No hips and butts about this one.
Every question in the world, no matter how absurd or difficult, has an answer. Or. For example:
Q: “Will actors stop having cosmetic surgery?”
A: “No. Some still have to undo their previous ‘masks.'”
Q: “Will The King of Pop look human ever again?”
A: “No [Giggle. Snort. Loud. Laughter].”
Yes, each and every question in the world has an answer. Save one.
Polished people lose their sheen. Composed people blabber foolishly and sturdy people crumple right in front of your eyes when confronted with The Question that no one wants to be asked. In other words, the universally dreaded question with no correct answer. Here it is, if you haven’t already guessed it:
“Do I look fat in this?”
Perk it up.
Friends wish they had never met. Siblings/spouses/colleagues/anyone faced with the task of answering this, wish they were invisible, whizzing past the ears of the ones asking The Question, hoping the words they want to hear float into it.
What do you answer? What do you say? Is honesty always a good policy?
I thought so too.
A friend was trying the umpteenth outfit for a New Year’s Eve Party and zeroed-in on the one most unflattering to her body structure. Twirling and pirouetting in front of the mirror, she turned around to ask, “Do I look fat in this?”
After being a mute shopping companion for more than an hour, The Question I have now learned to dread more than the Grim Reaper himself took me by surprise. Years of practicing an honest friendship had lulled me into a [false] sense of valor, because I cast a critical eye and truthfully informed her that it did make her look fat, yes.
Suddenly, right before my eyes, a calm, placid friend turned into a fiend accusing me of not being a true friend. She’s far from being envious of how the dress looked on her, and yelled: “It is the pockets in the dress that are making me look fat!” as she stormed back to the trial room. Incidentally, fitted evening gowns don’t have pockets.
Needless to say, neither the friend remained, nor the friendship. So much for honesty!
No right answer
If your answer to “Do I look fat in this?”‘ is “No,” you are accused of being a liar. “‘If you were an honest friend/sibling/spouse/colleague you would be truthful with me before I am the butt [no pun intended] of all jokes when I step out in this outfit looking as big as a whale/sofa/building,'” is one common protest.
If your answer to The Question is a “Yes,” either you are very, very brave or very, very unwise. Kindly jog your memory and rewind back to what happened to me.
Some extremely clever — or, so they think — people come up with extremely clever [once again, or so they think] answers like, “No, darling, you look just fine to me,” and imagine they have evaded answering The Question. Hah!
Remember, this is The Question that has no correct answer.
So, you won’t get away with a “No, darling, you look just fine to me,” either. Because, this answer proves to be even more hazardous than a simple, “Yes,” or “No.”
How? Because a “Yes,” or “No,” almost always guarantees the person asking The Question to storm out of your presence, leaving you heaving a sigh of relief, but a “No, darling, you look just fine to me,” ensures that you will be pinned down like a hapless spider under the pincer of questions that follow and which inevitably leads up to The Question.
Yes, there is just no escape.
So, what do you do when faced with The Question? There is only one thing you can do. Pray for divine intervention!
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