An Emotional Journey In Three Acts
I ran across an advice column today in my Google alerts that managed to make me indignant on three totally different levels, one at a time. Allow me to take you along on my journey! It really starts with the first paragraph of the question.
My boyfriend Chris is 6 foot, 7 inches. I’m 5-foot, 4 inches. He weighs 240 pounds; I weigh less than 120. Yet, he’s very critical of women who have buckets and mentions it whenever my weight creeps up to around 125. As to his weight, he admits that he should lose “maybe 5 pounds.”
So obviously I’m angry at the boyfriend here, right? Goes almost without saying. He’s hypocritically nitpicking his girlfriend’s weight within a five-pound range? Clearly the correct advice here is dump him, dump him, dump him. Dear reader, your boyfriend Chris is a judgmental douche. Dump him! I have no idea what “buckets” are, but I could not possibly be more on your side, girl!
Now Chris is a smart man and a good one, yet he apparently does not see the disgusting spare tire that’s building up around him. I told him his weight was not only a turnoff, but that it’s physically unwieldy for me to be intimate with a man who outweighs me by 120 pounds. That got his attention, and he’s trying to get back in shape.
Well there’s a twist. She’s not indignant, she just hates his fat more! His “disgusting” fat that is such a “turnoff.” Suddenly my anger shifts, and I realized that these two totally deserve each other! Dear reader, both you and your boyfriend are superficial assholes. Mazel tov!
But let’s see what the advice columnist has to say. Certainly she will point out that a relationship should be based on something more than maintaining a certain weight, right? She address the questioner… this is gonna be good…
I, too, have often pondered this very point. And also how men who are pushing 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 can call a woman younger than their daughter, “long in the tooth.” I simply consider this an imponderable, along with why hot dogs come 10 to a package while hot dog buns come eight.
In case you click through thinking there is more to this answer, don’t bother. THAT IS THE ENTIRE ANSWER. Q: “My boyfriend and I hate each other’s bodies.” A: “And what is with those hot dogs?!” It’s like Jerry Seinfeld inexplicably popping up in a Microsoft commercial. So now I hate the questioner, her boyfriend, and the advice columnist. It’s like a trifecta of hatred in three paragraphs. And it’s kind of beautiful, really.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Fatism, Humor, Media, Sex & Romance
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“Long in the tooth?” I don’t think my grandma even uses that expression. What is the columnist? Like 90?
What does “buckets” mean?
In the Chicago Tribune version, she does have one more sentence on her response:
“Women, what’s a good comeback when an overweight man makes a remark about an overweight woman or an old guy comments about a mature gal?”
Cos yeah, that’s totally relevant to the situation of some douchebag freaking out every time his partner hits a BMI of 21.5.
What is with these guys that are so nitpicky about their loved one’s weight? And her???? They both need to be slapped, IMO. People in loving relationships are supposed to love each other, not based on appearance or WEIGHT but on content of character.
I almost feel the pain of the advice columnist though. In an effort to write something other than – you are both bitter miserable people that probably deserve each other – she made an analogy about old men and hot dogs. Somehow it seems relevant to her? heh.
I can’t think of anything substantive to add because all three of those people are so objectionable, but a guy I’ve met a couple of times is about 6’5″ or so and mentioned the other night that he weighs about 210. This guy is thin. So I’m thinking that any “unwieldiness” is coming from the 15-inch height difference and the fact that a guy that big is necessarily going to outweigh a petite woman by quite a bit… not from the fact that he’s “overweight.”
Anyway, you’re right. They deserve each other and maybe the advice columnist could somehow run off with them and they could all live on a commune where they insult each other’s “spare tires” and goad each other to diet all day long (pausing to crack hilarious jokes about airline peanuts from time to time), and the rest of us would never have to hear from them again.
You know, there is a reason that they are together.
And, in fact..I’m thrilled. That means that there are two less people out there infecting otherwise normal folk with their dysfunctional relations.
They are keeping it in the family.
Fucking morons.
“Dear reader, both you and your boyfriend are superficial assholes. Mazel tov!” HA HA HA!
Wow; that is indeed a trifecta of “huh”?!? And what the heck is “buckets”? Is it a large bottom? Or a reference akin to “cans” or “jugs” for breasts? Do I have a bucket? Is it like the lolCats walrus’ bucket??
Perhaps a better response from the advice columnist could have been formed more around the idea that both of them might need to reconsider the relationship if superficial attributes were the only thing they were able to concentrate on!
It’s surreal. It’s stupid. It’s hilarious. . . I’m not, quite, sure WHAT that bit of ridiculousness really is, but I think it might qualify as Art. A completely unintended, spontaneously occurring, Dialog of the Absurd in Two Acts.
Bravo! Idiots.
