She was Extremely Pale with Freckle Dusted Cheeks

We stood a foot apart reading the same question in the human-centered design study of differences of experience among individuals based on gender biases. The task at hand was to place a colored sticker on the chart with the experience that corresponded with our experiences or mental process at certain times in life. There I was staring at the question and staring at her stare at the questions that asked "How comfortable do you feel with your body image now? How comfortable did you feel 5 years ago?" She was extremely pale with freckle dusted cheeks, pleasantly plump yet adorned with uncontrollably frizzy hair and had an aura of insecurity that acted as a filler in the space between us. In this moment I slid into a subconscious judgement zone, an involuntary case study on myself. Not one of judging her for her physical appearance, but watching and waiting and preparing myself for feeling a pinch or feeling nothing at all at her response. Would she surprise me and place her polka dotted vote on the space marked as extremely comfortable or in the box marked not at all, or perhaps fall somewhere in between. As if this was any of my business at all, or as if I could guide her hand to a space on the chart that mirrored how I felt about my own physical presence. Moment after moment, I lingered hoping that she would prove me wrong and that if she didn't, that I would have a fleeting feeling of what living in her body would feel like. I wasn't judging her. I was judging my ability to feel empathy without even hearing the sound of her voice. I wanted to feel and believe that I was a good person, to know that a relatively athletic frame is not the rule but the exception. I wanted to know that I had the ability to be aware of someone other than myself. As she placed her dot in the space labeled "I do not feel comfortable in my body at all" and walked away, I realized that I never even gave that moment to her. In thinking of her, I remained in a space that only held room enough for thinking of myself.