Fat Shamed? There are two sides to every story
At this time of year, it’s good to get away from the grime of true crime and look at something with smaller stakes. The added bonus with the statements we’ll look at here is that they contain words you are more likely to encounter in day-to-day life.
This set of words was suggested by the Never A Truer Word community and has raised some great insights on the Facebook group.
The story concerns a woman who isn’t happy that her personal shopping trip was cancelled and it begins with an email from the personal shopper.
I need to start by apologising for the short notice, but I think it's best if we postpone your appointment for a wardrobe refresh, until we have a better selection of stock to shop.
The writer of the email is concerned with herself here. She begins with “I” which shows she is her prime concern, but also shows she is taking ownership of the decision to postpone. This is also true with “I think it’s best”.
She then uses “we” twice. The first time (“we postpone”) is to suggest a joint action. The second time “until WE have a better selection of stock” shows she feels the blame for the lack of stock doesn’t sit with her but with the shop.
This first paragraph of the email shows diplomacy. She wants to “postpone” the appointment, not cancel it, and talks about a “better selection of stock” rather than something harsher like “clothes that will fit you”.
That diplomacy is about to go out the window!
From your responses I can see that you are looking for pieces in the fuller figure size range, and sadly in store, we currently have little or no stock beyond a size 14.
The first words “from your responses” reveal that this isn’t the first correspondence that has been had. And those words are the first thing said here, so we can assume the previous responses are important to her.
For this email to make sense, she didn’t need to mention the responses at all. She could have stated “I can see that you are looking for…” so I’m picking up that there is some sensitivity around their previous communication.
In contrast to the diplomacy of the first paragraph, this is harsher. “Fuller figure” and “beyond size 14” both deal directly with the size of the person shopping. There are more diplomatic ways to state that the store doesn’t have much suitable stock at the moment.
The emailer says there is “little or no stock” which means this is some stock. That theme continues in the next line:
Probably little
It would be of little benefit to you to go through the process at the moment, because you would probably go home empty handed!
Again, “little benefit” suggests that some benefit is possible, and she says the shopper would only “probably” go home empty-handed. For me, the writer wants to give the impression that there are no suitable clothes in stock, but the truth leaks out in her words that there is some suitable stock.
I’m interested in why the writer has stated this in the negative. She’s written about the downside of doing the shopping trip now, rather than the upside of postponing for a while until there is more suitable stock.
Issues
My conclusions from looking at this email are the writer has some issues with the previous correspondence. Maybe it has been rude, or perhaps she got the vibe this would be a difficult customer to deal with. For that reason, she would rather not engage with her.
The failure to keep up the diplomatic tone suggests she has little regard for the woman she is cancelling on.
Now, here’s Ronnie, the recipient of the email, who had bought the shopping trip as a birthday present to herself.
I was in floods of tears yesterday when I received that email. It completely ruined my birthday as I had planned my whole day round that experience.
Look at the inflation in this statement, unnecessary words used to maximise the severity of what she says: “I was in FLOODS of tears yesterday when I received that email. It COMPLETELY ruined my birthday as I had planned my WHOLE day round that experience.”
Why is she inflating? Probably because what she is saying here isn’t true. As it isn’t true, she’s worried that she won’t be believed, so she turns it up to 11 hoping that because it sounds so bad we’ll think it must be true.
Why do I think it’s not true? Thanks to some great spots on the Facebook group.
First up, Ronnie says she was in “floods of tears when I received that email”. Not when she read the email. She is explicitly saying that it wasn’t the contents of the email that upset her, but receiving it.
Mike on the Facebook group spotted the ordering is wrong. Ronnie doesn’t say the email arrived, she read it and burst into tears. In her words, she was already in “floods of tears” at the point the email arrived.
In other words, I don’t think this happened. Because it didn’t happen and because she didn’t have this experience, Ronnie can’t put together the words to describe it accurately.
Shamed
The email just left me feeling fat shamed. I think it's shocking that a shop that size doesn't cater for women with a broad range of body shapes.
I say it a lot, when you see the word “just” used, be on alert for deception. Did she really feel fat shamed? I’m not so sure. Again, she doesn’t have words to describe it. She uses a personal pronoun “me” to say she felt fat shamed, then moves on to talk about “women” in general that are affected by the shop.
I note that Ronnie blames the “email” for the feeling, not the contents of it, the words in it, the sentiment behind it or even the person who sent it.
As we’ve seen the email, we can also factually state Ronnie is being deceptive here to paint herself as a victim. The store does cater for a range of body shapes, they are just low on stock. To say the shop “doesn’t cater for women with a broad range of body shapes” isn’t true.
The line above is 28 words long. It contains numerous words relating to fat or size. Some are to be expected given the content, but others reveal that size is significant in Ronnie’s priority system:
Fat
size
broad
Even cater has food relevance
(If you want another, Ronnie used the word “round” in the previous section we looked at, where “around” would have been expected)
Bigger
They said they had been ordering stuff in bigger sizes but that they are just not arriving, but I thought they could have at least given me notice.
This strengthens my feeling that Ronnie is being deceptive. She again acknowledges the store does cater for bigger sizes, having previously said they don’t. And what is her complaint? She said it was being “fat shamed” before this, now she mentions not getting notice.
I just don't want anyone else to experience what I have. Nobody should be made to feel the way I was, especially on my birthday. I definitely won't be going back there.
Here Ronnie employs a deceptive tactic I call “greater good”. It’s used frequently in complaints where the person complaining attempts to say they aren’t complaining on their behalf, they are protecting others or standing up for others.
Another indication of deception is Ronnie uses the past tense to describe her feeling in “nobody should be made to feel the way I WAS”. So we can take it that, however upset she was when she received the email, she’s over it now.
Something is wrong
The humiliation was the main thing for me. I just don't think it's fair. The average woman's size is between 16 and 18 so if they can't cater for that something is seriously wrong.
Once more with “the humiliation was” Ronnie is showing us the bad feelings are in the past.
And once more, she persists with the deception that the store doesn’t cater for larger women.
Conclusion
Ronnie is very sensitive about her size. And it’s her size she’s sensitive about, not her weight as revealed by words like “shape”, “broad” and “bigger”.
I think she’s sharing her story to gain sympathy from others, hence her showing of doing it for others and the average woman. She possibly wants compensation too.
There are enough indicators of deception to show that Ronnie didn’t have the deeply negative experience she would like us to think she did. I believe the undiplomatic part of the email she read did trigger a response given her sensitivity to her size, but nothing as extreme as she would like the world to think.
Given some of the traits Ronnie’s words reveal, it’s easy for me to believe that the initial communication between her and the personal shopper caused the shopper to decide this was a client she didn’t want to engage with.
Interesting that the personal shopper describes it as a process as opposed to an experience? Using the word “process” feels very functional and it feels like she/he is down playing the appointment further