Reading shit like this makes me so thankful to be with my boyfriend… During our first year together, I gained 60 pounds, mostly because we went out to eat 2-3 times a week. He never once brought it up, and hasn’t acted any less attracted to me. I’m trying to lose the weight, but it’s never been “for him”, only myself because I’m not happy as I am right now. He’s very supportive about my efforts but it makes it very clear that even if I gain more he will love me no matter what.
I tried to google the slang definition of “buckets” and I’m still at a loss.
My mom used to refer to our rear ends as “buckets” – I’m betting this guy is stating that he likes women with no “A”.
Hmmm, buckets, its an enigma. I’ve had the privilege to study (and draw) loads of round voluptuous naked bodies (artschool) but i’ve never encountered any buckets? Must check sketches!
The best part of this all?
A man who weighs 240 at 6ft.7 is just as overweight as a woman who weighs 120 at 5ft.4
The most valid complaint in this whole thing is about hot dogs – WTF?
The problem brings to mind ond of my late father’s favorite things to say about couples: well, they’re saving two perfectly normal people.
The hot dog remark reminds me of my favorite lightbulb joke:
How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Fish.
Thank you for making my day a tidge more surreal and making me appreciate my guy more than ever.
Zen advice columns…this is brilliant!
Q: I think my boyfriend is cheating on me what should I do?
A: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Q: I cannot stant my mother in law, and it’s causing issues in my husband and mine’s relation ship, what should I do?
A: There is a mouse in the cat’s dish, the dish is broken, where is the cat?
I am TOTALLY in the wrong profession! I should be an advice columnist.
Apparently anyone can do it. You just need to have a gift for nonsensical answers.
Hell, I can do that!
Hot dogs staying on a supermarket shelf if they were marked down to 50 cents has a better chance of staying then this relationship.
You have a man that hates buckets and a woman that can only be intimate with a guy who weighs the same as she does. Then again, let’s pray they stay together and keep swimming on their side of the gene pool.
ummm for real??? With answers like that I’m very confident that I too could be an advice columnist (and be a lot better than this moron) . . . hot dogs, seriously?
I bet this same girl would throw a hissy fit if he proposes with the “wrong” ring, or in the “wrong” way.
To me, there is one real answer for these hand wringing question about the uppity nature of the human body to change over time.
My answer is this:
“If you or your mate has embarked on a relationship with the expectation that your bodies will not age, not roll with the grand punch of time, circumstance and the unexpected, then you are both deluded in the saddest of ways.
My advice is to let it sink in. You and your body are mortal. Your partner and your partner’s body is mortal. Neither of you are truly worried about fat or the loss of sexual attraction or attractiveness. You both fear the inevitability of death.
Stop channeling this fear through the insane expectation that your body will look like it’s been banging around the planet for 20 years. Deal with it and reach out wildly for real, scary and rewarding intimacy. Which can happen regardless of your or your partner’s weight.”
Now I’m hungry for hotdogs.
And I’m going to help that walrus find his bucket. It’s so sad to be without a bucket! That boyfriend doesn’t know what he’s missing.
Am I ever thankful for my tolerant boyfriend! Sheesh!
Lazy advising, Ms. Columnist: “It’s a great imponderable!
No, it’s because we live in a patriarchy full of double-standards and injustice, dimbulb.
And I buy my hot dogs eight to the pound.
Which is why I no doubt have “buckets”–whatever they may be.
According to urbandictionary.com, one of the definitons for “bucket” is a ” flabby, loose or overly spacious vagina”… How is losing weight gonna change THAT?
end /snark
I agree that those two have earned each other, but I fear for their (future) children – imagine how f***ed up those kids will be!
the sad thing to me is that could have been the start of a good advice column “why do men think they get to apply standards to women that don’t apply to them?” And go on to suggest that the reader call him on the b.s., or something. or point out that she doesn’t need someone doing that. Instead . . . there’s just failure.
HA. That made me laugh. I look a good dose of indignation at 1:45 in the afternoon. Tempered rage isn’t as bad for you as they say.
my boyfriend is 6’5″ and weighs 270, and has a slight (very slight) belly. Someone who’s both TALLER and LIGHTER is not that damned heavy.
This woman just disgusts me. If the size makes that much of a difference, try a foot stool or something.
haven’t read through all the comments but I’m wondering if her snippiness is a self-defense thing. Like “hey asshole, look in a mirror b4 getting on my case”.
I don’t understand these people at all.
It’s like Microsoft, whose only product that doesn’t suck is a vacuum…
/sarcasm
Wow! There is a certain synergy to the two of them being together. As someone else said, good that they’re both off the singles’ market.
Megan
I like how she gave a nonsensical answer to this question. Really, what advice can you give to a grown person who is looking for information on how to hate herself and her boyfriend less?
Not if they reproduce.
As was said, I believe, by one of the genius surrealists upthread:
Fish.