Big

Posted on September 18, 2003 in Appearance

If I could give six inches of my height to anyone else, I would.

I am six foot four inches tall and I weigh 250 pounds. When I walk into a room of strangers, I feel the fear and the tension. Goliath. Gorilla. What is this guy going to do to me? The thoughts click. I speak softly and some of the guard goes down. As I establish each relationship, I have to go through the same cycle: just because I am big doesn’t mean that I am a monster. I am gentle, peaceable.

This is what I have found being big means in American society:

• If you get angry, people exagerrate the extent of your anger. You might have been the softest spoken person in a contentious discussion, but if you lose it, they remember YOU.
• Little guys with chips on their shoulders are inclined to attack you, sometimes physically.
• Women looking for father figures love you. They see their father, react to you as their father. You disappear in relationships very quickly.
• People ask why you aren’t playing basketball or football.
• People think that when you get angry you want to beat them into a pulp. (I try to moderate my anger in person for this reason. It is scarey when a larger person starts shouting in your face.)
• When you complain about these things, some people say that it can’t possibly be happening like you say. (On the other hand, a friend of mine saw the fear factor regarding my size tonight and commented on it privately. I nearly cried because here was a person who truly knew how other people thought and reacted to my size.) Or they call you a “whiner”, out to get sympathy, special treatment.

The fact is that I want an end to the special treatment because of my size. I want people to not jump to conclusions about my nature or what I will do because I am 6 foot 4 inches and weight 250 pounds. But it’s not going to happen.

So I will be grateful that a few friends do understand and support me as I try to live as am in this world.

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I have no argument with people who classify as short (5 foot “nothing” or under). They can’t help how they are and they aren’t children. The other night, Shari — one of my writer friends — talked about how people literally stooped and starting to talk to her like she was a child. She teaches art in Hebrew School. She is 55 years old. She is no child.

I sympathize. She’s an adult. She deserves the same respect as any other adult, the same trust. Being tall, I see height as a valid issue for people. It must be hell to be short — not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with being short, but because people can be so stupid about it. Like they are stupid about my being tall.