Emily and I recently got manicures together. It was uneventful except that I managed to ruin 7 out of 10 nails over the next few hours...(they just wouldn't dry!). We had the last appointments of the day and we pretty much closed the place down. As I was attempting to dry my nails by the little fan before we were rushed out of the door, the ladies who worked in the salon started chatting us up. And they asked us a question we get all the time: "Are you sisters?" or "Are you twins?".I can't tell you how often in the course of our friendship we have been asked that. And the reality is that Emily and I look nothing alike! The only things we have in common is we are both 5'7ish and we are both fat. Yep, that's it.
I just find it really annoying that the only thing people seem to see in us is our fat bodies. It's almost like we lose all other form of physical identities, and all that is left is that fat. Because there is no other reason to assume that we are sisters let alone twins.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? If you are fat and you have fat friends, do you feel like your combined fatness takes over so that is all anyone can see?
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My best friend and I are both fat and this happens to us all the time! I am half black and half Cuban and she is 100% Irish and we look NOTHING alike except we are both big.
People are stupid.
It's sort of true that all fat people start to look the same.
Once you get a fat face and a fat neck, all fatties start to morph into one big fat blobby person.
I bet all the fat people who read this blog would look like one fat family.
Fat people all have the same sort of pudgy uglyness going on.
It's happened to me, too. My best friend and I are completely different other than our fatness and yet people always ask us if we're sisters. I suppose, though, they might be influenced by how much we think alike because we can almost finish each others sentences.
my fat friend and my fat self frequentd a chinese place for lunch and they waiter one time asked if we were sisters, and I said no we were just lesbians! we do have other people (usually wait staff) if we are sisters so we just go along with it.
I am half black and half Cuban and she is 100% Irish and we look NOTHING alike except we are both big.
People are stupid.
Hahaha. I'm 5'10" (female) and white and I used to work with this hispanic 6'4" guy. People used to ask us if we were brother and sister all the time and we looked nothing like each other.
Yeah, I know, not fat realated, but it happens to me all the time: whenever I'm with someone tall, people think we're related.
When I was younger and thinner, my best friend and I used to be asked (seriously!) if we were twins. We were different heights, different weights, I am white and she is asian. The only thing we had in common? Waist-length hair. Twins, obviously.
"Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity!"
I also don't think it necessarily has to do with you both being fat. Two of my good friends in high school were constantly asked if they were sisters and even mistaken for eachother by people who knew them, went to school with us. Yes, they were both tall, thin, and had brownish hair but they looked nothing alike. One was pale and freckled, with a round face and the girl-next-door vibe; the other was really tan all the time, with strong, angular features and she was pretty much a sex kitten. People are dumb.
ohmygawsh, but actually in my experience those questions popped up a lot in situations where you and your friend are of the same ethicity or even race. it didn't matter what body type or height, it was all the ethnic/racial appearance. stupid ignorant people stereotype all minorities saying that they all look alike. it was semi-funny when chris tucker said something like that ("you all look alike") in rush hour 2, but hell it could apply to his race too damnit.
okay, sorry, this was like a minority rant. carrying on...
I've got a mate i hang around with a lot, and we often get asked if we are brothers. In all fairness, we are both short, stocky, with shaved heads and can practically finish each others' sentences. Guess it's not such an unreasonable conclusion to reach in this case. Ho-hum. Not really sure what point i'm trying to make (if any) here, and as neither of us are fat, it ain't really relevant to this blog. Oh well.
It can be kinda fun to go along with the whole 'yeah, we're twin brothers - he came out first' thing though.
Yes! I totally had this happen to me. My best friend growing up was blonde and green-eyed -- short even! Plus, bless her heart, she had quite the honker on a narrow face.
I have brown hair, hazel eyes, am average height and have a small nose on a round face.
If we got asked 1 time it was a thousand times.
I always get asked if my best friend (who's heavy like me) is my sister.
She looks absolutely nothing like me.
I keep telling the nail joint people that I will bring in my real sister... it's very obvious we're related and she is only slightly overweight.
Of course my mother when I was growing up would point out fat people and ask me if I knew them (because all fat people know each other)....
