I hide my body behind cats

I press the button and wait for CSU to buzz the door open to get to my next class. A man, whom I do not recognize, five inches on me with a shaven head, comes up behind me and grips my bicep.

"You've been doing pushups, I can tell."

This is sarcasm. This man means that I do not meet what he thinks of as manly and, instead of letting the two of us go about our days, he felt entitled not merely to criticize me but grab me while he does it. I have recently taken the twice-annual self-protective techniques training, but it would not help my case to deflect him, assume my safe and supportive stance, and shout "stop" at him. (It is unlikely that this would work on the residents either, but it is drilled into us.)

I am thin owing to my inclination to walk around when given the opportunity (I can accrue a mile worth of steps before leaving my house in the morning and several thousand from doing otherwise low impact chores when I return). I have programmed myself to meet most of the daily goals on my fitness band. In the last five years, I have failed to get my step goal once because I was brutally ill, and I felt awkward about it.

Pulling free of this man's grasp, I retort that one of the students had tried to give me an exercise plan to beef up, which throws the guy off. He wanted his harassment to make me ashamed and uncomfortable -- and I am not exactly thrilled that he has taken the liberty of touching me and commenting on my body -- and doesn't know what to do with my joking evasion.

The door buzzes open. I increase my pace a little to the next unit, hoping that the man doesn't feel welcomed to more conversation.

At my job, he is not alone in commenting on my physique. If I were overweight or they were making their remarks sexual -- and surely if I were a woman -- that would be both distasteful and actionable. However, people think that they want to be thin and so do not feel it is curious that they weekly note that I am. They ask if I have lost weight (I've been around this weight since March of 2020 and was only a few pounds heavier for three years before that; they have no reason to notice the difference). I just shrug. They ask for my secret. I tell them that I log most food I eat and exercise daily -- no secret. I do not mention that I believe my head meds contributed, directly or indirectly, to my current weight. That is yet another conversation that I do not want to have at work.

Part of their confusion, I imagine, is that I wear layers at work to compensate for the variable temperatures throughout the building and to look more professional than required. (At present, I could get away with jeans and a flannel, but I stick with my teacher disguise of black slacks, a dress shirt, and a jacket.) When I take the jacket off to go through the metal detector, I lose some of the padding that they evidently assumed was built-in.

Around 2005, I lost twenty-five pounds in a few months owing to student teaching. The combination of walking around my classroom, waking up early, and anxiety telling my digestive system to refuse to keep food in my body for more than a few hours affected that change without conscious effort. My designated teacher clothes were loose on me by the time I completed my placements. I have been a size medium since and can even be bold enough to wear a small depending on the store and the clothing's purpose.

The woman I dated in 2005 fixated on her weight. She was vexed that I had lost so much, snidely chalking it up to the unfairness of my being a man. She was among the reasons that I weighed as much as I had. She would buy calorie-rich foods and recommend diner trips regularly. I was in my mid-twenties and living with her, so I was not about to turn down loaves of fresh, warm bread and nightly ice cream cones. She was a semi-pro martial artist who would exhaust herself with training. I was a writer, a far more sedentary occupation.

There is one picture of the two of us together on vacation where every additional pound shows in my face. I'm not too fond of the sight of it. The transition to this size occurred so gradually. Even looking at photos from 2015, when I bought my fitness band and started logging calories, I see a roundness of cheek that is strange to me now, fifteen pounds lighter. I had visited my primary care doctor then and asked if any of my medications might be causing my slowly increasing weight. He delicately explained that nothing he had prescribed me was to blame and maybe I should be more active. Last week, I had my two-year checkup, and every fifth sentence was about how healthy I am. While this is likely true -- I do not smoke, drink, or take drugs that are not prescribed to me; I do my best to get enough sleep; I do not spend copious time in the sun without a hat; despite my job, I tend to be relaxed -- a part of it is that I weigh less than I did when last I saw him.

I don't log my calories or appease my band because I care about my weight anymore. I do it because that is one of my habits. If anything, I exercise because it staves off my mental health symptoms and helps me sleep better (which improves my mental health symptoms). I weigh myself around weekly to have a data point, but my weight rarely fluctuates much. I don't perseverate over calories, but I am aware of them, often in the context that a portion of unhealthy food is less bad for me than I thought. I don't overindulge as a practice, but little of the food I cook Amber (fried fish, tacos, chicken pot pie, burrito bowls, chili) would fit someone's diet plan. I have an abiding love for Chinese buffets and fast-food French fries.

Mr. Rogers kept his weight at 143 pounds through his adulthood because this number represented the letters in the words "I love you." I am not holding my weight where it is, around ten pounds more despite my being two or three inches shorter than Mr. Rogers, because of anyone else. This is where my weight seems to want to be, so I don't fight it. I was fine when I was a little heavier, and I am doing nothing different now beyond taking a medication that works better for me.

My slight physique is not something that engenders wild attraction in others. Were I some willowy woman, it might be different. A man is not lithe; he is scrawny and gangling. He is not a fairytale princess. He is Ichabod Crane or Jack Skellington. I am this way not to seduce, but because this is about where I like my body.

last watched: What If...?
reading: Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies