, and two years later I was living with a man who wasn't a blood relative. But it's not like I went from wallflower to ingenue overnight.

I first met Ned after finagling my way into an interview for that senior editor position I eventually landed. It was months after I had sent in my resume with the quirky little poetic cover letter. The poem did its job: I got a call from the managing editor, who asked me to research and write a story about some medical condition so obscure that I can't even remember what it was. If they liked it, I had a good chance of getting hired. I had never really done this sort of research before; most of the stories I'd written were pegged to a certain news event and required maybe one or two interviews. For this one I would have to read up on the problem, find the top sources in the country (much harder than just calling the Chamber of Commerce for a quote), and understand what they were saying well enough to actually write authoritatively about it and in a way other people could understand. At that point in my career, trying to read medical studies and talk to a bunch of doctors and researchers was like asking me to speak Arabic.

But I was all into making myself uncomfortable on this Former Fat Girl adventure, so I dove in, knowing nothing. I spent hours in the library. I yakked it up with all kinds of medical specialists. I discovered
ologies
I never knew existed (you know, otolaryngology, rheumatology, gastroenterology). The story I wrote on my MacPlus with a screen about as big as an iPod Nano was intelligible enough to get me another call from the managing editor—this time a brief phone interview. It was a pretty unmemorable chat. I'm sure we talked about my background, and he asked me how I felt about moving. (The words “I'm there!” might have come out of my mouth.) And then silence.

Two or three weeks went by, and I heard nothing, so I picked up the phone (there's that old “Whatever it takes” from college). I left message after message. No response.

In the meantime, I had planned a trip north to visit my aunt Helen and uncle Bill on Long Island. And then it came to me: The magazine's headquarters were somewhere near Philadelphia. Maybe I could stop over. I mean, everything was all smushed together up there in the Northeast, not like in Texas where you can drive for days before you cross the border.

I put in another call to the magazine, this time to the editor in chief. And he picked up the phone! I croaked out a greeting through my surprise, tried to explain who I was, and said I'd “be in the neighborhood” and would love to come by and meet him. “Set something up with my assistant,” he barked, rushing off the phone. And so I did.

After a four-hour drive from Long Island (not exactly in the neighborhood), I landed at the magazine offices in Pennsylvania. During my tour of the joint, I met Ned, who was working in the production department at the time. In case you're imagining one of those MGM moments where eyes meet, music swells, and magic happens, strike that. Not for me. Ned was lanky, about six feet tall, with wavy, light brown hair, deep-set brown puppy dog eyes, and probably the best pair of legs I'd ever seen on a man: long, lean, and muscular. Not that I noticed any of that during the first meeting. The only thing I remembered was that he used a weird expression when he heard where I lived: “Austin?
Sweet
.” I'd never heard anyone say that except pro athletes during TV interviews.

By the time I got the job and moved across the country, Ned had taken a job at another magazine at the same company but in a different building. When I saw him again, maybe a full year after I started, he had to remind me that we'd met. That's how clueless I was. Tall, cute Ned made absolutely no first impression on me except for that little bit of jock slang. Where most single women considering moving thousands of miles from home would at the very least be sizing up the dating prospects, I was oblivious. It had still not penetrated my Former Fat Girl mind that, hello—I could actually date this guy.

As I said, I did actually date Ned and did actually live with him (whatever happened to that good girl?), but our relationship was more like a buddies-with-privileges kind of thing. There was affection, great affection, but no spark, no chemistry like there had been with David. My theory is that I never seriously thought that Ned and I would last. I don't know what it was—maybe his maturity (he was six years younger than me) or maybe his dependency on me (I think he wanted a mommy more than a partner). Maybe it was just the timing of the whole thing. While I had made an uncomfortable choice by becoming physically and intimately involved with Ned—by moving in with him, for God's sake—emotionally I had taken the safe route yet again.

Ned and I lived together for almost four years. One night when we were out to dinner, I said, “We're never going to get married, are we?” It was the first time I'd ever really used the m-word. The next weekend he moved out. A month later he was dating someone else.

Now, talk about your setbacks! I was devastated. Of course I missed him. Of course I mourned. But more than anything, deep down inside I felt like a failure. I knew this thing had gone on too long. I knew nothing would ever come of it. But I wasn't strong enough to end it. I might have been living that uncomfortable life in every other way, but I had gotten cozy and complacent in this relationship.

At least I had started the ball rolling. If I hadn't blurted out what I'd been thinking for, oh, at least two years, who knows how long we would have gone on. So there is that.

This is a bit of a cautionary tale because if there's anything that will be your Achilles' heel, the thing that threatens to hobble you in your new Former Fat Girl life, it's your heart. It's so easy to love the idea of love without seeing the reality of it. It's so easy to love the idea of having a warm body next to you and to forget that maybe you have nothing in common with that particular warm body or that he doesn't treat you like you want him to or that he's not even very nice. He's just there—kind of like the chocolate chip cookies that you continued to nosh on long after you could even taste them anymore just because they were there. Oh, yeah—you've quit that, right? Because it's INO, right? Well, it's INO to stay in a relationship because it's comfortable, too. Just like it's INO to eat a substandard piece of cheap waxy chocolate that won't satisfy your craving anyway, it's INO to give your love life over to a guy who's anything less than top shelf.

The problem is, it's easier to tell the difference between a piece of premium chocolate and the second-rate stuff. It's too bad guys don't come with labels as revealing as the food we buy (Ingredients: saccharine, bullshit, passive-aggressiveness, Rogaine). Part of finally being the girlfriend is being open to being the girlfriend. Try thinking of the guys you meet as potential dates. You don't have to force yourself to be coy, bat your eyelids, or play games. Just think: “Hmmm. Hello, Friday night dinner and a movie.” If you doubt the power of your mind to affect the vibe between you, try thinking of the next guy you meet as a potential husband: He will flee, I guarantee.