My close friend and I are often asked if we're sisters - especially when we're in Florida. We are not fat but both have long blonde hair, and in my opinion are both somewhat pretty. We are both white but have completely different faces but similar bodies. I think naive people ask if we're sisters. Craftier people are probably thinking that we're a hot lesbian couple, and thus say nothing.
well I guess it is better than asian nail techs, speaking badly ABOUT you in their native tongue and you not understamding them...
I am blonde, and am convinced people can't tell blondes apart. I have been mistaken for at least 6 different blonde women at my office, of all different body types. I agree w/ the posters above--people are just not that observant.
People are just stupid and, like others have said, not observant at all. I'm black and my mother's white and although we have the *exact* same facial features--even the same teeth!--people never get that we're related. So annoying.
Anon 6:38
If it is guys who get you mixed up, you can't really blame us.... most of the time we aren't really looking at your faces anyway.
-SDave
This just reminded me of a story from my childhood. I took ballet lessons for ten years, even though I was a fat kid (and am a fat adult now). There was a girl in my class who was a really gifted and talented ballerina, and thin.
I remember her mom engaging the teacher in conversations about her daughter, and possible roles, and further training, etc, etc. Even at that young age I thought the teacher was being pretty dismissive of the mother.
Finally, the teacher figured out which girl she was talking about. The mom was fat (but otherwise looked nothing like me) and the teacher just *assumed* she was my mom. She even said, "Oh, I thought you were *her* mom."
The fat mom, her daugher, and I exchanged looks that spoke volumes.
Dumb ballet teacher.
Sometimes it's not that. Sometimes people are just unobservant and clueless.
Someone asked me and a singer I work with (who is much more glam than me) if we were twins the other day, when we have about 10 years between us, just because we're roughly the same color (bronze-ish) and both had our hair pulled back at the time.
Everyone's in a hurry; very few people see anything clearly anymore.
Someone once asked if my brother and I were twins - he's six something and a beanpole. I'm five-five and decidedly curvy. (Uh, ok, so we're actually related. That's beside the point.)
My best friend and I look generically similar -- we're both scandinavian (light hair, light eyes, fair'ish skin, same height), but mostly what we have in common is that when I was at my heaviest, we both weighed around 250.
People used to ALWAYS say "You look like sisters!'
Nobody says that anymore, and truthfully, I kinda miss it.
Noone ever asks me if I'm related to anyone other than my siblings, but thats because wer'e all a similar build with ginger hair and similar features. I can't see it myself, because I think my sister is far prettier than me, but people keep saying it. One feature does mistake you for everyone else though- with being ginger, if any ginger people are around everyone gets my name mixed up with theirs. Gingerism is like an acceptable form of discrimination(like fat jokes I suppose)- people are always surprised that I'm "ok looking, actually" because the words ginger and minger rhyme, and consequently are frequently associated with each other.
in what dialect do ginger and minger rhyme?
anon 10:47 - minger is pronounced just like ginger but with an M at the front - the dialect would be English...
I guess it depends on how one pronounces 'ginger' but I've only ever heard 'minger' pronounced to rhyme with 'linger', (though some wags like to pronounce 'ginger' that way too - presumably so they can make the two rhyme).
My pal Karen, (who weighs 40lbs less than me), and I have been asked if we're sisters several times, despite the fact she also looks like Rita Tushingham while I have a Liza Minnelli-ish vibe. Admittedly, we're both short, brunette and favour red lipstick when out on the razzle but I think perhaps sibling-assumption has more to do with how friends act together – for instance, if you have the kind of ease that comes from knowing each other for years on end, laugh at the same things and finish each other's sentences etc.
...and 3.32, that utterly sucks.
The "ginger" thing is a British thing, because British people are class-obsessed trash and they enjoy attacking ethnic irish/scottish for their ethnic features.
move to america, where we actually have a meritocracy, and get away from that disgusting isle.
Happens to me and my heavy friends ALL the time! IN HS there was one other overweight girl in my graduating class and people were forever mixing us up. I heard from a friend that someone at our reunion thought she was me - [sigh] some people never get a clue.
Anonymous 12.14: Try being ginger and Welsh. We haven't even had a film made about us.
Huh and WTF, 10.14?
Firstly, being ginger is not exclusive to people of Celtic origin. Nor is it a class issue. Both Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth were as ginger as all get out.
Secondly, Britain is actually comprised of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Thirdly, Britain has an elected government just like America does and while I won't deny class snobbery is prevalent here, I would suggest that the US, (which I have visited on many occasions), is by no means free of it either.
