Recently, The Slim One got offended by her friend who commented that her left eye is smaller than her right. She was so offended that she proceeded to look up that friend’s FB profile & browsed through her pictures, ‘zoomed’ them up and search for any of that girl’s physical imperfections. Yes, she got defensive & wanted to load up her verbal gun with enough ammo to massacre an entire Third World country the next time she sees her friend. An eye for an eye, I guess (pun intended). You see, my sister doesn’t have a lot of experience in dealing with people like that, but I have had one of those friends since secondary school. There was this one particular girl who used to make weird comments to me such as:
“Eh, hidung kau tak mancung ek. Aku ade darah Pakistan skit, tu hidung aku ok.”
“Eh the corners of your lips cam jatuh kalau kau tak senyum.”
“Kau putih tapi banyak bulu ek.”
“Kalau ko tinggi elokla pakai baju ni…”
You catch my drift. Funny thing is, I wasn’t even insulted by these comments. But I think it’s because I’m ignorant of the implied meaning behind them at the time. Also, I wasn’t a vain person back then so I didn’t really care. Felt weird though (I mean, what’s her purpose in saying those things? What is supposed to be my response? “Erm, ok. Thanks?”). But since then, I’ve met a lot of people like her and my awareness has kicked in. I’m telling you, I have never been conscious of how “putih”, how short, how hairy, how gap-toothed, how big-assed, how pimply and how fat I am until somebody else mentioned it to me.
Because of all these venomous observations (intentionally or not) of me made by these people, I’d like to think that I’m above judging people for their physical appearance, but I realized recently that I have become maybe a little bit critical of my own appearance as well as others. Yes, I have become one of “those people” and my inner vain, bitchy monster has been unleashed. I guess it’s my defense mechanism after years of verbal abuse, but still. I should be able to resist from stooping that low.
I remember reading something about this in the June issue of Cleo (I think), that this phenomenon is called “body snarking”. We do it all the time, whenever we see pictures of celebrities, saying “That dress on her is hideous.” “OMG she’s getting fat!” “Her head is bigger than her body.” “She has a huge ass.” I’m ashamed to admit it, but I have made comments like this (most of the time in my head). It’s not surprising, since the article also mentioned that body snarking is often done by women against women. Why the HELL do we do this? Where’s the girl power yo? My sister’s explanation is simple: “They’re jealous”. This might be true, but I think there’s a deeper issue at hand. Maybe we’ve become so critical of ourselves, that we don’t think it’s a big deal to become critical of others. But believe me, it is a big deal. We women have low self-esteem enough as it is, let's not add fuel to the fire and be the cause to unwarranted plastic surgeries as well as anorexia and bulimia among ourselves.
From now on, let’s just embrace all our imperfections and other people’s as well. After all, what fun would it be if everyone looks the same? It’s like looking at a catalogue of designer clothes or watching a runway show: I can’t tell the difference from one model to another. So stop analyzing every single blemish, eye-bags or cellulite. Seriously, just stop. You can do it. Or if you can’t, please keep the comments to yourself. Thank you.
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| Courtesy of Budak Jepun: Although this is peppered with sarcasm, Imma use it as a positive message here. Hohoho - gelak santa claus skit. They were delicious! |
p/s: My gap is opening again. Yeayyyyy! Menyesal tutup. Damn those young giggly dentists and their half-priced discounts!
