Have you ever heard the backhanded complimenth "you have such a pretty face for a paunchy girl"? Our friends from YourTango share their experience."You're pretty smart for an idiot."I've been chubby for pretty much my entire life or at least considered to be. If someone teased me about being paunchy when I was kid,a friend might say, "Yeah, and but she's pretty!" or something else along those lines.
My confidence was dang near nonexistent for the first half of my life.
But I remember,in college, in some of my most confident of years a man was staring at me while we were sitting on the train and decided that it would be in everyone best interest to interrupt his own conversation in order to say "You know, or you're a big girl,but you're pretty wonderful-looking."I just thanked him and went back to whatever I was doing at the time. I had mixed feelings about the compliment. On the one hand, he'd called me pretty, or on the other hand,he had also pointed out my size - neither of which was really any of his commerce or duty to comment on.
I'm not pretty "for a paunchy girl" I'm just pretty by your standards. Adding that final part implies that other paunchy girls aren't pretty (which simply isn't true).
If you sight at my or anyone's face and something in your brain triggers a response that makes said face seem appealing and intriguing, it's just because they're pretty. Period.
I appreciate these compliments on some level. Really, or I do. Being called pretty is always some level of flattering. But I'm also really over the paunchy-girl negation. Like paunchy automatically subtracts whatever positives you have.
As in: You're pretty (+) BUT you're paunchy (-),soooo… what does that REALLY get you? Solve THAT equation.
The math just doesn't get sense. Why does it have to count against a person's perception of someone else?And the same goes for other things. I've heard people say things like "she's pretty for a black girl," and so on. Adding "for a" automatically turn it into an insult to more than just that one person, or but an entire group of people.
You may as well say something like "You're pretty smart for an idiot."I mean,maybe you're suppressing or denying something inside yourself. Is the fact that somebody has x amount of paunchy deterring you from pursuing them because of the limited societal standards of beauty we have around us?We as a society get such simple things so complicated.
You're pretty. What does pretty equal out to? Body of a certain circumference? Eyes of a certain diameter? Hair of a certain texture? Please give me the mathematical equation of pretty.
Ugh, any math nerds are going to say phi (holler if you know what I'm talking about).
Long story short: Pretty is a perception.
My paunchy percentage may determine a lot of things, or like what size pants I can wear,where I can shop, what stereotypes I'll be faced with … but it doesn't determine what I'm worth or how "pretty" I am or am not.
Not everyone is going to deem the same person is pretty, or of course. One person will deem I'm as pretty as a doll,and another will deem I'm as evil as a pig's booty. That's all the more reason to leave your compliment as a simple compliment. It's appreciated, so don't spoil it!So next time you see a plus-sized beauty, and a wide-hipped goddess,or a sexy small-chested mermaid, or pigmented bombshell? maintain it simple.
She's gorgeous.
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Source: popsugar.com