Last weekend my family threw a big birthday party for my father's 70th birthday. I took my new beau along to meet people and everyone got on well, it was a great party. I hadn't seen many of the people there for quite a while, so for most of the night I was getting wonderful compliments and support from everyone (my family is GREAT like that!!). They were all "oh you look wonderful!", "You look fabulous!", "Well done!!", "Good on you!!", etc. That was fine and dandy, no problems, as I have told the beau about the surgery and that I was a big ol fatty this time last year. He's been really supportive and says he can see the determination in my eyes and that he totally admires someone who shows that they are willing to do what it takes to change life for the better.

So far so good, eh? It all got just a little bit too much though, when my parent's next door neighbour came up to me at the end of the night, gushing over with "OMG, I didn't recognise you! What a difference!! I was looking all around the party and wondering where you were but someone had to tell me it was you!! You look SO different!!" GAH! I was squirming with embarrassment, with the beau standing next to me listening to this all. I mean, compliments are nice and all, but did she HAVE to make it quite so obvious just how huge and revolting I was before? *cringes*

They think they are being nice when they do this.

I think all overly effusive complements are embarrassing though.

Isn't it strange how something can be nice and terrible at the same time?

The neighbor (tactless soul) probably thought you would be pleased to hear compliments...

I was pleased and she thought she was being nice. I enjoyed all the compliments from my family too. There was just something about the WAY the neighbour said things that really rubbed in how bad I had looked before, and with the new man standing next to me, I wanted to crawl under a rock at times :thumbup:

Let go of the past, Fanny. That's not you anymore, so quit carrying that burden around.

*hugs* Thanks Plain... you're a sweetheart...

People can be weird. After I lost a lot of weight due to the band I had a couple come running up to me screaming repeatedly, "let's see the half-a-woman!"

I also had people in my neighbourhood ascribe my weight loss to unacknowledged illness. They wouldn't speak to me directly about this but they would ask my husband or my tenant. What made this worse was that I did end up getting cancer. (Then I lost even more weight. Cancer is very slimming, eh.)