Most embarrassing "heavy" moment
 

I will never forget how humiliated I was on a flight to Chicago a few years ago. It was one of those tiny commuter planes with one seat on the left and two on the right. I always select the one-seat side of the plane, and I purchased my own set of seat belt extenders so I could avoid as much embarrassment as possible.

I got on the plane, crammed myself into the tiny seat, belted up using my extender and relaxed. Unfortunately, the most evil flight attendant of all time was on my flight. She checked everyone's belt and she noticed that I had my own extender, and said I needed an official extender. She was talking so loudly, everyone could hear. She got an extender, and didn't even try to discreetly give it to me. Then she came back and loudly asked if it was on. I was so humiliated I wanted to die.

At the end of the flight, she was up front saying goodbye to the passengers and she asked if I had the extender with me. I said no, it was still on the chair, and I high-tailed it out of the plane. I should have written a letter to the air carrier to complain, but figured there was no point...nothing would be done.

I fly again in six weeks and hope that I have reached the point where I don't need an extender, but we'll see. In January, I still needed one...

What is your most embarrassing "heavy" moment?

i stepped out of the door to my upstairs flat onto the sidewalk and two (really cute) guys passing by literally stopped in their tracks before one said "wow - that's a whole lotta woman" and they laughed as they carried on their merry way.

i'm more puzzled than humiliated - i mean, i'm big but i'm FAR from being the biggest in town so i don't know why i ranked the comment.

This happened twice - second time was worse as I was bigger (near my top weight).

We flew into Croatia and our luggage was lost. I had been wearing the same clothes forever it felt like and I had no change of clothes. I was more than a 100 pounds more than any woman in my husband's family. They were looking to see if there was anything I could possibly wear of theirs until my luggage came. I guess I should be happy both times they found something, but it was so embarassing! Just made me triply aware of how HuGE I was and especially in their eyes.

I can't wait to go this year and be the thinnest they've ever seen me - to redeem myself.

I broke a camping chair. I was sitting on it and it cracked. Not sure how many people noticed. My dear husband tried to calm me by telling me not to worry, it was a very old chair, so it was probably just past its prime, but I knew better....

I don't have one "most" embarrassing moment, but I have lived every waking moment of the last ten years with the knowledge that I am enormously fat. Every chair creak, uphill gasp of breath, ill-fitting pair of pants, and sideways glance from another person has screamed to me about my weight problem. I can't eat anything in public without thinking about how much of a pig I look, even if I'm starving. I know what others are thinking: "Boy, maybe if she didn't eat like a walrus she wouldn't look like a walrus." I have starved myself because I didn't want to eat in front of people, then secretly pigged out at home to make up for it. Very unhealthy and unhappy way to live, folks. Many people here may not think they can make it to four hundred pounds but it's possible, and it's not a cool place to be.

I have 2....

I flew from Albuquerque with no seatbelt on because I was too embarrassed to ask for an extender.

My SO and I went to a minor league ball game and I couldn't sit next to him in the seats (which had arms). I had to sit in a seat away from him with one missing arm so I could fit.

Good news is that I just flew to Seattle and had slack in my seatbelt :)

I broke a beach chair. :o A very expensive, hard to come by beach chair. I was quite peeved about it, too!! Cause I know I was big at 192 lb, but that chair was supposed to hold "up to 250 lb"... yeah, right! :shrug:

Mine was a double whammy: I was on a church youth group mission trip in Gatlinburg. We were walking around some shops, and I was wearing white pants. Naturally, on the day I decide to wear white pants is when my period decides to start, and not ONLY did I not have any supplies, I had a big red stain on my pants and we had to buy me some kind of bottoms to replace them with. The thing about it is, being a bigger girl even in high school, I wore a 2x (or a 20) in bottoms and none of the gift shops around even went to an XL, much less a 2x, and the lady chaperone that was with me refused to let me buy stuff from the mens' section. So, I had to squeeze my *** into a teeny pair of shorts that were a size L, and I had to walk around like that for the rest of the trip. Needless to say, I've been prepared for my period ever since then and I've never worn white pants again.

I decided a long time ago that white pants should be banned all over the world!! ;)

Some guys screamed fatass at me once while walking my dogs, and once at my friend and I while we were hanging out outside a bar. Seriously - what kind of person is made happy by screaming insults out of a moving car? The worst part is, if they had screamed ugly or stupid or a million other things I wouldn't care - but b/c it was about my weight I can't ever forget it.

