‘I’m not pregnant, I’m just fat’. That’s awkward.

That’s pretty much what the gossip mags have been asking these past few weeks, accompanying shots of possible baby bulges with breathless speculation. Sometimes, they’re right. If you report that a female celebrity of child-bearing age is pregnant for long enough, eventually she probably will be.

But true or not, I always enjoy looking at the pictures because they make me feel slightly better about an unfortunate incident I had a few years ago, after bumping into an ex boyfriend.

The conversation started off harmlessly enough with that standard awkwardness you get as you haltingly catch up with someone while wishing you could reach into their brain and rip out the part that remembers what you look like naked.

It was the usual bumping-into-an-ex conversation. Kind of like a life CV: got-married-changed-jobs-went-overseas-had-a-baby-what-about-you-yadda-yadda-yadda….

As he rambled self-absorbedly about himself, the minutiae of his career and all things him, I tried desperately to remember why on earth I’d ever gone there. And then came the clanger: “And so you’re having another baby!” he exclaimed, gesturing to my stomach.

Except I wasn’t pregnant.

Just mortified.

“Um, ah, no, no, I’m just wearing a loose top! Ha ha ha!” I fake-laughed as I tried valiantly to dig us both out of his hole.

But it got worse because this is what happened next: he reached out, patted my stomach and happily insisted: “Nah, you’re just chubby!”

(*that’s another story).

When I shared my trauma with friends, they did the supportive thing and assured me I was not in fact chubby and that they’d always thought he was a dickhead. Lovely friends. Then they shared their own experiences of Mistaken Pregnancy Identity (MPI). It turns out I’m not the only one who’s been humiliated by variations of the “when are you due?” question.

For the perpetrators of such questions, I have a question of my own: WHY?!?!?! Why do some men do it – and it is mostly men who commit MPI although most are honest mistakes, not bitchy put-downs like my ex.

Admittedly, the line between muffin top and four months pregnant can be a little blurry as can the difference between maternity-wear and empire-line but if in doubt, shut up. Really. SHUT. UP.

Personally, I have a policy of never asking a woman if she’s pregnant unless she is clutching an overnight bag and showing visible signs of active labour while, say, checking into a maternity ward. Even then I’d avoid asking the question directly. I’d sort of sidle up to it in a ‘so, anything exciting happening in your life?” kinda way and let her volunteer the information, just to be safe. Because if you get it wrong, the cost is high.

Just ask my male friend who bumped into a neighbour in the lift of their apartment block and made the mistake of saying “Oh congratulations! I didn’t know you were pregnant!” The response was succinct: “I’m not bloody pregnant, I’m just fat, OK?”  Well, there’s really nowhere you can go from there. Just a long, long, hostile lift-ride to the un-pregnant woman’s floor.

A few months after I’d had my second child, I was in a shoe store. As the sales guy was putting through my credit card and making small-talk, he asked “And when’s your baby due?” To protect us both from the acute embarrassment of me having to answer “two and a half years ago”, I found myself awkwardly pretending that I was due “in, um, a few months”.

Then I  walked out feeling rubbish and texted several friends from the footpath who replied sympathetically by calling the sales assistant many rude names and offering to boycott the shop forever in solidarity.

Then there’s the friend whose five-year old son was asked by Santa at Westfield last year, “Are you excited that mummy is going to give you a little brother or sister for Christmas?” Except mummy wasn’t. Mummy had just been too damn busy being a mummy and holding down a job that she hadn’t been able to get to the gym much lately, OK SANTA?!?!?!

Here’s something to remember people: despite what you may see in the popular media, beyond the age of about 12 years old, 99% of female stomachs are not concave, nor muscled. They’re rounded. Liposuction, tummy-tucks and gym junkies notwithstanding, female stomachs stick out a bit. Or a lot. They curve.

Many men find this sexy. And those who don’t?

Well, they generally tend to date Madonna, female Olympians or each other.

I was thinking about all this because MM reader Annie* wrote to me this week with the following Group Therapy question:

Whilst getting my little boy out of the car, a neighbour asked how old he was, commented on how cute, blah blah and then just launched out – so you’re expecting another one?.. SLAP. SLAP. SLAP! Take that Monday morning. Thud.

AGHHHHHHHH. Again – my reply is now seasoned – NO. I’M JUST FAT. (A size 14 I should mention). Resounding silence fell and after a few more casual exchanges I went inside and had a bit of a meltdown! This is about the 5th time I’ve been asked. I know I’m not twiggy but seriously! She was about 10 metres away from me and I had a fitted singlet top on – I may have been sucking my stomach in from memory too – which hurts even more!

I feel like sitting here now at ‘Casa de Moi’ and eating my weight in mars bars in defiance! I don’t even really want to tell my husband about this, as it is about the zillionth time someone has said it to me and what can he say!?! Feel like starting marathon running and perhaps a strict starvation regime – or perhaps we could wire your mouth shut so you can’t snack anymore?

How fat is really fat? And what do people expect after you’ve had a child? Bodies, boobies – just don’t bounce back like they used too!

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Have you ever been mistaken for pregnant when you weren’t? How did you handle it? Or have you made the mistake yourself or watched someone make it while you hid behind your hands? Is there ANY possible recovery from Mistaken Pregnany Identity?