[Story] A Case for Size

“Ben, is that you?” 

“Yeah.” Ben stopped. The man addressing him was about 5’9”, wore a blond mustache, and was very overweight. “Yeah, and you are…?

“Doug—from softball.”

“Oh my gosh, Doug! It’s so good to see you.” They embraced briefly. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. But it’s been, what…four years?”

“Yeah, four years this fall.” Doug said.

Ben and Doug got into the back of Ben’s car. After complementing Ben’s car, Doug moved on to Ben.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Doug said. “You’ve slimmed down and grown a very manly beard.”

“Thank you!” Ben grinned. “Every time I shave it, it always seems to come back. And while we’re on the subject, you’ve grown a charming mustache, but I don’t think you’ve slimmed down any.”

“No, definitely not.” Doug put an arm around his belly and chuckled. “Quite the contrary.”

“Yeah, you only ate salads after practice and teased us about our ‘baseball player guts.’”

“Sorry about that.” Doug said sheepishly. “I’ve reformed on both counts.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Ben said with a playful poke at Doug’s protruding belly that spilled over his waistline and into his lap. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re allowed to be surprised.”

“I’m not trying to be an asshole, I promise.” Ben’s eyes ran up and down Doug’s body again. “But you’re right that I’m surprised. You were a twink the last time I saw you, and now you’re…” Ben spread his hands apart as if grasping a beach ball. “Definitely not.”

Doug leaned closer. “If you’re curious, I’m happy to tell you about it.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable sharing, I’m all ears.”

“Even before the softball league broke up, I realized I was spending a lot of my energy trying to control what everyone thought about me. I tried to be bitingly witty and snobbish. I boasted about my diet all the time. Honestly, it made me an annoying guy. I didn’t want to be like that, but I felt like I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Wow, not many people can look within like that.”

“Including me for most of my life,” Doug paused and let out a little sigh. “I tried to relax and observe why people enjoyed things. That led to a lot of personal revelations, but I’ll stick with the pertinent one. There was this guy I dated for like a month—and I remember so clearly watching him eat a plate of enchiladas with the most genuine relish I had ever seen. Long after we stopped seeing each other, that image stuck with me. When I ate, I focused on limiting my enjoyment to keep myself from eating more. Which…isn’t great.”

“Well, when you say it like that…” Ben trailed off.

“So I decided I would allow myself to enjoy whatever I wanted guilt-free one day a week. It was hard at first, but after a few months, I looked forward to those days and how genuinely enjoyable they were. I had actually changed. And I was happier for it.

“That’s great.”

“Maybe too great, because that one day of enjoyment soon bled into the rest of the week, and my body began to reflect that. The anxiety I felt at first ended when I shopped for new clothes. To me, accepting that I needed a new size was breaking my old tendencies of control, allowing myself to adapt to change, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, I think it does.” Ben said.

“And we all look better when our clothes fits us, don’t we? After maybe eight months of all this, indulging in an exciting variety of foods came increasingly naturally to me. So I would just buy new clothes and donate the old ones. Every time I did this, the style and colors changed to fit the new me.”

“Your style has changed, now that you mention it.”

“I never would have worn an open button-down back then because I thought it was slobbish rather than relaxed and breezy. And I didn’t really have the figure for it, I was so skinny.”

“Probably no more than 150 pounds.”

“If you can believe it, I weighed 125 pounds.”

Ben gasped. “No way! I’m 170 pounds now. Can’t imagine.”

“Once upon a time, I thought 125 was my ideal weight. But nowadays I’m more aligned to your feelings of surprise. Anyway, after a year of the new me, I reached a much more reasonable 185 pounds.”

“Wow, quite a jump.”

Doug nodded. “It really was. The old me would have lost his shit, but the new me realized that 185 was just a description of a physiological aspect of my body.”

“Very cerebral.”

