David Murdock Column: On moving through the world (when you're not average-sized)
Not long back, I got the giggles walking through a door. What amused me is that I noticed that I had turned slightly sideways to do it. Normally, I turn this way and that without a thought, but I was particularly conscious of my size last week.
I’m a big guy — not only tall, but broad, too. Being myself, I’d never really realized how big I am until a friend pointed out to me some years ago that I give the impression of being much larger than I actually am. Once that idea was in my head, of course, the evidence was everywhere.
It was particularly noticeable last week because my car was in for repairs. The only one available to rent in the meantime was noticeably smaller than mine. I could get into it well enough, but it took a little more maneuvering than usual. That’s right — I have to “maneuver” to get in and out of most cars.
The world is simply not designed for people my size, nor for people who are smaller than average, either. Somewhere out there is this mythical person who is “average-sized,” according to the designers of cars, seats, clothes — all those sorts of things — and the rest of us have to make do. I’d like to meet that average-sized person someday.
It’s not just me who has noticed this fact. I’ve often commiserated with other big people about those things, and I’m sympathetic to smaller people, too. We often share the same concerns.
Before the internet, finding clothes was a chore, particularly shoes that fit. For years, I just had to buy whatever shoes were available, which explains my choice of unfashionable footwear when I was younger. Now, it’s not so bad.
I wrote about the difficulties of finding clothes for big and tall men back in 2007, but what I've been noticing lately are things like that smaller car — the world seems to be getting smaller, somehow. For example, although I’ve lost a good deal of weight since that 2007 column, seats in movie theaters seem to be more uncomfortable now than they were back then.
That’s one of the reasons that I don’t like to go to the movies much anymore. There are other reasons, but that’s near the top of the list. Movies are getting longer on average, and that might be why it’s so noticeable now. The simple fact is that I’m no longer really comfortable sitting in theater seats for two hours or longer. The movie has to be really engrossing to overcome that discomfort.
It’s not just the movie theaters — any auditorium gives me just about the same problem. And — here’s the strange part – the older the theater, the more uncomfortable I’ll be. That’s because people were smaller, on average, in the past. If possible, I always get a seat on the aisle so I can sit sort of sideways and stretch my legs into it. The worst auditorium experiences for me are when I have to book a seat in the middle of a row — getting in and out is bothersome, to say the least.
I had that experience at a concert not long back. The orchestra was great; the experience was not-so-great. I never really lost myself in the music because I was uncomfortable the whole time … even in an aisle seat.
The absolute worst sitting experience for me is on an airplane. I have literally sat — mercifully, on a short connector flight lasting only about an hour — in a seat where I had to hold my head sideways the entire flight because it was touching the ceiling of the plane. No in-flight amenities make up for that kind of experience.
Over the years, I’ve become so accustomed to the world not being my size that I no longer really notice it — until something draws my attention to it. Like last week. That advertising slogan, “One size fits all”? That’s a lie. It’s more like — as I’ve heard said by many people of “other sizes” — “One size fits y’all.”
But we other-sized people usually get used to a world where our physicality is merely an exasperating inconvenience. For other people, though, it’s something more than that. I’ve had several friends and acquaintances who use wheelchairs, and their experience of the world differs dramatically.
Listening to their experiences, I’ve gotten somewhat skilled at spotting problems in terms of wheelchair accessibility, and many places are sorely lacking in terms of convenient accessibility. One friend, for example, has given me a good sense of how to spot both an appropriate angle of a wheelchair ramp — one that’s not too steep — and the width of doors.
Moving through the world physically defines a lot about who we are. Again, I’m usually good-humored about it, but I still groan a little inside when some product in a store is on the bottom shelf. I treasure the memory of one time when a shorter-than-average woman asked me to reach something for her on the top shelf of a grocery store, and I agreed to … if she would get something for me on the bottom shelf of the same aisle.
We laughed about it. We didn’t have to say anything else.
David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted at murdockcolumn@yahoo.com. The opinions reflected are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: David Murdock reflects on those who aren't average-sized
