#cathy comics

Cathy (Cathy, 1979)

List Of Archetypes

Pathetic

Controversial

MILF

Quotable Catchphrase

Distinctive Speech Patterns

Egotistical

Queer Coded

Girlboss

Obsessive

Parental Issues

Thin

Well Dressed

I suspect a lot of us remember Cathy Guisewite’s clever and witty comic strip Cathy. Back in the summer of 1987, there was a story arc in which Cathy spent some time at a health retreat or something like that. The story ended with her losing eight pounds. Cathy was elated... until her erstwhile boyfriend Irving came in to tell her he had spent some time at a health retreat and had lost twelve pounds. If I remember, the last panel of that strip had Cathy dumping her wastepaper basket on Irving’s head.

Good for a laugh, to be sure. But I’m afraid it underscores something I can’t really say I like about human nature.

It seems to be huiman nature for people to compete about everything and anything. Even before we understand the concept it’s part of out lives: “The Wagner’s baby is walking already and she’s a month younger than Kelly!” That, I suppose, is bad enough. But then when we do something with no intention of competing with anyone else, and somehow someone (sometimes it seems like everyone) interprets it as “trying to be one up one me”.

This especially bothers me with my weight loss journey. I live for some ten years over a hundred pounds overweight. Then I decide to get my weight and health under control. I lose a lot of the weight, but then stall on a plateau. A year and a half stalled out. Now I am losing weight again... and all of a sudden I’m “lording it over everyone” or “rubbing it in how much better I am than anyone else”.

I suspect most, maybe even all, of the fitblr and fitspo bloggers know the feeling all too well. Months of dieting and exercise and the damn scale hovers around the same number. Or we diet diligently, only to watch all the progress go down the drain with one cheat or (heaven help us) one binge. Then it finally clicks, and we see some victory. All of a sudden all we hear is, “Jeez, that’s all you ever talk about anymore!” or the like.