OHHHH I have a bunch :lol:

When I was 19, I took a trip down to Universal Studios with my best friend. On the flight down, we were seated in a 3 row, with me in the middle. My friend(who is slim) and a skinny older women were on either side of me. My fat was squishing the arrest like no tomorrow so both casually lifted up theirs, not saying anything. I also had to flag down someone for a seat belt extender. That same trip I was made fun of for being in a swimsuit, unable to go on any of the roller coasters, same with go-carts, and was told that I should have my lower back tattoo extended because it looked to small on my behind....Ok not a single incident but it was an embarrassing trip xD

Walking along the streets of NYC, and having a car full of guys shout, OMG look at that fattie while proceeding to make animal noises and laughing.

Wanting to go skydiving, but stupidly not knowing the weight restrictions on it, going in, and being told I wouldn't meet the requirements

The first guy I had a crush on in HS finding out I liked him, and being grossed out by it 0.o That one hurt...Kinda wish I would run into him now xDD revenge...petty I know :o

Oh another plane story. Sitting down next to a somewhat heavy set guy on a flight. The second I sat down, he got the most pissed off look on his face, and not more then 2 minutes later, flagged down an attendant, and asked to be moved.

I wasn't a really fat kid, but I was chubby I guess. I was walking to one of my friend's houses in 5th grade. I was eating a candy bar. This boy, a few years older than me, who lived a few houses down sang this little song as I walked by "She's a fat girl OOOoooo". I can still remember exactly the melody he sang it to. When I met up with my friend I gave her my candy bar because I couldn't enjoy it anymore. It was the first time in my life I had felt ashamed of myself, and even thinking about it today brings back those feelings.

It's funny because reading everyone's stories it just is unbelievable to me how cruel people can be. Mine was a from a kid, kids are just mean sometimes, but when adults act like that it's just so unbelievable to me.

ah - the beach chair reminded me of another one: my whatever-he-is-today, back before i left him for 3yrs, bought a ladder so we could get the curtains up in the apt. i set it up and had my foot on the bottom rung when he said "don't get up there, you might break it".

i felt like he'd slapped me in the face but, thankfully, went into shock and couldn't move so i was still staring at him long enough to see the "oh, crap!" look on his face.

he stammered and um'd and uh'd and managed to get out "i knew you were going to take that the wrong way. i just mean the safety sticker on the side of the ladder says it's only up to 200lbs and you weigh more than that. i just don't want you falling".

men.

Most of my embarrassing moments to do with being heavy have to do with being photographed or people saying I looked "good" in pictures when I felt like I didn't. Mind you, I didn't really realize how big I was unless I was photographed.

The only non-photograph-related embarrassing moment I can think of is from sophomore year of college when I lived on the ground floor of my dorm and one night as I was studying, a peeping tom and his friend peered into my window and one went like "ooooh girl dorm" and the friend said "ewww but don't you see she's fat!" I was humiliated because my roommate heard but I was more mad than anything.

After my senior year of high school, me and four friends went on a senior trip to the beach, however with one friend having "helicopter" parents, the rest of her family vacationed at the same beach, at the same time. They came over to our hotel on the second day to see if we wanted a ride to the outlet mall. They were going through all the popular teen stores there, then the dad turned to me and said, "oh, and they have a Lane Bryant for you." While I we the only heavier one in the group, I did wear a 14, shopped at regular stores and even if I didn't, to be singled out as the fat girl needing a special store was humiliating. Fortunately, I had a few good friends who were equally shocked and mad he would make such a statement.

Wow! A lot of theses stories are making my blood boil! How can people be so inconsiderate and just plain rude?!

I had tons of people call me fat throughout middle/high school but the worst one was late at night when I was getting out of my car about 2 yrs ago I had a group of guys in a car scream "Fat***!!" out the window and speed by. I remember having just lost my grandfather and I was just coming back from his funeral and I was the most upset I had ever been at that point. That just pushed me over the edge and I fell into an even deeper depression. I know I shouldn't have let that get to me, but I couldn't help it at that point. People really need to realize that what they say truly affects other people. I'm sure those guys didn't think they would be hurting me as much as they did, but it really shocks me that people can be that mean.

