They're all staring at me.

As a chubby girl (we'll go with chubby, which sounds much more jovial and cute than saying I am fat), I have noticed that I have a strange breed of paranoia. Allow me to give you some examples:

1. The Innocent Comment from a Co-Worker:

This happened to me the other day when my co-worker and I were both in the breakroom at lunch time. He was getting an orange, and I was prepping a Lean Cuisine mac and cheese to be microwaved. Let me preface this by saying that this co-worker is someone I get along with really well, and is a former chubby person himself. Anyhow, I made a self-depriciating joke about my delicious mac and cheese lunch (self-depriciating humor being a specialty of chubsters), and he paused then said, "Are you getting much excercise in the nice weather we're having?"

Now, normal people would assume he meant "Sure is nice out. Been on any hikes or anything?"

But I am not normal, I am fat. So my thought process went as follows:
Thought 1: "WTF is that supposed to mean?!?!?"
Thought 2: "Did he notice how big my butt looks today? Maybe I should angle myself so it's facing the wall more and he won't notice..."
Thought 3: "Wait....maybe he is just making conversation."

2. The 'I Know They Are Talking About ME' Moments:

This one is less specific and more just one of those things that comes up from time to time (much like Seinfeld-isms). I'll overhear someone talking about people being fat or about obesity or about fatness in general, and my first thought is either "I know they are talking about me.", or "Please don't notice I am fat.", or "They are saying this in front of me as their passive aggressive way of letting me know how much my fatness disgusts them."

A rational person would realize none of these is likely to be true. But, we all know I'm not rational...I am chubby.

3. They're All Staring At Me.

The scene of this one can be most anywhere, but it always involves food. Most recently, I had one of these moments when I was in Chicago with my Torso Twin Meredyth. We're torso twins because, well, she is also blessed (har har) with the same kind of torso as am I. She feels my pain, quite literally. So there we sat in a restaurant in Chicago. I was on vacation of sorts, and had forewarned her that I planned to eat like the filthy piglet that I am. As such, we had an appetizer (Spinach and artichoke dip. What? You're surprised?), then each of us had our own meal. Lastly, we wrapped things up by ordering a dessert. As we sat waiting for the dessert to arrive, Mere turned to me and said, "Whenever I eat like this in public, I'm positive people are looking at me and saying to themselves 'THAT is why she's fat!'." And it's so true. Even if people aren't thinking that (which...give me a room of 10 people and if one of them is chubby and chowing on a brownie volcano with vanilla ice cream, I guarantee 4 of them are thinking about it) we FEEL like they are. We're just sure that they're all staring at us.