There are all kinds of books that tell you how to flirt and even classes where you can practice. Partake if you like. But don't think you have to change your personality completely to rev up your dating life. You can telegraph your new openness to girlfriendhood with a few other cues:

• No cussing. Buddies cuss; girlfriends don't.
  
• Listen. Ask him some wide-open question, like “Why'd you become a tattoo artist?” and let him go. In case you don't already know this, listening is not a common male trait. Show him you are truly a member of the opposite sex by being interested in what he has to say.
  
• Don't interrupt. Guy-on-guy conversations are all about one-upmanship, so if you have a story to tell or a point to make, wait until he's finished.
  
• Use your eyes. You've heard it before, I know, but it's a big one for me: Until I look someone in the eye, I feel invisible, like I'm shutting myself off from him. If you look him in the eye, you let him into your world for better or for worse. Take that risk. It's the uncomfortable thing to do.
  

The eyes, I think, are what made me marry Rick. I was immediately attracted to him, something I had never experienced before (or at least since I first saw Bobby Sherman on that record cover). Rick has these piercing blue eyes that are kind of magnetic; I couldn't help but look into them. With him I never once felt like a buddy. I never wanted to. I am convinced that I was ready as I had never been ready before. If I had met him two, three, or five years before, I wouldn't have even
seen
him. I just wasn't open. I just wasn't ready.

I was thirty-six when I met him, thirty-seven when we started dating, thirty-eight when we married, thirty-nine when I got pregnant, and forty when we had our son, Johnny. So the other thing I would say to you, girls, is “Give yourself time.” Anything can happen. Anything is possible—if it's right.

The Issue: You've Got the Body, and Now You Need the Wardrobe

Here in Former Fat Girl World we actually like to shop for clothes—or at least we don't dislike it as much as we used to. Shopping is a whole different game when you don't have to sequester yourself in the plus-size section, isn't it?

One of my big milestones was buying my first pair of size 5 jeans from the juniors' department. For a Former Fat Girl, fitting into a size 5 was the equivalent of a runner breaking the four-minute mile or a scientist winning the Nobel Prize or a Hollywood marriage lasting a year. I remember them distinctly because, frankly, they're still in my closet; I just can't give them up. The brand is Swatch, like the watches. They are regular wash, straight leg, and zip front, and they hit me right at the waist. I bought them at a department store in Houston called Joske's where we always shopped as kids. I wouldn't even have tried them on except that they were on sale and they had somehow gotten mixed in with the size 7's where I was browsing. I held them up to me and they looked big enough, but that didn't mean anything. You know how clothes seem to shrink on the way from the rack to the dressing room.

Anyway, I lugged them in with my other stuff and stepped into them. They made it over my calves. So far so good. They eased over my thighs. Even better. Then I slipped them over my butt. Almost there. Now the true test: the top button. I held my breath and…success! Me, the girl who once couldn't wear a size 16 Calvins, had herself a pair of size 5 jeans!

And, boy, did I wear them—for years! I wore them until the hems disintegrated and the bottoms frayed, until the buttonhole threatened to burst and the crotch did, too. I was so proud of them. In high school I had lusted after the button-front Levi's that all the preppy girls wore. I could never figure out how any girl looked good in those things. Even when I was at a reasonable weight, I couldn't manage to find a pair that fit my butt without gaping a good four inches at the waist. These weren't Levi's, but they were the closest thing I could find.

Too bad they were exactly the wrong style for me. It would take years for me to discover this fact, but I had no business wearing high-waisted, straight-leg pants of any kind. High waists—and I'm talking about anything higher than about an inch below your navel—only accentuate any bit of belly you've got. Even if your stomach is as flat as Roseanne Barr's singing voice, high-waisted pants make you look as if you have a gut. No lie. And straight-leg pants? Perfect if I want to look like a tree stump. For little five-foot-four me, flared legs are the thing—not superflared, just slightly flared.

I don't mean to be a self-spoilsport. And I have to say that during that era, the late 80s, there wasn't much of a choice. If you wanted low-rise jeans, you'd have had to get them tailor-made. I tell this story to make a point: Your best wardrobe is one that works with your body, not against it. Some of the rules you've been operating under are probably not going to work with this new body of yours, and I bet they didn't work too well with the old one, either. See, even if you have a few or more extra pounds on you, the high-waist ban applies. No one looks good in high-waisted pants except rail-thin runway models with boy bodies (no waist, no hips). The same goes for pleated pants. That's right: In Former Fat Girl World, pleated pants are verboten.

You are going to have to let go. Let go of the folds of fabric you think are hiding your imperfections. Let go of the idea that the pants fit if you can button them without hyperventilating. Look in the mirror. Are they flattering? If not, they don't fit. Don't buy them. Don't wear them. Go back and find a pair that does.

You can tell I feel strongly about this. I feel strongly about it because I know what a difference it made for me when I discovered, however late in life, that my closet was full of stuff that didn't fit. And I am not talking about pre–Former Fat Girl days. I am talking about size 2 and size 4 clothes that I could and did wear but that didn't do my body justice. You have come too far and worked too hard to let some fashion faux pas undermine you.

Your first task before you hit the mall is to edit your closet. Narrow your collection to the pieces that really work for you. Forget all those reasons for holding on to those short skirts, boxy jackets, and elastic waist pants:
But these were
such
a bargain! Oh, my elderly aunt Minnie gave this to me. I spent a
fortune
on this dress!
Only pay attention to how each piece fits and flatters. If it doesn't, dump it into the donation box.