Everyone Knows The Only Thing We Should Be Ashamed Of Is Our Bodies

“Everyone knows the only thing we should be ashamed of is our bodies.” 
                                              - Kenneth “Kenneth The Page” Ellen Parcell

if only a real-life manchild were as adorable

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I  hate to toot my own horn, but my dating experience has taught me that I’m what guys consider to be eye candy.

• “Wow, you eat so much but you’re still so skinny.” 
  
  
• “I can’t imagine anyone being smaller than you.”
  

Said to me by different guys. Both times I promptly changed the subject. What was going through my head at the time:

          Oh good, you’re aware of the stereotype that all women are highly insecure
          about their body and will develop an eating disorder if they don’t receive
          reassurance from men.

          Come on. Did you really just say that? You can’t imagine anyone smaller than I
          am?

Let me fill in the holes: My “skinniness” and “small size” are an illusion. I’m relatively thin and I’m Asian-American. Thinness + Asian genes + living in obese America = illusion of tininess. Which inadvertently leads to bullshit compliments from guys.

There’s another illusion equation involving the variables, thinness and Asian. Thinness + Asian genes = should in fact be tiny. Guys who live by this equation pay me slightly different compliments.

• “You should go to the gym. I’m not saying you need to lose weight. Just go to tone up. And you don’t have to go every day, but you should go like every other day.” 
  
  
• “You’re kind of fat!” 
  (after a guy put his arm around my waist and squeezed it)
  
  
• “You’re heavy for an Asian!”
  (after a different guy carried me over to a sofa chair)

What was going through my head at the time:

          Thank you!

By the way, all of these “compliments” were unsolicited; meaning, I promise you I don’t ever direct conversations to be about my body. It’s a sore subject for women, after all.