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" Lovelies: I was starting to feel on the up and up yesterday afternoon--I&amp;#039;d slept pretty well the night before, had some interesting professional developments, and lots of nice things were falling into place for the weekend (including an invitation to see a play I&amp;#039;m excited about). In the evening, I was supposed to go to a book launch party, but the day had been busier than I&amp;#039;d expected, so I skipped it. I took care of a bunch of errands--went to the pharmacy, grabbed a present for a friend&amp;#039;s birthday, etc. When I was finished, before heading for the gym, I stopped by Gorilla Coffee for some peppermint tea so I could take a moment to jot down some thoughts for an essay I&amp;#039;m supposed to write. (I took notes in my cheery lipstick-red Moleskin notebook.) BTW, Gorilla is decorated with prints that look like this: (Which I mention in part because there was some discussion of the love of the \u2665 icon yesterday on my Fbook page. Me \u2665 the \u2665-icon. And me \u2665 Brooklyn, too. ) ANYWAY ... I got to the gym eventually--not the branch I&amp;#039;m normally at, but another one in a different part of town, where I go fairly frequently, since I seem to have lots of errands over that way. I was in a bit of a rush, because I wanted to pump some iron, swing by the grocery store for milk and bread, and get home at a reasonable hour. I was wearing a T-shirt that was probably a little too short and too tight to wear with my tight gym pants. (It&amp;#039;s time to do some laundry.) But whatever--it&amp;#039;s the gym, and I wasn&amp;#039;t thinking about my outfit too much. As soon as I walked out of the locker room, I ran into the maintenance guy. About a year ago, I asked if he could help me adjust some machine, and since then he&amp;#039;s been quite chatty with me. He&amp;#039;s older and not at all attractive. He&amp;#039;s brusque with most other people. I don&amp;#039;t really think of whatever friendliness passes between as flirty--more like we&amp;#039;re two people who cross paths frequently in the world, so we&amp;#039;re human to each other. I told him I was in a rush, and got on the summit trainer to warm up. He&amp;#039;d followed me, explaining that he&amp;#039;d just replaced the light above the area we were in, which would make it easier for me to read as I worked out (as is my wont). I thanked him. But I also knew he hadn&amp;#039;t put the stupid bulb in out of concern for me: I&amp;#039;d asked him to do it multiple times, and had also asked a bunch of other people. Finally, I mentioned it to the guy at the front desk, who advised me to email the manager about it. So I wrote her a note--without mentioning that I&amp;#039;d already asked a gazillion other people to fix the thing, just saying it had been out for months--and voila, it was fixed. The maintenance guy had draped himself over the machine next to me so that he was looking at me in profile--his head on level with my stomach. He made some joke about how he hadn&amp;#039;t seen me in a while, tsk, tsk, I wasn&amp;#039;t staying in shape, was I? And: shouldn&amp;#039;t I be working out more? I hate that joke, which he makes ALL THE TIME, partly because it&amp;#039;s just not funny and partly because there&amp;#039;s something about him remarking on my personal habits that seems a tad invasive, maybe even a tad sexist. I reminded him--as I have about 600 times now--that I don&amp;#039;t usually go to THAT gym. I added that I&amp;#039;ve been working out as much as ever. Then he laid an enormous bomb on me. &amp;quot;You need to lose some weight in your stomach,&amp;quot; he says. Oh boy. Those of you who have been reading for a while know: I&amp;#039;m very sensitive about my weight. But I like to think I&amp;#039;m healthfully thin and trim. To give you some objective sense: I&amp;#039;m 5&amp;#039;5 and in the last week or so I&amp;#039;ve worn: a pair of size 2 black pants from Ann Taylor Loft, a pair of size 4 velveteen slacks from Express, and a size 6 black skirt from H+M, and a few S or XS shirts. I think my shape might be a little like Lady Gaga&amp;#039;s--curvy and slim at the same time. All the same, I&amp;#039;ve never had much of a waist. No matter what I kind of exercise I do, the basic outline doesn&amp;#039;t change. I&amp;#039;m simply built like a fire hydrant--straight up and down, from shoulders to hips--and those are the mitochondrial facts. I suppose liposuction might help, but I&amp;#039;m not really interested in plastic surgery. Turning to the offender, I said, &amp;quot;Was it your intention to RUIN MY DAY?&amp;quot; He didn&amp;#039;t seem to understand why I was upset. He did not say anything like I was only kidding. Rather he basically insisted, saying: &amp;quot;No, but maybe you should.&amp;quot; I was in a state of shock. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t ever tell anyone something like that unless she asks you! Especially not a female.