Me and my boyfriend were walking in the mall today and we passed by a woman’s clothing store completely filled with mannequins like this, and another mannequin in the front of the store with extremely large boobs. We laughed at it at first, and then I complained to my boyfriend that these proportions are completely unrealistic, and that you’ll rarely see any women like this. Although, in response, my boyfriend protested that he had a friend in high school who was very short with large boobs and did have proportions like the mannequin we saw in the front. I couldn’t help but overthink from his response and a few minutes later I had to sit down and cry. I feel terrible. Am I dramatic? Does anyone else get this affected?
Comments
Do you feel terrible because of the unrealistic beauty standards or because of your boyfriend’s reaction?
why tf would your boyfriend say that?
So, your boyfriend met someone with these proportions. He was not lying or putting you down. People come in a variety of sizes and proportions.
This person will also gain weight, get wrinkles, and die.
Yeah, I definitely feel it too. I don’t know if it’s 100% the same, but I’m trans and have BDD and this is what my brain tells me all cis women look like compared to me lol
I seriously doubt anybody in high school had proportions like that 😂 your bf is a moron. That mannequin looks ridiculous
does anyone else see a weird face in the figure
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I know several women shaped like that. Why are we mocking mannequins used to sell clothes to a particilar sub-set of women?
Many of the shops in Santee Alley (locally famous fashion district) in LA are run by women who look that way, and sell things to others with the same figure.
Do I look that way? Nope. I’m not their target market/audience. Doesn’t bother me to see it either.
I’m sorry you found it and his response triggering.
I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum, but I don’t know a single guy or girl who:
Looks like this.
Finds this attractive.
Wait, why did you cry? Because some people do look like that? I don’t understand
I say this with love but if this interaction makes you cry, you’re either crying a lot or have only been surrounded by the gentlest nicest people and situations. What were you overthinking? He knew someone who was very curvy with a tiny waist as a teenager.
I’ve had many friends built this way. It’s not a made up shape people are getting bbls to look like, some women are just built this way. The rest of them are trying to get their look. It’s not as common as we might see on social media but it’s not unrealistic.
You can just tell from the one pic the clothing is trashy and poorly made anyways of course they are going to have silly unrealistic mannequins
Never in my life have I seen a BBL mannequin😭 Where are they then getting those ????
OP, mannequins like this are exaggerated, which i guess most people dont notice. your bf absolutely did not go to high school with girls with this waist/hip ratio- this is only achievable with years of corsetry or plastic surgery.
i can eyeball that & know that the waist on that mannequin is 18″-20″. a size 0 would have a 24″ waist. so what this mannequin is representing is not a real thing in the real world. your bf is likely just thinking ‘oh there were curvy girls with small waists’ but he is exaggerating it in his head & doesnt know the difference.
Consider that your boyfriend saw an emotional vulnerability in you and then targeted it with his comments, that were totally unnecessary, to make you feel inadequate. Because he likes the feeling of being the “judge” who gets to make you feel bad at a moments notice with his wandering eye.
Don’t give him this power over your emotions.
The only stores that have those mannequins cater to a specific group of people. Usually those that have had surgery or wear a lot of corset/skims
My hips look just like that and I hate them, I have been bullied for them all my life.
I would probably also cry if I saw a mannequin like that in a store, but only because I never ever see any figures that look like me, much less stores that sell clothes that might fit me!
This looks like something that would fit with people who like corseting, I think people just see ‘small waist big hips’ and think the mannequin is the same as the person in their memory.
I did see one girl like that yesterday but her torso was shorter and arms were much bigger. Plus of course no boobs look like that 🤣 perfectly squished up into a gravity free outer space look lol without some shapewear. This is like the 1800s guy fantasies in plastic.
That mannequin has no head, arms, or skin. Metal spikes are shoved into its heels to contort its stance. It’s there to keep quiet and still so that a piece of cloth can be draped over its headless neck. Its fiberglass form is all it has. It can’t ever hug, laugh, run, or change.
