Do I Look Fat?

There is nothing worse than having a friend stand in front of you asking the following questions:

“Do I look fat?”
“Can you see my muffin top?”
“Does this dress flatter my figure?”
“Do I look like I gained weight”

It’s a shitty situations for both parties, as a matter of fact. As the person asking the questions, if you are anything like me, you want the cold, hard, honest truth because you don’t want to walk around looking like an asshole. For the person responding to said questions, well, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Even though your friend may be asking for the cold, hard, honest truth, does she REALLY? For me, even though I do ask for the truth, I know deep down I would be absolutely devastated if my friend did tell me I look like I gained weight or that indeed she can see my muffin top. And that friend runs the risk after speaking said truth of me turning into Satan, spiraling out into a haze of self loathing and labeling her the worst friend on the planet who thinks I am fat.

Ahhhh females, aren’t we AMAZING?!

As females, we have days where we feel awful about ourselves, whether it is brought on by PMS or just having an “off” day … it happens. For example, yesterday I found myself in a dressing room, sweating to death, trying on dresses whilst feeling completely bloated and disgusting. The last thing I wanted to be doing was trying on dresses, but alas I needed to her ‘er done. Luckily my best friend came with me for support and opinions.

Nothing I tried on wow-ed me. In fact, I don’t think I would even be wow-ed if I was trying on couture since I was feeling straight up like this:

So I was relying on the reaction of my best friend. You can tell when something looks good right away. It is an immediate “YES!” “PERFECTION” “SOLD!” If the next sentence is, “wweeeelll :::circles around you:::, do you own Spanx?” it is a no go. The worst thing you can do is lie to someone whilst dress shopping. In fact I have the sickest lie-dar on the planet. There are simple signs to looks for. The corner of their lip starts to curl, their eyes will get big, they may start playing with their hair. Listen, I know, you don’t want to hurt your friends feelings. I get it. You are a good person. But there are nice ways to do it without being like, “you look disgusting, take that off.”

“That style just isn’t working for you, let’s try something else more flattering.”
“You have such great legs, we need to find something that accentuates them more!”
“That dress is something a hooker would wear, take it off, you are better than that.”

And so on and so forth. What I am saying ladies, if you ask your friends to give you the cold, hard, honest truth, don’t get pissed off when they give it to you. You asked for it. If you are asking for the truth, but really fishing for compliments, that is just an unfair game to be playing. If by asking, “do I look fat,” you really want validation that you are thin, I mean … just stop.

But to the person having to give the cold, hard, honest truth, there are ways to sugar-coat it without being like, “meeeeh ya definitely look like you gained 10 lbs,” all the while destroying your friends hopes and dreams and potentially your friendship. Just don’t lie. For the love. It isn’t cool to let your friends walk around like assholes. And lie-dar exists. You think you’re being coy, but, indeed, you are NOT.