Recently I got together with my best friend, who I hadn’t seen in months. I recognized immediately that she’d lost a significant amount of weight but said nothing because I’ve read a lot of body positivity articles like this one. After about an hour she said, “I know it’s probably not noticeable but I’ve lost 25 pounds since quitting my stressful job.” I could tell she was hurt that I “hadn’t noticed.” I knew that she’d been hoping to slim down, and I assured her that I’d noticed immediately but was afraid it would be rude to comment on her weight, even positively. She said would have preferred it if I’d mentioned it without her prompting me first.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. Maybe what we should “ban” is running around declaring bans on everything that doesn’t work for us personally. I’m taking these things on a case-by-case basis from now on.