Tag: academia problems

My advisor, a 70-year-old man, saw me at our department colloquium yesterday for the first time in a while (I’ve mostly been at home working, he’s been traveling, etc.) and asked me how I was. I said fine, mostly, just stressed out and busy. He asked me if I had lost weight, gesturing to his face to indicate that that was how he had noticed. (I was wearing a sweater over a button-up shirt, so it would have been hard to tell any other way.) I said yes, and asked if I looked unhealthy. He said no, he thought I looked good, and then said “You can never be too rich or too thin.”

This made me really uncomfortable, not so much because he’s an old man and I’m a young woman (though that makes it weird, too) as because I was anorexic in college, and I weigh about as little now as when the eating disorder was at its worst. (I’m not losing weight on purpose this time; I’ve been losing my appetite due to dissertation and job market stress.) He made a joke about something that’s really sensitive for me, and basically told me that I look good (better? unclear) when I’m at an abnormally low weight.

I probably shouldn’t say anything to him, because that would just make things weirder. Just gotta bitch about it on Tumblr, I guess.