I was listening to Marc Maron's WTF podcast with Alison Brie the other morning. She was talking about her time studying at CalArts, telling him that the rules were, at that school, that you could be naked anytime and any place, with the exception of the cafeteria. It was funny to hear her talk about walking around in just tennis shoes to make her friends laugh, but it also sounded like my personal nightmare. Being around a bunch of people who just don't care and can be naked anywhere there isn't food being served sounds completely foreign and weird and not at all comfortable. I don't even like being naked when I am by myself. I kind of wish I could just give myself a break and be naked, all of the time or even just some of the time, without feeling like someone is watching me and doesn't like the view. I want to be half as confident as this guy:
I don't know if I have body dysmorphia or if I'm just brutally honest with myself or what, but I'm still struggling with what I see when I take my clothes off.
One of the things I was looking forward to, when I finally got my own place and didn't have to consider how I might be accidentally making anyone else uncomfortable, was just being naked all the time. I couldn't get naked whenever I wanted, for obvious reasons, when Gino and I had roommates, but even when we just lived together as a couple, if I was naked, I kind of ended up having to explain why I was naked. When I moved in here and didn't have to explain anything to anyone, I did just walk around in various states of undress pretty much any time I was home, but then I started to be such a girl about it and realized that I'm not comfortable being naked. I made a joke, this past summer, when I was still heavily embittered about my failed marriage, that Gino only saw me naked a handful of times in seven years. The way I told it made it sound like I never let him see me naked, but what I actually meant was that he didn't really look at me anymore. That was true to some extent, although I was, as I tend to do, exaggerating. We got naked a lot, but he stopped seeing me when I was naked, I think, a few years ago. He would try to make me feel better about my weight gain, and how my body was just wrong in so many ways, but it was a struggle, I could tell. He would put his hands on my hips and say, "See? It's working," meaning that my constant exercising and other attempts to shrink myself down were showing, but there was an edge to his voice when he said it.
The overall impression I got from Gino telling me it was working was, "It's working a little".
It was sweet of him, and he was trying, but it must be hard to be married to someone who just continues to expand year after year. I didn't live up to my marriage vows, which were to always be the girl he fell in love with. The girl he fell in love with had curves, but also had a concave stomach, and he didn't need to craft forgiving compliments for her. She was fine, if a little underfed. He didn't have to try at all. And then I got my post-marriage body and everything changed. I understand that my excess fat grossed him out, and I didn't help matters by being so self-conscious. If I had more confidence, I could have said, "So what? You know I'm working on it and it's taking a while, but it's not like I weigh 200 pounds. Get over it," but instead, my attitude was just, "Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry."
I like my body well enough, but it's like a friend I enjoy spending time with but don't need to see all the time. I keep coming back to this place where I wish I could just say fuck it and stop apologizing for it, but I'm just not there. I haven't, truth be told, gotten naked with a lot of people. I don't just mean that I haven't had sex with a ton of people. Whenever I see women just trying on clothes with each other in movies, or going into saunas naked together without a care, I just think, "Who does that?"
I was talking to my best friend about why we, humans that is, even try to find someone to get naked with. We get something from the knowing, I think, that another person will see us naked and not run away screaming, or laugh, or both. I'm not sure she arrived at the same conclusion as me, but she doesn't have body-consciousness issues like I do, and besides, she is gorgeous and would be crazy to have them. Of course, she says the same thing to me, so there you have it.
I don't usually give myself challenges, but this week I'm trying to just be naked whenever I can. If I'm home and I don't have anywhere else to be, I'm naked. The only way I'm going to accept the way I look and learn to like it is to just force myself to deal with it all the time. Maybe if I can manage to do that, the next time I am naked with someone, I won't be waiting for them to demand that I put clothes on again. It's a silly goal, but it's something I have been really struggling with and I don't know how else to address it. So, for a little while, if you don't see me, I'm probably going to be nude.
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