Curvy...

J and I got a new X-Box 360 w/ Kinect this week! We're both really excited to get games that we can both play. He wants shooter games (big surprise) and I want dancing and exercise games. This afternoon, we were setting up our profiles on the gaming system. When you're doing that, you get to make avatars (little digital characters that look however you want them to - most people do what we did and make them look like yourself). I watched J make his avatar, and added occasional spurts of input as he chose certain features. As I was making my avatar, I asked him to help me in return. It came time for me to choose the...ahem, "width" of my avatar, and I couldn't decide between a thinner and slightly thicker version of the avatar. He told me to choose the thicker one. I said, "Geez, I'm not that big, am I?" "You're pretty curvy babe...", he replied, telling me to switch it back to the thinner version of the avatar for a moment. "See?", he said, "your thighs are thicker than that."

Ouch.

This is something that I think only women understand. I know that he didn't mean it in a hurtful way, but my eyes are still stinging from trying to prevent my emotion from spilling out of them. There is a sizable knot in my throat that I can't seem to swallow. It's no secret that I have struggled with insecurities related to my weight pretty much for the past 2-3 years. These insecurities come from a variety of reasons, and I'm perfectly aware that J loves me just the way I am, but that doesn't mean it didn't sting a little when he said that... okay, more than a little. I exercise regularly, and while I could eat healthier, I certainly eat healthier than most of the people I know, including J. So why do comments like that still dig at me? It's interesting how it takes days, sometimes weeks, to build your confidence up to a comfortable (even enjoyable?) level, and it takes about 3.5 seconds to damage it. I'm not saying that my confidence resides in J's opinion of my thighs. My ego is bruised, but my confidence is certainly not shattered. To be honest, he quickly followed up his comment about them with a compliment about how much he loves my thighs and my curves. I think that men simply do not understand or interpret certain remarks in the same way that a woman who has suffered from insecurities in the past does.