Birds of a feather flock together. Ever heard it? I'm from a tiny country town so if you havent, it may be one of the charming word strings people tend to throw together out there. Like... thingamabob, cattywhompus or whopperscopper... literally all things someone in my family has said in full seriousness at any given time of my childhood.
It means exactly that- like people tend to stick with each other. I've been a fat kid my whole life and for the most part, my closest friends were also fat. Not because I don't like skinny girls, but because there is that "shame bond" as I like to call it. We have been through the same bullying, the same daily body struggle, the same fear of being judged. The fear of being called... the fat friend. The ugly friend. or... the DUFF, which is a newer creative term.
Somewhere along the way, for a lot of girls-myself included at certain points- we look for a place to put all the blame. As a group, we tend to put the blame on our skinnier counterparts. We took what they did to us and reversed it with "Real women have curves" and "Only dogs want bones". As I said, I am guilty! I wont sit here and say I never felt animosity towards someone with a smaller frame. I learned to be better.
Recently I've been put in a new situation that challenged how much better I thought I was about it. My boyfriend's friends all have beautiful girlfriends... all of them. Literally, not an ugly one in the bunch. They are thin and society's idea of attractive and girls that I just wasn't used to hanging around full time. I didn't know how they would accept me as I'm dark humored, edgy and almost the opposite of everything I thought they were. I was definitely intimidated at first. Technically, I was the DUFF of the group and I worried about that for months. I wasn't nearly as "better" as I thought I was, I was having mega insecurity issues. It was time to learn... even more.
Know what? It aint even that bad. The girls are so nice and treat me like a normal person- because I am one. I could have spent all that time having fun instead of worrying. All it took was one step from me. We have to bridge the gap. We have to stop letting the fear of being different make us think that we are "ugly". We can all just be friends with no titles. Most of all, we have to stop reversing the pain we have been dealt and trying to make others feel that way.
If we lead by example, we can make the change. We can make it better for ourselves as women. I wont be shopping in the same stores as my new friends, nor will we be sharing clothes or horror stores about being bullied about being fat but that's okay. There are so many more aspects to friendship. There are so many more aspects to someone other than their looks and there is way more to life than worrying about being The Duff.
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