Yes, Henry and Elizabeth were ginger, but they were also Tudors, and therefore Welsh: and how long did their dynasty last? It is a little-known fact that Elizabeth was actually married and had 11 children, only THE ENGLISH were so horrified at the thought of yet more ginger Welsh monarchs that they opted instead for the Stuarts.
God bless America, where redheads can live free of fear.
I have to go and take my medication now.
Yes, Henry and Elizabeth were ginger, but they were also Tudors, and therefore Welsh: and how long did their dynasty last? It is a little-known fact that Elizabeth was actually married and had 11 children, only THE ENGLISH were so horrified at the thought of yet more ginger Welsh monarchs that they opted instead for the raven-haired Stuarts.
God bless America, where redheads can live free of fear!
I have to go and take my medication now.
Oh shut it, buffpuff. Stop lecturing people on shit everyone already knows. What, Britain's composed of several entities you say???? Elizabeth the first was a redhead???? No fucking shit, Sherlock, we all know that.
All you do is lecture, lecture, lecture and flame all fucking day long. Just shut the fuck up for five minutes.
No one ever said red hair was "exclusive" to anyone, but only a complete fucking idiot would deny that red hair is more prevalent among Scottish and Irish people than among upper-class Anglo-Normans.
Then again, only an idiot would deny that eating less and exercising more causes permanently maintainable weight loss, so am not surprised you are shooting your mouth off YET AGAIN.
Does being prejudiced against gingers make you feel better about your size?
At least you only get mistaken for sisters. Being taken for your best friend's mother is far more upsetting.
America's a meritocracy. You should have told that to Anthropologie, the skinny girls' store I tried to get a job in. Ugh. And I fit into the clothes too.
Yet I still love that store. I am a masochist.
ya me and my friend actualy do look sort of alike, but our fatness makes us look even more identical.
Then again, only an idiot would deny that eating less and exercising more causes permanently maintainable weight loss, so am not surprised you are shooting your mouth off YET AGAIN.
Does being prejudiced against gingers make you feel better about your size?
Hmm... maybe we're getting to the bottom of Puffy's problem(s). Not that I really care, but girlfriend clearly has issues.
I worked at Anthropologie. We had a fat girl working there. It's just hard to sell the clothing through wearing it when you can't fit into it. The biggest size we carried was a 12. And we did have three girls who were a size 12 working there. Two were managers.
Plus, the store wanted the clothes to look good. People buy clothes they see associates wearing well.
Is a 12 in america a 16 in England?
Does being prejudiced against gingers make you feel better about your size?
Um, 4.12, did you actually read the post I was responding to? (The one that was slagging off my country in a random and somewhat unfocused manner).
And where exactly in my post does it say I'm prejudiced against gingers? I love titian hair! I've even sported it from time to time. My first teenage crush was a ginger. My oldest, bestest friend is a redhead. I've even got a ginger cat for pity's sake. Gingers rule, so kindly get off my case.
Is a 12 in america a 16 in England?
It depends on the manufacturer but generally a US 12 equates to a UK 14.
I do love it when people use the word "tetian" euphemistically- I get it all the time- "thats a lovely colour you've got.... very.... tetian!". I don't get offended by the word ginger, but I love to listen to people skirt round it with "redhead", "rufus", "russet", "tetian" "copper", "auburn".... the list is endless. I'm ginger, plain and simple. (oh, and Buffpuff I wasn't slating your post, I do like them, and plus you use the word ginger, you're not skirting.)
move to america, where we actually have a meritocracy
HA!!! That is the best joke I've heard all day. I'm American and well aware that we have a plutocracy.
anthropologie goes up to a size 16 but you would never know it. And I am sick of people saying they only hire skinny people b/c they want the clothes to look good. Truth? There are PLENTY of skinny people with ugly little bodies while there are plenty of size 16 girls that are like, dirty sex on a stick.
I can't stand people who refuse to think for themselves.
Size 16 is hardly small (38-32-42). I'm 5 feet nine and 165 pounds, so not thin by any standard, and it fits me perfectly.
Sorry,of course I meant UK 16. If a US 16 is 42-34-44 (based on the Land's End size chart) that's a perfectly reasonable size for anyone to be, isn't it?