When I was about 14? I think. I went to the movies with my friend and her cousin (both skinny little things). I have always been overweight / diabetic (type 1). Well, we went to see a movie at a late showing, around 10:00pm. And when we got out, her mother wasn't there waiting on us like she should of been. We waited nearly 30 minutes before walking to the store on the otherwise of the parking lot (it was a very large, mall sized lot) to call her. As soon as we did that she said she was pulling into the lot, so we went back. Well, when my friend saw her moms car she and her cousin started running back, and I tried to run with them but ofc being overweight it was uncomfortable and exhausting, not to mention my blood sugar was plummeting. They basically completely forgot/ignored me and I was halfway behind them running by myself. Well, there was another car sitting at the movie theater full of highschool-college aged guys and they yelled out "RUN FOREST RUN!!!" and you could hear them laughing. I immediately thought they were making fun of me / my weight. That's something that always stuck with me. And it was the only time, outside of school, that I was made fun of directly to my face (sort of.)

Another embarrassing thing was recently, about two months ago - squeezing into jeans too tight and then going to the mall to try on shoes. I couldn't bend down to try any on without being severely uncomfortable, and getting red-faced. I had to tell my fiance my stomach was really hurting so he would do it for me (It didn't hurt, but I didn't want to say "I'm too fat, help please.")

okay, this one's not humiliating, but it's pretty darned funny:

i'm big, my sister is bigger, and her bff is way bigger than she is. at the time this happened, i was about 210, my sister was probably about 230, and her friend was easily 50lbs heavier than that (she just had her third child and she's over 300lbs now; she needs to use a scooter bec her knees can't take her weight any more and her husband is freaking right out - he'll do anything to help her get the weight off, up to and including paying for bariatric surgery and all the plastic surgery afterward re skin reduction, boob lift, tummy tuck, lower body lift, etc, but for some reason, she refuses to do anything but keep eating).

anyway, my mom, her husband, and the three of us were heading out somewhere for some reason - i think it was a wedding thing. dinner at a restaurant of some kind is all i can remember. my stepdad was a gentle soul - never said an unkind word - for all that he was not very nice to my mother (chased everything in a skirt) but even he had to comment that the car was a bit difficult to handle and could the three of us stop giggling and shoving each other in the back as the car's back end was riding low and it was making the car wobble on the road.

so we stopped with the shoving but we couldn't stop laughing - we'd get all calmed down, then one of us would snicker and we'd all start laughing again. you know how it is. the best was when my sis's bff actually snorted - a full-on "SHNERK!" - and we laughed for a good 5min on that one.

took about a half-hour but we finally got to the restaurant.

now, here's the setup in the back seat: my sister had gotten in first, so she was up against the driver's side back door. her friend was in the middle, i was jammed hard against the passenger side back door. all three of us were wedged so tightly that our shoulders were up around our ears and we had to keep our arms in front to avoid elbowing each other in the boob.

mom gets out and heads into the restaurant to let them know we're here.

my stepdad gets out and, being that he was a gentleman and being that the door handle on my sister's side was broken, stepped around to my side to open the door for us. he pulled up the handle....


... and the door SHOT open and i came flying out like the cork from a bottle right onto the ground!

well, that was it - we were useless for the rest of the night.

Oh, it was probably that time I broke part of the stool I was sitting in at my husband's boss's Christmas party. Everyone heard the crunch and turned to stare at me. The hosts were polite about it, but it was still so embarrassing. :o

Then there was the time I went to the plus-sized section of Macy's to inquire about swimsuits, and the employee looked me up and down and said they'd have nothing that would fit me (she could have totally handled it better if it was true that they didn't carry plus sized suits).

Went to a amusement park once and they couldn't lock the bar over me on one of the rides (and I wasn't even my highest weight). I shrugged it off and let myself get upset about it later.

Once when I was wearing pants that were apparently too tight at work, I bent over to pick up a pan and heard a horrifyingly loud rip. The backside of my pants had split open! Luckily I had a long coat with me and got excused to run off to Walmart to buy another pair.

Apart from high school or elementary school insults, which I've forgiven and forgotten because kids are morons, I was once at the beach when I was 20 (in a one-piece bathing suit that was a little too tight) and walking back to the car and two guys in a pick-up began barking out the windows at me like dogs. In front of the rest of my family, who were just heading up over the hill. It was definitely directed at me and I'd never felt so ashamed.

I don't get it, but I can only assume that it comes from people who feel bullied in their own lives and have to point and laugh at easy targets.

Threenorms-that sounds downright hilarious!
I think my most embarrassing moment was when my friends husband said he would call me "BT"for British tiffany(mom is British) and his wife only overheard the "BT" part and said something like "Bt", as in Big Tiffany?".. I was embarrassed and hurt eventhough it was an innocent mistake. I hate that people are judged on looks alone. Oh and when chairs squeak! I hate when I make the chair noisy.