It’s ok that you’re human. We’re complex, dynamic creatures, and each of us is unique. It’s what makes us interesting. Hopefully, you and your boyfriend appreciate each other for many things. Does he look like a mannequin? Would you choose a mannequin-looking bf in place of all the traits that make him him?
I don’t know anything about this random girl from hs, but I do know she’s not perfect like your mind is making her out to be. And she’s not even here. You’ll never be at peace comparing yourself to hypothetical concepts. You’re a whole, real person.
Eta: To answer your last question, yes I used to have breakdowns in fitting rooms when I was younger. Marketing everywhere targets young girls and women to make us feel like total shit. Recognizing why you feel the way you do in certain environments is the first step to combating their efforts. And if your partner is superficial or doesn’t make you feel hot, dump him for a slab of fiberglass.
Kim Kardashian look alike
First things first: Emotions are valid. They’re just instinctive reactions, with some basis in physiology and conditioning from previous experiences. Only what we do with or about our feelings can be invalid.
Thanks to how human perception works, you reacted to what the mannequins represent to you and not exactly the mannequins themselves. Based on what the mannequins represent to me, your reaction was excessive and arguably dramatic, but I’m not you and I’m obviously viewing them differently. My guess is that you’re viewing them as some kind of personal slight or judgement. If that’s correct, you described yourself having a quite restrained, contained reaction to the feeling. If you have a therapist, it might help to explore with the therapist why you felt that way from the mannequins.
Now, my own reaction depends on the situation:
Either way, I wouldn’t view the mannequins as something that warrants getting upset over. That just illustrates how we’re different people.
If it helps, I do have my own things that can make me cry quietly that wouldn’t bother most people.
You’re right, no one naturally has proportions like this. Also, boobs do not look like perfect spheres, either.
There are billions of women out there, he absolutely could know someone with these dimensions, as I do as well. But dear lord, if that were my body, I’d be pissed about how fast that spell fades.
Still an insane expectation to set for women as a whole, no question about that.
Honestly, as far as healthy relationships, I’d say talk to your guy and tell him how it made you feel so you can come to an understanding and he can better know how to communicate with you, ie: when not to stick a foot in his mouth.
He was being insensitive to your concern about unrealistic body images when he made that comment. It’s also not comfortable knowing that your boyfriend keeps the memory of another woman’s(and then girl’s) body in his mind that he can readily recall it in a conversation like this.
It makes sense that you would cry in response to this. It’s just normal emotional expression. You’re not being dramatic.
My question for you to explore is would be why does the curvy manequin upset you this much, and all the usual skinny manequins with just as unrealistic proportions don’t?
Literally was walking in a store and saw a full body mirror that was angled to stretch you vertically making you look skinnier and taller it was so distorting to look at
Unrealistic women continue all the crappy stuff we are supposed to be.
Your boyfriend is an idiot from a design point alone.
If there is only one type of mannequin (and i would argue there should be various body shapes and sizes, but that is a whole other thing) it should be proportioned like this:
Now you come across problems for different stores because sizing is done differently across them, and even proportions used for body parts relating to that size are very probably done differently for different items in the store – lots of clothes are made so cheaply different versions of the them item and size don’t even fit the same, hell sometimes different sides of the same outfit don’t fit in the same way as each other.
The girl he knew is almost guaranteed to have not looked like this because this is an exaggerated look, big hips and boobs are not the same as an exageraged example of someone who has also had surgery (as a teen??!). He is likely misremembering or exaggerating how she looked in his head and can’t accurately compare.
Also, say she did exist. A store should not be selling items based on a size outlier. It would be an absurd example to show off their clothes because only one person would be going in that store and fitting into that shit the same way the display does.
I am currently vibrating with designer/engineer rage.
Wth! 🤦🏽♀️ Nooooo! These proportions are not realistic.