Everyone talks behind the back of the fat-skinny couple. No one wants to admit it, but they usually do. What they usually say is this – “How do they do it? How do those two have sex?” If the man is the fat one, they picture the skinny woman bungee-cording down on to his penis. If the woman is the fat one, they picture a man scuba diving through a reef of flesh, just to get to the treasure. When you think of foreplay for a fat-skinny couple, you see one dipped in fudge and the other dressed as a turkey. That’s how the fat person gets excited. One man’s yuck is another man’s yum.
Now, I have never been fat like that – where people try to figure out the logistics of my sexual affairs.
However, wifesy IS a skinny person and though I can still shop at the regular girl’s store – unfortunately, I am not. I’m usually looking at the 12s or 14s. Wifesy is down by the 8s and 6s and when she’s super stressed out – the 4s. (This has never happened to me by the way. I have never “stressed myself” into skinny. I have raged myself there, into skinny land. But, most of the time I “stress myself” into a bag of Doritos like Elton John.) But, I digress. I have NEVER been a size 4. Maybe as an infant? No, not even then, I don’t think. I have been a 10 looking lovingly down at some 8s. But, that was after an extreme breakup and some insane workouts to stop me from murdering my ex.
Now, if you’ve never ventured into the forest of dating, being married to, and living with – a skinny person, I’m here to help. There are some things you’re just going to need to know in order to survive.
1) You will be taunted by a second wardrobe
You are going to be haunted and taunted. Maybe forever. I love my wifesy’s clothes because I have either bought them for her or picked them out. So, in a lot of ways, they are my taste, but picked out for a miniscule body. This is hard to live with. It’s like visualizing the petite section of the clothing store you love every day, but you can have none of it. The shirts and pants are billowing in the breeze of your walk-in closet and they seem to be chanting, “I know you like…but, you can’t have…” Now, maybe hetero couples don’t have this same – I like your clothes problem. However, I doubt it. I’ve lived in very close proximity to Brooklyn hipsters for most of my adult life and I can tell you a lot of those emo boys are wearing skinny jeans. SKINNY JEANS. No man should wear these unless he a) wants to hurt his wife’s feelings, b) he is gay, or c) he is European. But, it is happening – everywhere, like a plague. So, maybe you’re in a relationship with a skinny man and every night, he gets undressed, and he lays his skinny jeans over the side of the bed. And there they remain – taunting you, mocking you. Yes, you can live like this. But, you must admit there is a problem first, if you are to beat it in the end.
Is this your man? Then this is also your problem.
2) The skinny person can eat whatever she/ he wants
This is annoying. Let’s face it, you didn’t get into the size 12s by being a picture of restraint. No, you got there through booze and the immeasurable amount of obscene things you can do to rice. The skinny person can also eat the rice, but she will do so in a bird-sized portions to silently mock you. If the skinny person is a man – he will eat a huge amount, do three sit ups in the morning, and due to the fuck-all qualities of testosterone – the fat will be gone almost instantly. This is something you just need to live with.
3) The skinny person usually comes from a skinny family
Skinny wifesy has a toothpick dad and a pipe cleaner mom. Never mind that when they got together it probably made the sound of two twigs trying to make a fire, never mind that. The fire was made and skinny wifesy was born. Now when you go to family gatherings at her place, you also have to look at her skinny relatives. The skinny is generations deep. So, why is it that they’re having this “all you can eat” barbecue? To screw with you, why else. Ignore the skinny you’re being surrounded with and suffocated by. Take a swim in the pool. And when her dad says to you, “You don’t move like a big girl,” just say, “Thanks, you don’t move like a midget either.” He is after all 5’3”. When skinny wifesy visits with your parents, you’ll have to deal with the fact that she’s looking at your round mother through one squinty eye. You’ll know she’s thinking, “Is this Christmas future?” Ignore it, because your mother will turn around and lose 75 lbs on her own. She’ll surprise everyone – her doctors, you, skinny-wifesy, and I think – most of all, herself. You’ll always be proud of her for it.
Nope, not my family. Though I have to say, they look very happy…
4) The tell-tale exercise bike
For Christmas, your fat ass had the stupid idea to ask for an exercise bike. The exercise bike came with a computer to calculate mileage. Just as your zest for turning over a new leaf-ness came to a screeching halt and you were thinking of turning the bike into a clothes tree, the computer battery started to run out of juice. The end result was a tick-ticking sound that emanated from your office EVERY time you sat down to write. Tick-tick. Tick-tick, fatty. Tick-tick. Get on the bike, big girl. Tick-Tick. Tick-Tick. What are you waiting for? Tick-tick, fat-fat, Tick-tick. Tick-tick.
When this occurs, you will have two choices – get on the damn thing or hack it into a million pieces and bury it under the wood flooring. Remember though, this will probably not make the sound go away.
These are just some of the issues you’ll run into when living with a skinny person. You can love them, they can love you. Most likely you’ll enjoy workouts and physical activity together, but you’ll always eat more at the post-workout meal. This is all okay. You’ll get to where you want to be – in your own time, in your own way. As Anthony Robbins says (never mind that he had a tumor on his pituitary gland, which is why he’s so tall and lean…), as he says, “At any time you can turn the shoulds into musts. You can burn the boat.” By burning the boat, I think he means – give yourself no other options. Once I’ve burned my boat, I’ll have to get on the bike because they’ll be no other way back to shore. It will feel like driving a paddle boat, sure – a slow and dorky process seemingly going no where – but, eventually I will arrive.
If that doesn’t work, remember this…when you choose to live with a skinny person, there will always be one thing laying around: FOOD. Because they don’t eat a thing. So, have a piece of chocolate cake and re-group.
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Photo creds: skinny man, fat family
Sweet Mother 