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frogza · 03-22-2005, 09:37 AM

I recently had a conversation that got me thinking. A friend of mine is very overweight, and her children are as well. She was telling me how hard it is to be made fun of because of your weight. I said that I agreed, that it is tough to be judged as incompetent or as a lesser person when you don’t fit the norm, especially when you are young. She became very angry with me, telling me that I couldn’t possibly understand how it is, and that I was patronizing her by saying I understood.

The reason for her outburst was because I am not overweight at all, in fact, up until quite recently, I have been very skinny. So I guess to some extent she is right, I don’t know what it’s like to be called fatty or porky or any of the other names she and her daughters have been called. As the skinniest in school I was called string-bean, beanpole and stick boy, I was generally chosen last for any sports, (even the fat kids were chosen before me) On several occasions I was chased home by groups of kids and beaten up if they caught me, simply because they assumed that as a skinny little kid I wouldn’t be able to hurt them back. I honestly don’t know how my experience weighs up against a girl being made fun for being fat; the scales may very well be even on this one.

Anyway, this whole situation got me thinking. Why do we as people think that our pain is somehow exclusive? I thought that my experience was somehow worse than other people’s experiences. My friend felt that hers was worse. I have been thinking about this for a few weeks and during that time I’ve noticed it time and time again with many people in many situations.

I’ve seen that this idea of exclusivity of pain is one of the blocks that keeps us as a society from getting along, we’re at odds over who has the right to the most attention and/or sympathy. I’ve been guilty of this for years, I probably still am. I think that the root causes are selfishness and our need to be accepted and be noticed.

It’s fairly easy to avoid this tendency when we’re comfortably sitting at our desks, but very tough when we’re in duress. So I ask, how do we beat this thing? How do we, as a society, begin to see that we are all in the same boat, at least when it comes to the fact that we all have problems?

03-22-2005, 09:37 AM	#1 (permalink)
frogza Registered User Location: Right Here	Exclusivity of Pain I recently had a conversation that got me thinking. A friend of mine is very overweight, and her children are as well. She was telling me how hard it is to be made fun of because of your weight. I said that I agreed, that it is tough to be judged as incompetent or as a lesser person when you don’t fit the norm, especially when you are young. She became very angry with me, telling me that I couldn’t possibly understand how it is, and that I was patronizing her by saying I understood. The reason for her outburst was because I am not overweight at all, in fact, up until quite recently, I have been very skinny. So I guess to some extent she is right, I don’t know what it’s like to be called fatty or porky or any of the other names she and her daughters have been called. As the skinniest in school I was called string-bean, beanpole and stick boy, I was generally chosen last for any sports, (even the fat kids were chosen before me) On several occasions I was chased home by groups of kids and beaten up if they caught me, simply because they assumed that as a skinny little kid I wouldn’t be able to hurt them back. I honestly don’t know how my experience weighs up against a girl being made fun for being fat; the scales may very well be even on this one. Anyway, this whole situation got me thinking. Why do we as people think that our pain is somehow exclusive? I thought that my experience was somehow worse than other people’s experiences. My friend felt that hers was worse. I have been thinking about this for a few weeks and during that time I’ve noticed it time and time again with many people in many situations. I’ve seen that this idea of exclusivity of pain is one of the blocks that keeps us as a society from getting along, we’re at odds over who has the right to the most attention and/or sympathy. I’ve been guilty of this for years, I probably still am. I think that the root causes are selfishness and our need to be accepted and be noticed. It’s fairly easy to avoid this tendency when we’re comfortably sitting at our desks, but very tough when we’re in duress. So I ask, how do we beat this thing? How do we, as a society, begin to see that we are all in the same boat, at least when it comes to the fact that we all have problems?