Fishing For Compliments

I first heard this term when I entered high school and it had a predominantly negative history behind it. It took me a few years before I was able to grasp the concept of ‘fishing for compliments’. Essentially, someone (or more precisely a trans/cis woman) will say something negative in regards to their appearance, thus forcing all men around them, to compliment them. As though they are forced to change the view they have on themselves, based on their words.

I found this completely ludicrous.

Seriously, as a cis-woman who has struggled with self-worth and weight for a majority of my life, I gotta call bullshit on this whole ‘fishing for compliments’, want to know why?

Because we’re not saying these things to get compliments. We’re saying them because we believe them.

At least I remember that’s why I said them.

Back in high school, my self-esteem was at an all time low, and constantly berating myself was something I did rather often. It wasn’t something I did strictly in front of others, or in order to receive compliments, but something I saw as necessary. Hating my body is still one of the easiest things I can do, because the first thing I think of when I look in the mirror isn’t how great I look, but how much better I could look if I did a multiple of things.

I was unhappy with the vision in the mirror, though I refused to do anything about it, as though all I could do was tell myself how worthless I was. How large my body was. How uncomfortable it must be for others to see me in this regard. All of these things were a constant in my brain. So calling myself fat in front of others, or telling them to ‘let me know if I’m crushing your legs’ was a sign of respect for me. Of letting those around me that I was aware of my imperfections, I was aware of the belly rolls attached to me, aware of the way my arms flapped when I raised them. I was aware of it all, and there wasn’t a need to take that away from me.

I had no need to hear ‘oh you’re not fat’ ‘you’re skinny, what are you talking about?’ because these things never helped me. All I heard when people spoke to me like this was, ‘we’re lying to make you feel better’. I took this to heart, I let it affect every area of myself. I wanted someone to agree with me, but I didn’t want them to do it harshly. I wanted to call myself ‘fat’ and I wanted someone to say that yeah, it was true. I wasn’t skinny. I wasn’t a size 2, but that I was still worth something.

I wanted someone to tell me I worth something despite my weight, not because of it.

It took me years in order to differentiate the truth and it took me even longer to look in the mirror and not let the destructive things I thought crush me. I started to tell myself the same truth I’d always had. Yes, I am fat. But I’m not disgusting. I’m not vomit-inducing. I’m beautiful, still, yes with the weight. I am worth my own time and someone’s else. I stopped letting the weight on the scale affect me the way it shouldn’t have. I stopped letting ‘be skinny’ be the best goal I could offer myself. I stopped doing this because it wasn’t good for me. It wasn’t something I wanted to focus on for the rest of my life.

I didn’t want every conversation I had to come back to my weight. I wanted to be free from that enclosure, to be free of the measures of ‘fat’ and ‘skinny’, I didn’t want to be in these labels anymore. So I broke free of them.

I’ll still catch myself, fishing for compliments that is, when I’m feeling down about my own self-worth. I’ll catch myself looking in the mirror and pointing out everything I hate about my body. I’ll probably be catching myself for the rest of my life because these thoughts don’t just go away, they take time to push past, to grow beyond.

All my life I wanted to be someone other than ‘the fat girl’ and I realized the only way to break that label, was to break it for myself.

Even now, as I’m nearing my leave for graduate school, I’ve felt inadequate about my accompliments. I’ve felt as though graduating from college isn’t enough. As though, moving across the pond and studying at my dream school isn’t enough. It’s not enough because I’m not where I want to be weight wise. I hadn’t thought about it this way before, not until writing this article down, yet it’s true. I don’t feel as though I’ve accomplished much. I had though. I’ve accomplished so much more than I could have hoped for myself,

While still being ‘fat’. I’m not ashamed of my body anymore and I’m sure as hell not ashamed of being bigger. Me losing weight has nothing to do with not wanting to be ‘fat’ anymore, it’s about wanting to be fit. I don’t care if the scale says I’m fat, if I look in a mirror and I see a fit girl living life, that’s all I’m going to care about. It’s all I should ever care about, just me living life. That’s what matters, not your compliments nor your insults.