Smoking Gun Beating Heart

…a (reformed) judgemental biarch’s confession

I will, I confess, admit that I used to be almost smug in what I believed was a judgement free nature. I had, after all, spent most of my teenage years and 20s horrifically overweight. I had been belittled, ignored and generally made to feel ‘less’ than my slimmer, more ‘mainstream attractive’ counterparts. I felt I was the queen of reading the book and not judging the cover.

That was of course, until I was called on my own bullshit, in the form of a rather glam and rather busty blonde.

Emily and I were by chance at the same event. I, because of a dabble in reality television. Her, because of a budding career in glamour modelling & the front cover of Zoo magazine (girl can work a bikini). With neither of us in our element we found ourselves huddled on a bench couch, shyly making friends like we were at kindergarten.

Through chance alone, we sat and spoke. It was through this conversation that I realised something terrible about myself. I had decided what she was like and decided on our perceived differences long before a single word was exchanged. I had made, a collection of assumptions based on her career and her look, just as so many had about me in the past (for totally different but not disconnected reasons). I sir, was an asshole and the very sort of person I had grown to abhor.

The moment struck me bluntly and I was lucky that it came in the form of someone kind enough to walk me through it, challenge my perceptions and become a friend to boot. Since then Emily and I have lived very different lives and both achieved things that have made us proud in a ways that are often completely foreign to each other (Hey! I saw you in a Kanye clip on E!.. … Hey! I saw your article in a fancy travel mag) and by proxy have continued to be reminded that it’s not only those of us with shabby covers whose story is judged before its told.

With that confession out-of-the-way I have asked Emily to give you some of the points and perspectives (both the vain and instructional and the simply need to know) she gives me directly and hope you find them as interesting as I always do…

See  : Five things models wish you knew…