Telling Your Girlfriend She’s Fat With A Cake

We’ve all had an aunty or relative tell us that we are fat or skinny, I mean it’s your typical family gathering talanoa…which is wrong but it happens. But imagine if your boyfriend told you this in a very roundabout way.

There are few things better than a freshly baked cake, and getting a loved one to make you a sweet treat from scratch for your birthday should be a cause for celebration.

In this case, it was a woman who explained her boyfriend had been “not-so-subtly encouraging” her to lose weight for some time, and although she understands his cake baking was a “sweet gesture”, she can’t help but think that he just thinks of her as “fat”.

This is what happened:

“So, yesterday was my birthday and my boyfriend spent the morning making a cake for me. It was such a sweet gesture and it looked amazing.

“I took a bite and it was … really bitter. But I pretended it was delicious anyway. Then my boyfriend said, ‘I only put half the sugar in to make it lower-calorie’. And I know it’s so dumb, but it made me sad.

“For context, my boyfriend has been not-so-subtly encouraging me to lose weight recently. He said we needed to start counting calories (he doesn’t need to lose weight but wanted to support me by doing it together which is nice).

“I’m overweight and have been since well before we first met. While I would like to lose some weight, and while he isn’t exactly forcing me to do anything, it was his choice for me to start counting calories and I didn’t feel like I got much of a say.

“Anyway, I know that logically I should say to myself ‘it’s so thoughtful that he made a cake for you and that he tried to make it healthier … it’s so sweet that he cares about your health’, but in my head, all I can think is ‘even on your birthday he thinks you’re fat, he can’t even let you have this one day of the year to enjoy nice things.”

There are two things you can take away from this whole birthday cake situation,