I GUESS RIGHT NOW I'M PRETTY...FAT!

So, I’m stalking pretty girl behavior like I’m on a safari in Africa and random stuck up bitches are my prey. Or, to mix my metaphors, I’m a mad scientist. Studying them like they’re some strange species I’ve just discovered lounging around under my microscope in barely there short shorts and stripper nails. The point is, to me PG's (pretty girls) are completely foreign and I really don’t understand why they do most of the things they do.

Clearly, I’m female too so I share some of the most important characteristics like my DNA, my genetic lust for fashion and my awesome baby making abilities. But I don’t act the same as those other girls. I never have. I started to notice the difference as early as junior high when PG’s would form packs of four to six deep and endlessly roam the playground at lunchtime looking for other weaker, weirder girls to bully. For entertainment. Just to make themselves feel better. 

 

 I could never understand that. Guys didn’t waste as much of their time putting other people down. Instead they used their skills. They competed. They accomplished. They did something. All girls seemed to do was compete as to who was the prettiest and who the boys liked better. To me it was like being a remora, a sucker fish for a larger more important species. I mean, who would choose to be Nemo when you can be the shark?

My friends and I didn’t worry so much about what we looked like. We were more concerned about being talented. Being smart. Being artistic and getting recognized for our achievements. We didn’t use gossip and beauty as social currency. We paid cash with our wit and determination. Then again, we also spent an awful lot of hours dancing around in front of our bedroom mirrors singing show tunes and practicing our Oscar acceptance speeches so maybe we didn’t utilize our time to the best of our abilities either.

Regardless, the space between the PG’s and me widened…  Eventually by high school becoming an endless, gaping chasm. And I didn’t care. Cause I was a drama geek, an outsider, a weirdo, but I still had boyfriends and dances and after school activities. Just not like they did. I was made fun of a little bit but nobody shoved me into a locker or pushed me down a flight of stairs. The worst it got was like bully lite with an extra helping of bitchery.

But now, post high school, post college I barely recognize PG’s as the same species we’re so different. I see these thirty-something women attending their Junior League meetings, their 50 Shades of Grey book club reading bullshit all dressed alike in their matching Tory Burch white jeans, loafers, gauzy embellished ‘I just came back from Morocco and it was to die for’ blouses (even though the farthest away from home they've ever been is St. Louis) and I want to vomit.

Everyone looks the same. Everyone thinks they’re special and different but seriously? Tory Burch is Garanimals for grown-ups. These days even college girls buy into it. Urban Outfitters is Corporate America’s idea of being a rebel. I get the irony but do they?

But this is how PG’s dress. They feel safe if everyone adheres to the same rules. This is how we look. This is who we date. This is who we love. This is how we live. Even the hair all looks similar. Blown out. Highlighted. Straightened. I have masses of thick, unruly red hair. One thing is not like the others. Can you tell which?

I’m trying to understand them but it’s like learning a foreign language. Why do they do what they do? These strange creatures with their awesome magical powers. I don’t compete with my friends for men or who can get the most attention when we walk into a room. Or who is the thinnest. The prettiest. The Best.

I don’t speak ‘girl talk” That annoying baby voice whisper that women use to feign passivity, appear non-threatening and get out of traffic tickets. Nobody is born talking like this. Trust! It’s a trick that women use to get what they want from men but when they have the gall to attempt to use it on other women its beyond infuriating. Have you ever had to hold a conversation with someone who insists on talking like this?  It’s like they chose a cross between a helium balloon and a Keebler Elf as their spirit animal and they insist on paying homage.

I also don’t feel the need to criticize myself in order to gain compliments and power. Ever notice how certain women don’t allow themselves to be happy? This is a straight up power play, don’t fall for it! If you’re a woman, let me ask you…have you ever tried to compliment a PG woman? It’s impossible, right?

If you tell her you like her shirt she will tell you that its last season, or she got it on sale or that she’s gained five pounds so it doesn’t fit right. Even though she secretly thinks she looks better than you she will keep putting herself down until you finally bust out with a heartfelt, “Oh my God, you look amazing! What are you talking about? I’m the fat/horrible/old/unattractive one!” Then, fully satisfied she will relent and agree with you. She might even add in a ‘helpful comment’ about how you should see her Pilates teacher/dermatologist/spiritual healer to get you “back on track.” Hmmph! Didn’t realize I had derailed.

Anyhoo, in my attempt at understanding what the hell motivates these women I went straight for the belly of the beast and mailed off subscriptions to Elle, Marie Claire and Harper’s Bazaar. I didn’t subscribe to Cosmo because I’m no longer 23 and I’m already really, really good at giving blowjobs.

So, my first magazine arrived yesterday, all thick and glossy. Full of perfume strips, massive fashion layouts for $5,000 bags and ‘inspirational’ headlines like, “Sexy Cool New You”, “Flawless Skin” and “Killer Style”.

I excitedly flip thru the mag like a kid on Christmas morning thrilled to be gleaning insider info until I come upon an article called “Skinny & Crazy VS Fat & Happy”. The article went in depth about a LA woman who was suffering from “An onslaught of depression and suicidal thoughts so intense that she took a leave of absence from her job for treatment.” So she goes on Lithium but discovers that it made her hungry. So she ate. Instead of her normal handfuls of almonds she ate *gasp* sandwiches. With actual bread and everything.

Suffice to say this chick was totally freaked out by her appetite. So she “hit the gym for hours at a time” but still she gained weight until finally, she went to the doctor and was horrified to discover that she had gained…wait for it…twenty pounds! Twenty pounds! According to this LA woman, she had gained more than what she had assumed her maximum weight could be.

Let’s just take that in for a minute, shall we? This is a grown-ass woman who really thought that there was no way in hell she (as a PG, natch!) could possibly, under any conditions, gain more than ten pounds. She thought that her body couldn’t physically weigh that much. Shocking I know. But that’s not even the kicker. It’s this. This woman, this Elizabeth and James jeans wearing, non-processed, gluten-free food eating woman, would rather be depressed and suicidal than be twenty pounds overweight, so she went off her pills.

That means she would rather potentially die than go up a size in her clothes.

She literally would rather die than be fat.

That is complete and utter madness. Is this how these women think? As someone who is more than twenty pounds overweight, I’ve never thought that my life was completely worthless just because I was a little bit fluffy.  Twenty pounds is nothing. It’s a blip, a non-event, an unfortunate result of a messy break-up maybe but totally not worth possibly killing yourself over. WTF?

But then I realized that this was the kind of bizarro world, super-secret, thought process info I’d been searching for. They actually believed this stuff. They believed that even being a little bit overweight could throw you out of the club. That being chubby was a life or death situation and that once you’ve achieved PGD status, maintaining it requires this kind of ruthless vigilance.  In the PG world you can be pretty or you can be fat but you can’t be both. And that’s where I went wrong. I was trying to check both the boxes and let’s be honest, failing.

I just didn’t realize the extent of the unacceptability of being overweight. The standards here are rigid and the expectations high. You either get with the program and get the discount or you don’t.

Damm! Allrighty then, I guess it’s time to start taking working out seriously. Although I will never be insane enough to choose to end my life for something as minor as a few extra pounds, if I want my pretty girl discount (and that's what this little experiment is about after all) the truth is, I will have to lose weight.  

So, I renewed my gym membership to Planet Fitness, signed up for ballet and yoga classes and in general will do my best to get in the most awesome kick-ass shape of my life.  Totally not looking forward to endless dinners of spinach and unseasoned chicken breasts but I have conceded that the Halcion days of Hot Pockets, Tex-Mex Mondays and chocolate covered Krispy Kremes are over.

Because I’ve finally realized that being pretty and fat in the PG world, just means, you’re pretty fat.