The Conserving My Calories Brigade are making a fool of you

Conserving calories is not just personal, it suggests a pick and choose approach to

Beauty, sisters, is only skin deep, you learned that at your mother’s knee. However, what she may not have taught you is that superficiality is not exclusive to beauty. No indeed.

When it comes to the sisterhood, we’re pretty adept at not saying what we mean, at sugarcoating the truth and at masking the gap between our real and stated aims.

To paraphrase Joseph Conrad, there are many among us of the type you could poke a forefinger through and find nothing inside save a little loose dirt.

A tad savage, you ask? Perhaps. But now that we have officially entered the Age of Superficiality (I won’t bore you with Instagram , a “free and simple way” to “instantly” share your life, emphasis on “simple”) is it not reasonable to believe that we have also perfected the Art of Insincerity?

Let me give you an example. I was invited for “a few drinks” recently. To me, “a few drinks” means just that.

Imagine my surprise when the invitee turned up at the pub in her car. I wondered if she planned on leaving it overnight? God no.

Worse, she ordered sparkling water. She managed to drag that drink out for exactly one hour before apologising that she’d “have to leave it at that for tonight”.

She muttered something about an early start the next day. She left for home and I was left wondering why she’d bothered her barney to organise going for “a few drinks” at all.

She could have stayed at home and drank from the tap and saved me the time and the effort.

Her behaviour was vaguely insulting. Vaguely, because she’s an acquaintance, which is not the same as friendship.

Ouch. Yes. I can do superficiality too. Also because she had instigated a night out that she had little interest in participating in.

And before the righteous hordes descend to reprimand me for criticising someone’s decision not to drink, that was not what got to me.

It was the sense of being slotted in to somebody’s schedule, of being more of an inconvenience than an enjoyment, of being more a call of duty than being happy to call a few rounds at the bar.

I mentioned the woman’s behaviour to an actual friend. She seemed shocked. Not at the woman’s behaviour, but at my naivety.

“Oh for God’s sake,” my friend said. “She was conserving her calories.” “What do you mean?” I spluttered.

“You weren’t worth squandering her calories on,” my friend replied, as only a real friend can.

Now ladies I know our sex is prone to vanity and falsity, but this is surely taking the mick? This is phoneyness with knobs on.

This is positively Dorothy Parker-esque.

Tell me you can’t afford to buy a drink, or tell me you’re on a strict diet that excludes alcohol, tell me you’re a reformed alcoholic, or even tell me to my face that you don’t like me, but don’t not tell me you’re conserving calories for company more worthy than mine.

In fact, grant me the courtesy of not arranging a few drinks when the drinks are so few indeed that it seemed unnecessary to bother the bartender or go to the bar at all.

And just as you want to keep your calories, I want to keep my time, because after all ladies, tempus fugit, and I will never get that precious time back.

And so there you have it.

While some shake their heads in dismay at the emergence of “drunkorexia” where primarily college students skip a few meals before a night on the town to offset the anticipated alcohol-induced calorie overload, at the other end of the spectrum you have the Conserving My Calories Brigade.

While not condoning “drunkorexia” (another nod to the righteous hordes), at least the only one the drunkorexic is trying to fool is his or her self.

The CmCBs however are making a fool of you. They’re pretending they value your company when in fact the thing they value most is themselves.

Followed, of course, by the people they consider worth a half gram gain on the scales. Sisters, it may be time for the launch of an anti CmCB campaign.

It could tap into the L’Oreal slogan “Because I’m Worth It” and use the theme tune from Friends. It could urge women to “Prove it or Lose it” (friendship, not calories).

It could offer testimonials such as “I’ve been on a diet for three weeks and all I’ve lost is three weeks” or “I’ve been on a diet for three weeks and all I’ve lost is three friends”.

It could be a way back to the fun we used to have before we became too hard on ourselves.