Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Now that I've been losing weight, I'm having a strange dilemma. Guys are noticing me.

When this happens, I have a mixed reaction. One response is to feel flattered.

It's nice to be noticed, and I have to admit that getting noticed was at least one driving motivation for losing weight.

Another response is skepticism. This comes from junior high cruelty, while I was in my most awkward stage (chubby with huge glasses), when guys would whistle and said, "Hey, baby" and then snicker. So when I receive a compliment, I often stare into the giver's eyes to see if it's sincere. I suppose, inside, there's still a chubby bookworm in there, ready to dash off and hide behind a Douglas Adams novel.

Sometimes a sharp feeling of fear surges, difficult to explain. I suppose a psychologist knowing my history with men would find that easier to understand. My brain says, "Yes, you find me attractive. But in the past, people who did that put my heart in a blender and served it to wolverines, so..."

The final reaction is annoyance. This is what I felt in high school, when I went from being an Ugly Duckling to a passable Swan. Suddenly, the guys who had been either indifferent or downright rude were falling all over me.

I got annoyed that they had suddenly discovered my sparkling personality, now that it was housed in a prettier package. Smart is sexy, and they had never understood that. Unfortunately, they'd already showed me how ugly they could be, and I wasn't about to be fooled.

So I guess it's partly disgust at being treated like an object and it's partly because I'm not used to this kind of attention anymore. I haven't experienced it for awhile, and it makes me feel kind of funny. And not Seinfeld funny, more like Carrot Top funny.

All of this gives credence to a theory I once read about how sometimes, when we gain weight, the fat is a layer of psychological protection. The idea is that you hide behind a layer of fat because, while you're behind it, nobody pays much attention to you and there's little threat of emotional interaction, either positive or negative.

While my conscious mind says this is ridiculous -- I didn't feel happy and protected when I weighed 35 pounds more -- I suppose my reaction to newfound attention shows that there are truths to this theory. Darn psychologists. Always being right.

I've often wished for a Cloak of Invisibility so that while I'm busy hashing out a writing idea, for example, people would only see the leash of a dog floating by with no one holding it. But lately, with this sort of attention, I'm starting to desire a more all-purpose Cloak.

Perhaps this is why, as a child, I was so ambiguous about how I saw my gender role. I didn't see myself as either feminine or masculine, but rather something floating outside of both constrictions, capable of defining myself. And the objectified nature of being a woman in this society, viewed and valued for her physical attributes, was never how I envisioned my place in the world.

No, I'm something outside of that, I believed. That's not me.

This is why I became fascinated with David Bowie in my college years. The androgynous alien, he usurped all gender roles and turned them around to suit his own self-perception. Or better yet, Bjork, a female prototype for the faerie denizen on earth, the buoyant, fiercely independent self. Or Joan Jett, whose black leather, wild hair and rugged rockin' left us all breathless. Yeah, I thought, that's me.

None of this means that I'm going to hit you with a big cartoon hammer if you compliment me. But if that statement isn't followed with an actual conversation, I'm likely to shrug and move on. Whatever you might think you see, I'm still that quirky bookworm who'd love to talk your ear off about my theories on life, music, art, spirituality and the divinity of cheese, if you'd just stop drooling.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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