It's been a pressured kind of week for me this week. My first undergrad mid-term exams had me in a tizz! Group coursework almost drove me insane! All with a dodgy tum. The plus? I passed my exam. :) Yayyy me! :) More exams to come but it felt great folks and it really picked me up from the big tired heap I'd become by Thursday. The weekend was here. :) So now what to do? Where would I go to enjoy myself in London? As I travelled home on the tube today thinking about it with random people staring at me for daring to have a seat when thin people are standing (excuse me?) but I don't even care any more! Seriously. You know why? Because I can't stand the 45 minutes it takes me to get to my uni and I take great care that I am sitting (uncomfortably I might add) in a way which means I am only inhabiting the space I'm supposed to and not crossing over in to the next seat's space. I literally squeeze my fat legs together so they don't take up floor space and pull my arms in and grab them so tight that there is more than enough room in the seat next to me. But people will hang on to their visual prejudices. They see a fat person and imagine themselves immediately trapped under the blubber. So they'll stand rather than sit down next to me. Or at times it feels it might just be that they don't want to be seen sitting next to a fat person. Oh! and there's the 'I have a right to stare at you because you made yourself fat person'! Man! What kind of human beings exist in the world today? Please tell me? That they can be so irrational in their thinking? But like I say I've learn't to ignore them. Be prejudiced at your own peril. I just keep on keeping. Sometimes I hear the odd comment or people laugh in my face. That's sore. That's mental on their part but still sore as the receiver. After all I'm not trying to stand out. I've held back the tears that fight to force their way through my eyelids. But then I think why would you do something like that to a stranger? Why would you deliberately go out of your way to inflict pain? I remember then it's part of the mental illness the world seems to have collectively about fat people. It's their minds that are sick not so much that I am fat.
Anyway, as usual I digress. Back to the point. So I got out of the tube to touch my oyster card and leave the station as someone was handing out leaflets for a new gym. Now I kid you not but normally (any kind of leafleting) I'm ignored. Especially by health profession type marketers. They don't want to me to make their gym look 'bad'. Lol! No actually ha ha ha ha ha (deep stomach laughter)! Who else is the gym for?!?? If not me? They'll throw the comment "why don't you join the gym" but they don't actually want to see you there when they're there. Ohhhh no. Anyway this smiley slim girl came over to give a leaflet to the man next to me and because our eyes met you could see she felt no option but to offer me one too. I started to say thank you (thinking I would just chuck it into the nearest bin round the corner) when unexpectedly she started to go into the 'sell' speech. It was good stuff she was saying but I was waiting for her to finish because I just had one question for her. After she had finished talking about the wonderful new machines and step classes etc. I asked her, "is it Fat Friendly?" She blinked so hard she was about to cause gale force winds! I had thrown her with that question and I knew it! I knew exactly what reaction it would cause because I have asked that question many times before and received the same type of response. She recovered quickly (ever the sales girl) and replied "yes, of course". You see I rate things by Fat Friendly. Is it a place where no matter my size I will be welcomed and treated like any other customer. Will they do a little bit extra to meet my needs. Will they respect me and lead their customers in the way to treat me?
In Leicester where I lived I had a list of Fat Friendly places I could go and some that were a no go. My favourite 5 star Fat Friendly rating places were the Café Nero coffee bars all over town. Always accommodated me with a sturdier chair to sit on. After my first visit I never had to ask again. They would ask and bring it for me. :) Laura Ashley. Beeeauuuutiful store. The kind of store you'd have thought they'd be afraid to have fat people visit because we might knock their delicate accessories over by mistake but I never once was 'watched'. I was allowed to browse and buy in peace. It was always a treat. But the new Highcross shopping centre was a bad Fat Friendly place for me. It was the sort of place the beautiful people and their families shopped in. People looked at you like you might be lost. All the shops bar Laura Ashley and Debenhams were downright cold! The only plus size store in town Evans used to be Fat Friendly before it shut down. Moving away from Leicester though I find travelling on the tube here in London has a low Fat Friendly rating but it also depends what time of the day you're travelling on it. But buses are higher. Buses are easier and people don't seem to notice other people as much. The galleries have a really high Fat Friendly rating but the theatres low. I'm still learning about London. But I have Fat Friendly ratings for everything from which airlines are Fat Friendly, what holidays I've been on and how Fat Friendly they are etc. I'm trying to get a sense of where to go and know that because of the Fat Friendly rating I'll be in an accepting environment if I choose to go there.
I recently heard there was a holiday resort in Mexico that catered to fat people. How I loved the thought of maybe visiting that place one day. I love to travel and beach holidays have been a very low Fat Friendly rating for me here in Europe. The idea that there was somewhere in the world where I could go and be myself in a hotel and on a beach was just wonderful. In attempting to seek a Fat Friendly rating form people who'd been I heard they'd changed it to a 'normal' hotel but that fat people were always going to be welcome. I might be welcome but I'll watched by all the 'skinnies' as I scoff my breakfast pancakes and honey and get the 'tsk tsk tsk!' I thought. What a shame. Or I'll be smirked at behind my back as I waddled all my jiggles under my costume to the beach to get into the sea. I'd be too afraid to lie in front of the pool getting a massage with 'skinny' eyes watching and laughing at me. Fat Friendly? I'm not so sure any more.
So let it catch on guys. Join me in my Fat Friendly rating system. Tell me where you've been or where you go and what the Fat Friendly rating is for that. Remember it's:
1 * Horrible - Bigger Person Beware - Do Not Attempt!
2 * Not great - unfriendly
3 * Okayish - could be better - Occasional Prejudice
4 * Good - You Should Try It Out - Happy Place
5 * Excellent - Recommend - Completely Respectful - Very friendly and helpful
Whatever it is, airlines, coaches, holidays, local shops, places to visit, etc. Let us know!
Stay beYouteefool bigYoutifuls,
RayRay xx
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