Or when I'm on the bus people will move things off their seat to let me sit by them, before they would pretend not to see me and leave their packages in the extra seat...
I have to say, this may not be due to friendliness, but to size. Sitting next to a smaller person can be more comfortable than sitting next to a larger person, especially in tight, public spaces like a bus or subway. It isn't kind, but I'd bet that had more to do with it than being friendly vs. not. Happened all the time on Southwest for me (where they have open seating)...when I was bigger, I'd often have the seat next to me free because on a non-full plane, no one would choose to sit next to me. Now I almost never have that empty seat, because people see me at the size I am and decide I'd be a comfortable seatmate (little do they know I'm scared of planes and therefore tend to talk and wince the entire time).|||While I know there are definitely people out there who are fat-prejudiced, I have to say that I've been both fat & skinny thru-out my life, and I've never noticed anyone, be it stranger or familiar, being more or less friendly or unfriendly due to my weight. When people are unfriendly to me, I don't think it has anything to do with me personally, I just assume one of two things:
1) they're having a really bad day
b) they're just an ***hole
Yes of course I've known people who are prejudice against race, gender, age, body-size, etc. Those people I file under "just an ***hole" :D
And I can say without guilt that I have avoided certain "fat people" - one that particularly bothered me... NOT because she was "so fat" but because her WEIGHT was ALL she EVER talked about! - And she'd eat like there was NO tomorrow and never BOTHER dieting OR exercising... but she just would not STFU about it! - all conversations started or ended with the number on the scale with her. So see? Sometimes there are REASONS why people might avoid someone... and you can't get inside their head to figure it out, so why bother trying? I just focus on MY OWN SELF, and try to be friendly to all people, even when I'm in a bad mood (which is sometimes hard to do!) :^:|||One related thing I've noticed is that people are a little more free making negative comments about other people's weight in front of me. When I was 300 pounds, no one ever said the word "fat" in my hearing. My students (I teach high school) never referred to weight in any way around me. Now that I've lost the weight, I will hear them talking about how so and so is putting on weight or whatever. I need to find a way to deal with this beyond "the look"--I have standard lectures for racist and homophobic and other types of mean talk, but I've got nothing for this. It's so much more personal that I am uncomfortable bringing it up, even, though obviously I need to get over that, since in a few years I'll have kids that never knew me as "fat" and will be even less restrained.
I really didn't realize how casually people will make negative comments about obese people until I was no longer seen as one of them.
Related to that: almost none of my students EVER mentioned my weight loss to me directly. Just as my weight wasn't mentioned before, there was this unspoken convention that it wasn't referred to. However, they became more comfortable talking around me (like kids eating lunch in my room, or hanging out after school) and I've learned that teenage girls NEVER STOP TALKING about diets. I really had no idea. Before, my room was apparently the only place in the building that they talked about anything else, and I had no idea.|||I agree luciddepths definitely
but if you read what I wrote up above how people treated me when I gained all the weight? you'll see that ALOT of people are just so mean & insensitive..& majority of society is shallow...uhhhh
GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE LOSING THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE!|||I absolutely noticed that people started being nicer to me.
Specifically, this one woman who was downright rude when we were in board meetings together and whenever I saw her in local travels, school, town. Then I lost the weight. SHe saw me and was all smiley and WOW, blahblahblah. I was almost polite in response, but probably not quite.....|||Note that Danielle2842 is experiencing this now that she is "down" to the size that OP started at.
Hmmm... I'm not really quite sure how to take the comment above. And why did you feel the need to put "down" in quotations? What exactly are you implying? :?:|||I do think that people are nicer to normal weight people, which is sad to me. I think thin people are perceived to be smarter and have it all together better than overweight people.
Of course, we all know that this is so far from the truth. Skinny people and fat people all have their problems in life. Weight is a very low predictor of
a person's innate worthiness, but unfortunately, it is a visible gauge that some people are unable to see beyond.
I also agree that people who are happy with themselves are more open and receptive to others around them, resulting in more positive interactions.