What it feels like to be the fat guy at the pool

'Excuse me, where do you get your clothes custom made,' the child mocked.

Monsters slowly emerging from water to terrorize humans fill popular culture.

The Kraken.

The Loch Ness Monster.

Godzilla

This is how I feel when I get out of the pool at my apartment complex.

I am morbidly obese; That’s a medical description.

Most people just call it fat.

Smaller people scorn fat people.

People see a fat person and they judge.

They assume fat means absence of willpower.

They assign blame.

A fat person is fat because they eat too much.

End of story.

No further consideration needed.

We, as a species, do not care for subtilties or complications.

Scientists have known since the early 1980s that obesity often relates to childhood trauma.

Genetics are involved.

Diet matters, of course. Portion sizes, carbs, all of it.

Obesity is complex.

Fat is not.

See a fat person? Mock them.

This remains socially acceptable despite all the whining conservatives and comedians do about political correctness.

I know in the eyes of many I am a monster; an ugly, hideous thing that is at best a cautionary tale and at worst a monument to failure.

No one judges my girth harder and more hatefully than me.

Self-loathing is unhealthy, but it is also a defense mechanism.

If I can hate myself enough, I will not feel the hate of others.

But I do.

And “hate” is the right word.

Sometimes I think people spend more time looking for things to hate and be angry about than they do enjoying the things they love and seeking peace.

This is cynical, but cynicism is a defensible worldview.

I went swimming earlier this month. I walk in the pool for exercise. The water’s buoyancy eases the strain on my arthritic knees.

I time my visits to the pool in the late evening, after the heat of the day peaked as the sun begins to fall behind the buildings.

This also happens to be the time when the pool has the fewest other people.

The last time I went to the pool, the building’s maintenance man and his family swam.

I know Sam. I know his children. They are kind people. I am always glad to see them.

I got into the pool and worked my exercises.

Neighborhood children sneak into the pool. They climb the fence and swim in their underwear.

This only bothers me because the littlest of the children don’t know how to swim yet they jump into 5-foot water.

No adults supervise them.

If one of the kids got hurt or got a lungful of water and went under, I don’t know if I would be able to help them fast enough.

I use a walker. The moments it would take me to get to my walker and then get to the child in distress might be the difference between life and death.

This has never happened and probably will not, but with children I find my mind defends against worst-case scenarios.

Sam talked to the children about the rules. They needed to be the guest of someone who lived at the apartments. That person needed to be with them.

The kids did not swim. They sat on the picnic tables outside the pool and looked inside.

I felt bad for the children. The summer day was hot.

I finished my exercises and got out of the pool. I slipped on my shoes and pushed my walker back toward my building.

 The children speculated on my weight.

One guessed I weighed 200 pounds.

Another guessed 300. Both are wrong. By a lot.

I pushed my walker past.

The littlest child stood up.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “Where do you get your clothes custom made?”

I looked at him, grunted, and pushed on.

The boys erupted in laughter.

This should not hurt my feelings.

It did. It does.

My students at work comment on my weight. Some make jokes about how much the assume I eat.

I don’t eat that much.

I inject a shot in my belly on Sundays that lowers my appetite and helps regulate my blood sugar.

I’ve lost nearly 80 pounds since I started taking the drug.

That is a lot of weight.

I should be happy about that.

I am not.

I turn 49 this month. Some friends are coming over for a pool party and cake.

This was the idea of a friend from work. I struggle in social situations due in part to my feelings about my body.

I trust these people. They are good and kind. They do not judge me as harshly as I judge myself.

But a pool party implies time in the pool which further implies me taking off my shirt.

This terrifies me.

Still, I agreed to the gathering.

In my body, I have already found something to hate.

In my friends, I shall seek joy.

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Daniel P. Finney, a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, wrote for newspapers for 27 years before being laid off in 2020. He teaches middle school English now. Please consider a paid subscription.

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