(Dis)Agreement

I agreed with a person once... and perhaps I should have learned my lesson to neither agree or disagree with people making statements.

 "I'm fat." a woman beside me at a train stop declares.

I glance her way, she is a stranger but she seems very open to sharing her body self-consciousness. Regardless of her mass, I was in no mood for unpleasant conversations this morning so stated "I agree." and left it at that.

The woman regards me with surprise and declares her height and weight to me. I was in no mood for unpleasant conversations and I had even less patience for calculating whether or not this was an acceptable weight range for her age and height. Because she had already labeled this height and weight ratio as fat, I find it easiest to agree with her again. I advise, "Perhaps you should aspire to weigh less, for that height." and I return my attention to my papers.

She took a different approach at the conversation and informed me of her friends. "Out of all my friends, I weigh the least. I wear the smallest sizes of us all."

I am as interested in learning about her friends as I was interested in her weight or her weak self esteem. I'm surprised she hasn't left to find a willing participant in this one sided discussion, but I kindly suggest, "You might be fat because your larger friends are encouraging gluttonous eating habits."

The stranger proceeds to prattle onward with more information about herself, informing me of her eating habits next, "I only eat one plate of food a day as it is!"

I begin to fear that this insufferable conversation will not end until she has been satisfied in telling me everything about herself that I hadn't cared to know. Ever the kind stranger, I offer a helpful word of advice and hope that she will be satisfied, "Perhaps you should invest in smaller plates, rather than fewer plates."

Infuriated by my 'agreeable' nature, she promptly stands, calls me a plethora of colorful words, and vacates the bench we sat on. She stomps down the walk way and paces between poles until the train came.

I am happy for her, even small amounts of physical activity, such as that, will help her control her weight, then she wont need to call herself fat.

But from this point forth, I believe I will handle such interruptions differently.

How could this possibly go wrong?