Sorry, of course I meant UK 16. If a US 16 is 42-34-44 (based on the Land's End size chart) that's a perfectly reasonable size for anyone to be, isn't it?
Actually that's pretty big. Australian sizes are two sizes larger than US sizes, so a US size 16 is an Australian size 20. In Australia, most clothing ranges stop at a size 16 (US 12) or 18 (US 14). Many designed for younger womn cut out at a size 14 (US 10). If you're over a size 18 (US 14) you have to go to plus-size shops, and there's NOTHING pretty, elegant or smart there, believe me.
II have a theory that one of the reasons American women are so fat is because you can buy attractive clothes in larger sizes. The ugly plus-sized clothes down here with their cheap fabrics and elasticised waists are a huge disincentive to gaining weight.
Plus, size 18 sounds a heck of a lot bigger than size 12 doesn't it?
What I meant was, it clearly isn't only the super-thin who can shop at Anthropologie or quite a lot of other stores. However tall or big-boned anyone is, size 16 isn't some sort of impossible dream.
Sometimes, you just never know. I woman I know recounted an incident when she and her siblings tried to cross the Canada/US border when she was a teen. There were 5 of them altogether and they all had appropriate ID's, but the customs people held them up for a long time as they phoned their parents to verify their identities. The reason? Represented among the 5 of them was caucasian, black and Asian. Thanks to multiple marriages among their parents, they were all blood related siblings.
this happened to me... there was a girl at my school (full of skinny people) who looked nothing alike me except that we're both fat white girls. we have totally different faces, i've got really curly hair and hers is straight. i didn't even know her when this started happening - people would come up to me and say hi or start asking about the homework for the english lit class i wasn't taking! sometimes they wouldn't even realize we were different people, i had to tell them. and my advisor even thought she was me and waved at her.
Think people thinking you are sisters is bad..Try getting confused for your boyfriends mom.. and we are only 5 years apart
I've got the opposite going on; people don't believe my sister is actually my sister cause she's got longish blonde hair and freckles and is skinny in a dancer kinda way and I've got short dark hair, no freckles and an hourglass-ish figure.
The worst part though? When they finally believe we're sisters they always think she's older and she's 15! (I'm 18) It's lame.
Conversely, my sister and I are so unalike that various people have known us for a while and not twigged that we were related. We've done various group activities together, and often people have picked out a totally unrelated person as my sister. On one occasion, the girl's name was one letter different from mine. People just don't think it through.
It's odd, but once people know you are related, they often claim to see a resemblance that they never did before...
There aren't that many redheads in Scotland (I've lived here all my life). Dark or sandy brown is the norm. Which is a pity, because I think red hair is beautiful.
Scotland is famed for its high proportion of redheads. Around 10% of Scots are redheads, while an additional 40% of the population with other hair colours carry the gene responsible for red hair. Prominent Scottish redheads include Mary Queen of Scots, singer Lulu, news reader Jackie Bird, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy and the actor Dougie Henshall.
Lulu has denied her true ginger roots by going blonde though... tragic Lulu. We all know the carpet don't match the curtains.
We all know the carpet don't match the curtains.
I have a totally irrational hatred of that saying. My "carpet" never matched my "drapes" any more than my eyebrows or my armpits do.
Holy overreaction, Batman! I never said there weren't ANY redheads in Scotland. But 10% redheads still means that 90% of us aren't (and I'd doubt it's as many as 10%).
I live in hope that my kids may have red hair, though, as my mother-in-law does. She's English.
That is a pretty repulsive saying! Why should everything match? My hair's light brown (with, yes, reddish lights) but my eyebrows and lashes are dark... never mind the rest...
can we puhlease get off the ginger thing??
can we puhlease get off the ginger thing??
u guys need to take care of urselfs its not even funny i mean do u like people makin fun of u because i was once 310 pounds and everyone was makin fun of me if it was kids on the street laughin at me and even adults on the street would laugh at me but now i am 210 pounds and in the best shape of my life and i hope u guys can figure out what i did...plz im just asking u becaus like 75% of america is over weight so u would just take care of ur selfs and quit piggin out but not tryin to be mean it is the truth just think about do u want to be the person that is mad fun of out on the street. But im sure it is hard for all of u to loose weight because it is to late but just give it a try im sure u will like it.
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