Not pregnant, just fat

So, I was on the bus last night when a woman – she was probably around 30, I reckon – offered me her seat on the bus. Wasn’t that nice of her? Except …
As I noted on Twitter: “Sigh a woman just offered me her seat on the bus. She obviously thinks I’m a) pregnant b) elderly or c) all of the above. Answer is d) …”
A kind tweeter suggested: “Maybe d) You just looked really really tired ;)”
But I tend to think not.
I did, however, appreciate the remark from another empathetic tweeter: “I never got offered a seat when I was pregnant. But have been bombarded with offers ever since.”
I’d been thinking I looked rather spesh yesterday too. I was wearing knee-high boots and leggings with this electric blue Asian-inspired top and a black cardie. I’d strutted through the day feeling all proud as a peacock about myself. But that one comment brought me back down to the ground with a thud.
Isn’t it funny how sometimes the way you think you look can be given a reality check by a comment from someone, or a glimpse of yourself in a shop window or seeing a shot on the back of someone’s digital camera?
The mistaken-for-pregnant thing happens to me quite a lot. Someone asked if I was up the duff in the school playground last year. Awkward. She recovered well from my denial, however, insisting that she made the assumption because I was ”glowing” (not because of the six-months-along bump I permanently sport)
In my former incarnation as a magazine editor, the office lunch trolley man once posed the question too. I growled, “Nuh, just fat … pass the lasagne.”
Years earlier, a French work associate congratulated me on my happy news. I told him I was “just fat” too. Being French, he was mortified by his mistake. I felt sorry for the poor man, because I actually WAS pregnant that time, but concealing it to avoid giving my boss an aneurism for as long as possible. The charade became particularly harrowing and elaborate when I was forced to attend a team bonding weekend at Kerry Packer’s schmancy ranch, where the activities included quad-bike riding, helicopter rides, go-karting and wine-tasting. I didn’t technically think I was supposed to do any of them but ended up doing all (well, except the wine tasting) to avoid detection.
Has anyone ever mistakenly thought you were pregnant? How did you handle it?