&amp;quot; He then proceeded to tell me the wild success story of some ENORMOUSLY FAT woman who&amp;#039;d come to the gym every for 6 months and lost gobs and gobs of weight. Ah, how reassuring! &amp;quot;I already come to the gym every day,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;And I&amp;#039;ve been coming every day for MY ENTIRE LIFE. And I&amp;#039;m not fat! But I will probably now start to think I am, and become completely miserable, and starve myself until I lapse into a coma and die. Thank you so much for your helpful feedback! I will now begin my preparations for death.&amp;quot; Well, I didn&amp;#039;t say that stuff about starvation, etc. But I said most of the rest before storming off the machine and fleeing into the weight room. There, I wondered if EVERYONE was staring at the enormous THING wrapped around my middle, like a boxer&amp;#039;s title belt, with the words FAT CHICK emblazoned on it in diamonds. Excuse me while I take a blowtorch to my bathing suits.  Have any of you ever gotten an unwanted bit of advice like this?   How does one deal? Here&amp;#039;s how I reacted: 1) I reminded myself of the context. This man works in a gym. He sees a lot of perfect bodies every day. I imagine he also stands around visually critiquing everyone who comes in. Speaking of, I wonder if he&amp;#039;s ever heard the old adage: People in glass houses shouldn&amp;#039;t throw stones. Because this guy doesn&amp;#039;t exactly have Abs of Steel himself. More like Abs of Eiderdown. 2) I tried to think of what else (beyond some &amp;quot;objective reality&amp;quot;) might have motivated his comment. Was he trying to hurt or humiliate me for some reason--perhaps because I was in a rush and therefore he felt like I was being rude? I&amp;#039;m not sure that&amp;#039;s the case. But ... why in the name of all things unholy would anyone with whom you make little more than polite chit-chat think it was okay to say such a thing? He&amp;#039;s from a foreign country, so I wonder if something was, shall we say, lost in translation. He also has a wife who is about half his age--he is 60--who LIVES in his homeland, as she has since they were first married seven years ago. So I wonder if somehow he was projecting some sort of drama he&amp;#039;s having with her onto me? 3) I tried to calmly analyze his remark. Was there some useful feedback in it? Was there some way I might improve myself, related to his comment? I can&amp;#039;t possibly do any more than I&amp;#039;m doing to stay in shape. But perhaps I should dress a little differently, so that I hide my waist a bit more? Then I decided: To Hades with that. My bod is my bod, and yes, it&amp;#039;s imperfect. That doesn&amp;#039;t mean I have to be ashamed of it. The best thing to do is just to be confident and TO HELL WITH THE MAINTENANCE MAN. 4) I decided to get on with my life. I figure I can either be really neurotic about this and indulge myself in getting upset about it ... or I can just say, &amp;quot;I have better things to obsess about.&amp;quot; Like, you know, my biceps. Kidding. Ugh. xxx! --------------------------------------------------- dear commenters: -To my friend in CA: I do it with the boy stuff too. But I think most of my friends have the same romantic struggles that I do. And I do think so much of that stuff, when it comes to dating, is SO much more about psychological issues than it is about how successful, attractive, etc, you are. You know? -Parsnips! You are sweet, but if you knew how much misery and hard work I&amp;#039;ve gone through to get to where I am--to a place where I&amp;#039;ve written a novel that may very well never sell--you probably wouldn&amp;#039;t feel jealous. Also, I don&amp;#039;t make very much money AT ALL and probably never would. I love writing this blog, and it&amp;#039;s by far the coolest job I&amp;#039;ve ever had ... but ... it took me a long time (and a little luck) to get here. And who knows how long it will last? -Edwinna: Hmm! I always love getting more of your story--and always love your chutzpah. (I was kind of the over-achieving sister in high school, now that you mention it--although I was also the one who was always getting in trouble for drinking, or staying out too late, or going into the city with my friends. Or something. ) It&amp;#039;s really interesting, too, what you say about competitive women. I have one friend in particular who is very successful, and after meeting her, people often say to me, &amp;quot;How can you deal with her? The competitiveness is just oozing out of her.&amp;quot; But we&amp;#039;re in completely different fields. And I&amp;#039;ve actually always really admired her--how hard she works, how much she accomplishes, etc. Maybe this is post-worthy, this topic.  -Lisping Lola! Love the name. You&amp;#039;re in South Africa! So cool. I wonder what part. Anyway--it&amp;#039;s funny, I always have that fear myself, that some man will get bored of me. But my friends never do--and I bet your friends never do either. Come on--have faith in yourself. -And Rina, I think you&amp;#039;re entirely right. Great point. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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