Jealousy

Another thing came out of the birthday party I went to this past weekend, besides the whole I'm so weird and no one wants to be my friend thing.  I realized, I'm still jealous.  I'm jealous of girls who have flatter stomachs than I do.  I'm jealous of girls who are more petite than I am.  And I'm sure as hell jealous of girls who are skinnier than I am.  But more than anything else I'm jealous of people who can skip meals and diet and lose weight.

Saturday night the host and hostess ordered Pizza Hut for dinner since there were so many people at the party and I think they wanted to keep it from being a fortune.  I don't really like cardboard-esque pizza, especially since pizza as a whole causes me a little anxiety still.  I mean, why be anxious over something that doesn't even taste good when I could be anxious over something totally worth it, like the fabulous deep dish pizza near us or the co-op that does a different pizza every day with things like corn or potatoes.  A few years ago if I'd been at this party I would have said "I don't like this" and not eaten anything.  A couple of years ago I would have brought my own food and only touched that.  But I'm really working on eating more "normally" and facing some fears.  And bottom line, I can't skip meals.  That way lies ruin.  I have to eat even if it's not my favorite.

As we were walking out after the party with our friends, one of them (let's call her Emma), was complaining about how hungry she was.  She said she was starving since she hates pizza, especially that kind of pizza, and so she didn't eat anything.  It took me about 0.3 seconds to chime in with "Oh, I hate that stuff too but I have to eat.  I can't skip meals."  (Like I needed to defend my eating.)  Emma knows about my eating disordered past though I don't know if she actually connected the two things.

Anyhow, I was upset that she talked about this kind of thing again (she does this pretty frequently) but it occurred to me as we were driving home that it wasn't the fact that it made me feel bad about eating or something, I was actually jealous.  Emma can do this whenever she wants to- not eat lunch until 4pm, skip dinner, and lose weight.  I want to do those things.  As we were leaving another friend even told Emma's partner to "make sure she eats something."  All I can think is how I want all of that.  I want the feeling of skipping meals, of being that in control.  I want to lose the weight that I've gained.  Just a little, that'd be okay, right?  I want people to worry when I don't eat, be jealous of how I can lose weight better than anyone.  Why does it have to be the other way around?  Why is this acceptable behavior for everyone else except me?