Dear Prudence: Weight and Furniture

[cereta]

Dear Prudence,
At my last party, a very good friend of mine who is obese broke a chair as she sat in it. I played polite hostess and made sure she was OK. I’ve now taken it to get fixed and found out it’s broken beyond repair. It’s one of my favorite chairs and can’t be replaced. I’m frustrated! My friend doesn’t make a lot of money, so I don’t feel comfortable asking her to pay for it. She hasn’t mentioned it since. My girlfriend doesn’t want me to say anything. Is there any way to say, “I can’t fix the chair, I have to get a new set, I’m miffed, but ultimately, a chair is just a thing and I care more about you and your health. Can you please take care of yourself?”

–Chair Beyond Repair

A.I don’t believe there is! Your speech will not be giving her any new information. She knows how much she weighs. She knows she broke your chair. She has not brought it up since then because she is undoubtedly mortified. I understand it’s frustrating to lose a favorite piece of furniture, but imagine how painful it must have been for her in that moment, to fall and them to have all eyes trained on her. If someone falls in your house—no matter what size they are—you make sure they are OK not out of grudging obligation, but because you want to make sure they are OK. I believe that what you really want is to make sure she feels miserable, ashamed, and in your debt. You are angry about the loss of your chair and feel that she has not been embarrassed enough. Since she can’t pay to replace the chair, you would like her to pay you in humiliation. Let the chair go, and resist your desire to remind her of it.

Comments

[cereta]

I...really, really love the new Prudence. Dear God, can you imagine how Abby would have responded to this letter?

[jadelennox]

Or Emily Yoffe, god help us?

[watersword]

MALLORY ORTBERG LET ME LOVE YOU.

[moem]

Hmm. I would be annoyed because of the chair. I would nevertheless still consider a person's weight to be none of my business; I might be tempted to talk to her about the chair (maybe she has good search-fu and can help locate a replacement?) but I would definitely not not not talk to her about her weight in any way. Because that's just rude.

What the letter writer wants to say is for the most part not horrible, if they feel they must say something or explode, but that last bit "Can you please take care of yourself?” is way over the line and should remain unsaid. We don't know whether and how the friend is taking care of herself and it's nobody's business but her own.

Also: insurance. It's nice to have. It takes the financial sting out of many things that can go wrong and that aren't anyone's fault.

[jadelennox]

Depending on where the LW lives, it's also worth pointing out that any injury a guest (in my state, even a burglar) suffers due to negligence in the home is actually the homeowner's liability, so perhaps the LW should make sure their furniture is solid and non-flimsy.

Now if we could only introduce liability for the harm caused by nosy parkers who literally think nobody's ever told a fat person to lose weight before. It's like certain kinds of evangelism in its self-centered naivety. "Have you heard the Good News?" "Why, no! Literally nobody has ever told me about [the evil death fats / this fellow named Jesus] before!"

[minoanmiss]

Holy shit that reply was... awesome!