A weighty issue....

Ok so this post stems from an interesting conversation I had on Sykpe today with my Italian friend in Rome.  We were doing the usual and talking his relationship troubles with his girlfriend, when I jokingly told him:

"Hey, you know, when I come to visit you, you need to hook me up with one of your friends"!

Completely perplexed by this phrase he said:

"Hook me up, what does means?"

So I said:

"You know hook me like you need to introduce me to one of your friends".  

His response was: 

"Ohhh Yes, Ugomma....but you need to be slim".

I became silent and couldn't say another word.  After 10 seconds of silence he explained, 

"Because...well you know in Italy they like the women slim not big, and my friends are this way.  I don't think this way, I like women with the meat but my friends, no."

My response: 

"Oh.............ohhhhh......."

This comment lead him to a very long tangent about his friends who have visited and about how they had preconceived notions about what American women look like because of the American movies they watched, but when they landed on the good 'ol US of A, their dream were quickly thwarted by the sea of fat American women.  I became defensive and my inner-American-patriot came out and I told him:

"Well you have to remeber, in America we have may people of differnt cultures and races, I mean, theren't even that many black women in Italy. And most black women carry weight differntly then white women.  We have bigger hips, butts and breats, we not just fat".

So he said:

"Yes, but I think American food is very bad.  How many hamburgers do you eat in a week?"

At this point I could feel my face starting to flush and I yelled:

"Hey, just because I'm American DOES NOT mean I eat hamburgers every fucking day.  I don't have the money to eat like that and I wouldn't want to eat like that!"

So of course, him being the great Italian he is, responded:

"You know, you should do the Mediterranean Diet".

At this point I didn't want to go any further, so I said:

"Ok"

.....quite the conversation, huh?  To be honest it was the first time in my whole entire life that a man other than my father inenvertedly called me fat.  When he said "I need to be slim", it was strange, initially I didn't get angry or upset I just kinda sat there.  I knew he was telling the truth because the truth is I am fat overweight and I would like to be slim and I'm trying very hard to lose as much weight as possible before going to Europe, but I was completely taken aback that he was so direct. I mean in the US it's unheard of for a man to talk about a woman's weight.  I'm used to girlfriends giving me "Oh, Ugomma your a thick girl, but it would be nice if you lost a few" but for a man to call me out on my weight without any reservation....wow.....speechless.  When we had this conversation at first I didn't think to much about it. wait that's a lie, I did think about it because I totally texted my friend about it an hour later.  But sitting here many hours after the conversation, I am starting to feel the weight of his words.  I know he probably didn't intend to be hurtful but damn, is this what I'm going to have to deal with in Europe?  As an American I'm accustomed to the naiveté of topics about weight, so I completely felt out of place when he was so honest with me, and it felt kinda crummy.