This piece is meant to be in conversation with How to love a fat person by Your Fat Friend.

It is not an argument against the piece, because I know that thing that thin people do. It’s been done to me. I’ve lost track of how many times.

There was a particularly bad couple of years in 6th and 7th grades where all the boys in my class decided it would be hilarious to take turns pretending to ask me to be their girlfriend and then laughing in my face.

It was so funny that they did it every single day for 2 entire school years.

That thing that thin people do is not just a game for middle school boys. It continued off and on throughout my entire life until I met my current partner.

So. This is a tender place.

This pretending to be attracted to a fat person “joke” is so common that it is just in a box in my head labeled Things Thin People Do.

Thin people do cruel things to fat people. These are the things thin people do.

But here is the thing that makes so angry that I could burn the world down in my rage- We ALL know about this “joke”. All fat people know.

We are more recently starting to talk about it, b/c the pain level around this is so high that the first couple of times I tried to speak on it, I could feel the hurt in my body. I still can.

Like some part of me is stuck in that time. All that rage and humiliation are still a part of me.

But all fat people know about That Thing Thin People Do.

Just like we ALL know what it’s like to pretend to want to browse earrings for endless humiliating hours while our thin friends try on clothes in a bonding ritual we can never participate in.

And we ALL know that Lane Bryant has spent the better part of a decade being garbage.

We know.

I have to tell you that it makes me furious when thin people act shocked that the “I’m attracted to a fat person HA HA!! NOT!! GROSS!!” atrocity exists.

Fuck.

You.

OH DOES THAT SURPRISE YOU????? DOES IT?

ARE YOU SAD NOW, THIN PEOPLE? ARE YOU??????

Does my story of being emotionally tormented make you uncomfortable?

Because I have something really mean to say to you, thin people —

I fucking hate y’all. I do.

You pretend like this doesn’t happen right in front of your faces. You refuse to see us while we crumble.

Maybe you can’t see us. Maybe you never did. And I still fucking hate you. And I am still furious. HOW DARE YOU LOOK AWAY?

What you choose not to see, you are allowing to happen. So fuck your shock.

Thin people do NOT get to act shocked at the ways fat people are abused when y’all won’t EVER shut your fucking mouths about how bad being fat is and how scared you are that you’re going gain weight and become one of us.

And this? Right here? Is why we can’t be one big happy body posi collective.

B/c there are experiences that fat people and ESPECIALLY fat women & femmes have that thin women don’t know shit about. And act SO SHOCKED when they hear about.

Yeah shocked for like 2 minutes, and then you fucking forget about it again.And it’s like omg my new cleanse is the BEST, and I just have to lose 10 pounds.

But you want body posi because you STAY stealing from us. Taking our labor and pushing us out.

The default state of a fat girl to y’all is emotionally devastated. So you choose not see it when people are deliberately cruel to us IN FRONT OF YOU.

But DEAR GOD- Don’t let a fat girl be happy. Don’t let her be proud. Cause y’all can see that FROM SPACE.

And THEN suddenly you are concerned. Where the fuck is that concern when I am verbally and physically assaulted FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE?

NOWHERE.

Because I am SUPPOSED to be in pain to you. My pain makes you warm and secure in your superiority. My pain makes your life worthwhile.

You can keep your fake shock, thin women. I don’t need your fake sympathy.

You never helped me when I needed help. So you can fuck off pretending like you give a shit.

(Originally published on Medium.com)