Fat Girl Turned Sized 7 Syndrome

When I was in high school I had one of the funnest girlfriends you can imagine. I had so much fun with Susan! I still smile and laugh out loud at some of the capers that we got ourselves into. I must admit I really miss that girl... but she is gone forever. Don't get me wrong, she is not physically dead. The 'shell' of this Susan girl still exists but my awesome girlfriend is long gone.

Susan and I hooked up in high school. We had much fun cuffing classes, cruising in the Cordoba, smoking our faces off, and loads of under-aged drinking adventures and parties. That chick was so cool....until she lost a significant amount of weight. Years ago, Susan came to visit me. Another girlfriend called ahead of time to warn me that Susan had lost ALOT of weight. I was elated for her! I didn't understand the BIG WARNING. I was left scratching my head and I wondered why Susan wouldn't have told me about her weight loss efforts or journey (she lived in Boston).She never mentioned a thing about it in many phone calls over the course of her weight loss. Bizarre.

When she arrived at my apartment, my jaw dropped. She had dropped a whopping 70 pounds and she looked absolutely amazing! I was so happy for her. I will admit I was jealous and sad for me, but I was genuinely happy that she fought and won this weight war. I told her over and over how beautiful she looked. WOW! Then...the ugly monster quickly began to rear her ugly head. She went to my cupboards, opened them up and started to preach about why I wasn't losing weight. I buried my hurt, rage, confusion...and we continued on our merry way out for the night. I could not diagnose what I was feeling when she did that. I rationalized that she was trying to help...but I felt patronized and angry. I wrote this off as my own problem with jealousy and told myself to stop being so foolish.

Let's fast forward. The following year, Susan came to visit me again and we went out to PARTY! I was still fat and she was still skinny. I wasn't feeling too good about myself. We walked into the club and Susan started to point out all of the guys that she was going to have wrapped around her finger before the night was over. I resigned to the fact it was my turn to be the purse holder. A couple minutes later, a guy came up to me and said "hey gorgeous wanna dance?" Then his friend piped in "what about my turn?" I said "take a number"...and proceeded out onto the dance floor to rock my ass off for the next 3 solid hours! I had such a blast! Susan sat on the sidelines with a scowl on her face. When we got home to my apartment that night, I asked "what's the matter Susan?" She answered "I cannot believe tonight! I lost all this weight and you ....DIDN'T!! I didn't get any attention at all". I simply answered "don't hate me because I am beautiful". I meant it as a joke...she didn't laugh. In fact, if looks could kill...I wouldn't be writing this blog!

Next, is our 10 year high school reunion. Susan was an unbearable hair flicking snot!! She strutted into the old high school cafeteria like she was a rock star. She was thrilled at first because nobody seemed to recognize her. But that quickly turned into dismay when she realized nobody REMEMBERED her. She started getting really angry when she had to identify herself as "Lynn's friend Susan". I must admit that I took great pleasure in that! Once she announced she was my tag along...everyone said "oh yeah...you drove Lynn to the parties". I truly loved that. At the end of the weekend, I could not write off my uncomfortable feelings anymore. I told her that if we didn;t have such a long history as friends I would tell her to lose my number and drift! I was not jealous of her weight loss... I was desperately clinging to the friendship we once had. She lost 70 pounds... AND every ounce of her personality!! She had developed a syndrome that I have named " Fat Girl Turned Sized 7 Syndrome". Poor thing..."it don't mean a thing if you ain't got that zing!"