#Fat Girl's Anonymous: You are Deserving

By Wana Udobang

A friend once shared with me his two most cherished life philosophies which he also shared with his daughter when she was very young. The first; no one has the right to treat you less than you are. The second; unrequited love is bullshit. Well where was he when I was a little girl?

It is almost impossible to talk about being a fat girl and ignoring the narrative of love with the opposite sex in the same sentence. Even in situations where you refuse to engage in such conversations, for some reason or another you just find yourself entangled in it. I have been pretty lucky when it comes to dating so I haven’t had any exes beat me to a pulp or treat me like absolute crap. I will admit though, I have had my own fair share of disasters and perhaps mostly of my own doing because I felt I was undeserving.

If you are like me, you are probably used to the word ‘cute’ as a constant refrain with a follow up piece of rhetoric about how you would find a good person to love you if you just went on some weird food deprivation programme for six months. There I was thinking that love didn’t cost a thing, but I guess I forgot to read the fine print. Again if you are like me with this thin permeable skin, you just soak up all those messages without even knowing it. In other words, that shit sticks and it creeps up in ways you could never imagine.

Take for instance an my ex-boyfriend  who woke up one day and decided he didn’t want to be with me anymore. I don’t enjoy the whole serial dating thing, so let’s just say moving on wasn’t as easy for me as it was for him. This was made even worse by his reasons for the break up..wait for it….I was a ‘little too nice’.  At first I thought this has to be the most daft excuse for a breakup I had heard. I would later discover he had complained about this to his friends prior to the breakup.

He was right. I was too nice. Before rehab, I think I wanted to act perfect enough so he wouldn’t see what I considered my own imperfections. There were times he deliberately took advantage of this and I would ignore it, maybe believing I had no right to be upset about anything. Coupled with my childhood abandonment issues and my aversion to confrontation, I can see how the poor guy would have thought he could probably wake up with me holding a cleaver next to his jugular because it just wasn’t normal to be so nice and considerate about every single thing. The truth is much like a dog that smells fear and latches on to it, sometimes humans do the same and they can oppress at will given the slightest chance.

That’s what feeling undeserving can do to you. It robs you of the right to express yourself, whether dissatisfaction or anger, it keeps you in a perpetual state of fear, you think your life is confined to taking what you get possibly because you have been told that its only the beautiful ones that get loved so until your body changes and you can morph from cute to beautiful, you really cant afford to be demanding or rock that boat. The interesting thing is. it doesn’t only occur with romantic relationships. It’s about all kinds of relationships. You just happen to be the chubby, chilled out, loyal, understanding, forgiving, good and sacrificial friend. Half the time you don’t even know you are doing it but you are always there to please everyone, even at your own detriment. You actually forget that you have a right to choose or to want things just like anybody else.

I remember my friend Temi saying to me, she often gets told that she is so lucky that she got married or rather that somebody married her. It was heart breaking hearing that because I wondered if sometimes she had moments when she actually started to believe it even if I believe and hope it isn’t the case.

If you are from these parts, you know that political correctness is something our people struggle with. You will always hear all sorts and it will forever be a constant narrative whether you choose to engage or not as long as you look nothing like the mould. I have to consciously remind myself that my life is on my own terms and I deserve the best of love, life and happiness through out every stage of this journey.

This article was originally published on wanawana.net