Here's the thing: I think the "they didn't realize" excuse is bullshit. They know what they're doing -- they're being mean because they get a high from it, because there's something nasty in their lives and they want other people to feel the same.

Even worse -- adjustable office chairs that plummet when you sit on them.

Once my older sister (who is also very overweight) and I were walking down the sidewalk near a grocery store and these two men were walking in our direction, as they passed, they both started mooing like a cow really loudly. It was very embarrassing, and although it was stupid, it made me feel so ashamed.

I'm not severely over weight yet I've had comments yelled at me for as long as I can remember. Once, when I was 14-15, I went to visit my BFF at her boarding school. I was about a size 9 then. We were standing with a group of girls just chit chatting, and then this group of guys start making fun of me because I was bigger then all of them. Talk about a "what the frick" moment in your life. I didn't know any one there except my bff, and yet here I am being made fun of in front of like 15 people.

Another moment was when I was a size 11 and was in 11th grade, but still wore a medium sized top. I wasn't fat, just had a wide hips like I have ALWAYS had, no matter how skinny I was. My boyfriends 300 POUND jackass friend who hated me, kept calling ME fat! Yes, i wasn't as skinny as the other girls in the group, but it doesn't mean I was fat. I think these probably led to the reason that I've always always seen myself as fat, even when I wasnt. I've also just pictured myself as some hippo or something.

I am amazed, as I am mulling my brain I can honestly say I don't have any that really stand out. But there are a fair number of pictures, including my wedding pictures, where I struggle very hard to see how lovely the day was and not focus on how I looked. It's tough!

I guess I am not the only one! I've had my share of the belt extender/broken chair/"tight" chairs either in cafes or restaurants or meeting (gosh it's soo painful!)

I lived half of my life in South East Asia, Asian people are blessed with small body frames. Going for shopping was so embarrassing for, even if I am just accompany a skinny friend, the shop clerks will give me that nasty look or will tell me nothing in my size. I once was in a lingerie shop with my friend in Bangkok and the sales woman came to me asking me from where I buy my bras because they don't have my size (I didn't ask for a thing!) and then she did rub my tummy saying OH BIG!! She did it the second time I was there with my friend and I just slapped her hand off, if you don't stand up to them they won't let you go and will think what they say is actually ok or something argh!

Another thing happened to me and I can't get over it is when I was in Japan, we've waited around half an hour to get into this local sushi bar and ended up not fitting inside the restaurant at all! I couldn't get in, so I just canceled and apologized to my "date" =_= that he can eat alone then..

Quite frankly, I am astounded at the amount of people who think it's funny/amusing to shout random insults to strangers when they're walking/driving by.

Although people who "drive by" insult are worse. More cowardly, since they can't be confronted.

Good grief... the world is full of *******s.

I agree!!

I'm so sorry for some of the things you guys have had done to you!

For me, people yell things out windows, but most of the time I can't tell what they're saying and sometimes it's cat calls, so who friggin knows? (It's nicer to assume it's always cat calls!) I honestly just don't like when strangers yell things at me from moving vehicles.

Anywho, I usually don't get direct comments just certain looks like "do you actually think you'll fit into that?" or "a milkshake, eh fatty?" or sometimes I'm the last person people will sit next to on the bus. Though now I'm trying to not be paranoid and assume I'm just mistaking people's looks or actions to be more sinister than they actually are.

I was 11, and already obese. My mom and I couldn't find a bathing suit to fit me, so she'd sewed me one.

I was on the high dive getting ready to jump when one of my male classmates shouted "Tubbbooo Lardoooo!!!! So fat they don't even make clothes her size!!!!" I wanted to fall to the bottom of the pool and die. I have actually seen him recently, around town, and want to punch him in the face. What a loser.

i was at the checkout at the grocery store chatting with the cashier. the lady behind is, frankly, a byotch. she's got her face into everybody's business and she's bloody rude - she figures because she was born 15 minutes before moses and hasn't died yet, she's entitled to automatic respect AND she's allowed to say anything she wants.

so i was at the checkout with my cart and she was ticked probably bec i didn't let her go ahead of me. in my cart, i had a crapload of meat, vegetables, fruit, some other healthy stuff (can't remember) and a birthday cake on the bottom rack.

so i pile all the meat on the counter and the miserable old goat says "more? didn't you just buy a pile of meat last week?" and the cashier, without looking up or breaking stride, says "how did your dog like the lamb last week? and oh - i see he's getting pork today! he must've been a very good dog!" [i feed him raw food only]

i pile all the veg, fruit, etc, and the crank makes a comment about how she's sure that's what i really eat because as we all know, us fatties have giant vaults full of mcdonald's and taco bell hidden in our bat caves. and the cashier said "i see you've lost more weight - how much is that so far? your efforts are really paying off - you look good!"

and then i pull out the birthday cake and i hear "a-HAH!" and the cashier said "do give your daughter my best wishes on her birthday today", lol.

that's not word-for-word, i can't remember now but i did post about it when it happened. i'm still waiting for my chance to get dandy to pee on the old bat's tires.