“And realizing that, I put my scale away and just let my body adjust without risking needless judgment.” Doug placed his hands on his soft, protruding belly. “I was working on changing myself on the inside. The physical changes were just the natural outcome of becoming a better me. No need to tie myself to numbers.”

“That’s a really different way of looking at things.”

Doug laughed. “You sound skeptical.”

“I guess I am,” Ben admitted. “There wasn’t anywhere along the way that you thought about, I don’t know…cutting back?”

“Oh yeah, plenty of times. The closest I ever got was when my belly really started to get noticeable. I was worried I was ruining myself, or making myself ugly. I spent some serious time meditating. The more I centered myself, the more ‘at home’ I felt. My belly wasn’t some unwelcome appendage. It was the same as my rounder butt or my fuller face: a beautiful reflection of me and my body finding ourselves.”

“I still can’t say I understand,” Ben said. “It’s a lot to think about.”

“You don’t have to understand. That’s just been how I’ve experienced the last four years.”

“I assumed something bad had happened to mess up your diet, but it seems like that isn’t even remotely true. Are you healthy?” A grimace streaked across Ben’s face. “I’m sorry that’s rude.”

“I know you’re curious, not malicious.” Doug placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Just because I’m big doesn’t mean I don’t exercise and eat a varied diet. It’s possible to eat like shit at any weight.”

“That’s true.”

“In fact, I just went to the doctor recently. There are a few areas I could do better in, but there are others that are going better than when I was 125 pounds.”

“Wow, that’s impressive. So the doctor isn’t like…upset?”

“Well, they weren’t exactly happy when I stepped on the scale and weighed over 300 pounds.”

“Woah, 300?” Ben exclaimed.

“Unbelievable, right?” He shook his head. “On the one hand, I can’t believe I’m this big; on the other, I can’t believe I ever allowed myself to be so skinny.”

“Unbelievable is a good word…you look totally different.”

“I was amused that you had trouble recognizing me.

“I couldn’t believe it was you for like five minutes.”

“Well, I am twice the man I used to be, and then some.” Doug pulled up his undershirt and let his belly plop out with an unsteady wobble.

“I love that you’re so chill about it, even if I don’t understand why you’re so chill.”

“I’ve grown as a person.” Doug put his hands under his belly and gave it a jiggle. “And if I’ve learned anything, Ben, it’s that you always have more room to grow than you realize.”

Four Years Later

Doug sat down at his kitchen table with the pile of mail that had accrued at the post office while he and his partner had been on vacation. Halfway through the pile, he pushed everything aside and grasped an envelope between his chubby fingers. In the upper left-hand corner was Ben’s name in carefully printed ink. Doug pulled out a few pages paper clipped together propped up by a slim piece of card stock.

Dear Doug,
Last time we met, I was fairly skeptical of what you told me about your new approach to life. Kinda thought you had gone off the deep end, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said. It haunted me… Seeing you so pleased with yourself made me question why I was so deadly afraid of acquiring a belly.

Well, I figured out how to put in a way that made sense to me: You are not attractive in the way you were when you were skinny; you are attractive in the way that you are now that you are big. They are two different things that can be enjoyed in different ways.

Slimming down was difficult and stressful for me, so I had to ask myself: was my thin way of being attractive better than my big way of being attractive? And the more I thought about it, the more my old answer didn’t make sense.

I love who I am now, and I wanted to thank you for helping me allow myself to be happy. I think the attached photo will explain what I mean.

I hope you’re doing well and I hope to run into again. Perhaps we can make that happen.

With gratitude,
Ben

What Doug had thought was card stock was actually a photograph of Ben. His slim face had ballooned into that of a rosy-cheeked fat man, a double chin visible despite his beard. His chest was broad with meatiness that pushed out his unbuttoned suit. He wore a button-down shirt that was stretched tight by an enormous belly that hung out over his pants by several inches.

Doug pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and a pen. As his eyes wandered to the photo, a smirk flashed across Doug’s broad features.