@Threenorns, I'm surprised you refrained from turning around and calling her an old bat!

I actually remembered something else. I guess I don't really usually consider some moments embarrassing since it's your family and they just embarrass you sometimes anyways lol.

So when I was a kid, everytime we went over to my grandparents (about once a month) my grandma would weigh us. There are 4 kids in my family and she would weigh each of us, though my little brother and sister wouldn't be weighed a lot of the time because they were skinny. So if I ever gained a pound or two she would comment on it or say I was getting chubby (I was slightly overweight as a child). It really made me resent going there. I loved my grandma but she was very critical about weight and we kind of suspect she may have had an eating disorder. :S

I broke a dining room chair at a party at my boss' house. In front of my other boss and several other coworkers. I wanted to crawl under that chair, not that I would have fit. :(

In grade school the boys used to call me "Riverboat" - a horrible mangling of my last name.

I don't remember how old I was, but I was either in 7th or 8th grade. A boy ran up to me with his friend and said "HEY MY FRIEND HAS A CRUSH ON YOU" and all of his friends started laughing and saying how gross I was. Awesome, right?

I hated middle school.

How horrible! :(

There are several people who I simultaneously want to punch in the face/show off how I look now. Especially several guys. I kind of want to run to a select few wearing the tightest pants I have, waggle my butt in their face and say "YOU COULD HAVE HAD THIS!" and run off laughing at them.

It's not worth it though. A girl can dream.

My heart actually hurts for every one of you!

I've had a couple of moments like this, but possibly one of the most embarrassing was when we were doing an exercise in drama class when I was 16, and I was definitely not my fattest. Part of the scene involved army-crawling between the legs of a chair, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to fit. I just candidly said "Oh no, I don't think I'll fit!" and everybody had a little chuckle, and my sweet best friend who knows me inside out leaned down to where I was on the floor and whispered "Don't worry, as you wiggle through I'll lift the chair so you aren't between the legs - they'll all think you fit". I was friends with everyone in the class anyway, and they never would have made fun of me for it, but I was absolutely mortified anyway.


I had no idea that so many people had things shouted at them from passing cars! I've had it too, a man shouted "Oioi fatty!" at me froma car while I was at a bus stop.. why on earth is this regular behaviour?!

you know what? my whatever-he-is-today does that when we're down in toronto.

i don't know why - and not just about weight, either. we'll pass a sikh and he'll shout "hey, balbo!" (that's from an east indian coworker when he was at UPS who couldn't say "volvo"; he said "bolbo"). or we'll pass some woman dressed less than conservatively and he'll shout "show me the cat!" (referring to exactly what you think) or "hey nanny!" if it's an elderly woman driving a car (he's from trinidad).

i have no idea why he does it and i've gotten out of the car and walked home. i've asked him and all he does is laugh stupidly and say "it's so funny!". i told him funny it isn't, it's just juvenile. i also told him he better hope he's got some kind of mental affliction bec if he doesn't now, he'll have one after i give him a concussion!

he can control it to a degree - he never does it when our daughter's in the car. this is something else: if he's got friends in the car, they all laugh uproariously, then laugh even harder when i get angry.


i've been toying with the idea of shouting something complimentary to the next hot young guy we drive past - see how he likes them apples.

I doubt he recognizes you and if he does well ... judging from your avatar picture just seeing you would probably be punishment enough for him. :D

I definitely agree with you, but I meant that young people in general really do not know how they affect other people. Of course they were doing it on purpose to be mean, but little did they know I had just lost a family member and was severely depressed.

I'm just wondering who raises these people. No one in my family and no one I know would ever insult someone like many of us have been insulted.

The worst thing is actually what got me to want to lose weight. I was in the hospital. Had just had my catheter removed but they didn't want me to go to the bathroom so they brought me a port a potty. The one they brought was small. The one nurse asked the other why she brought that one..and her answer....I didn't know she was a WHALE...as lound as can be. Guess one day I should thank her.