Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls (29 page)

I made an agreement with myself that I was worthy of total and complete love without changing anything for anyone.

It was only at the end of the last painful breakup that I realized
this loveless relationship wasn't something I deserved.
I didn't deserve it, and its failure had nothing to do with my body. His inability to have a relationship was not a judgment on my figure. It wasn't a sign of my worth. And it wasn't something I needed to fix.

In that moment I made an agreement with myself that
I was worthy of total and complete love without changing anything for anyone
. I wasn't going to change my morals, ethics, views on happiness . . . and most of all, I wasn't going to change my body.

After that decision, things shifted. I started dating. A lot. And this led to an even
bigger
revolutionary realization.

I am not limited by my body when it comes to whom I can date.

I wholeheartedly believed that it was impossible for a short and fat (or other socially shunned body type) woman like me to date a not-short, not-fat (or other socially worshipped body type) man that I was interested in.

This. Is. A. Total. Lie.

I quickly began to realize that my options are not limited because of my size. I had been under the assumption that I was not welcome to approach just
any
man; I had learned that I was to only engage with those who are as “socially unacceptable” as I thought I was. And yes, I find those bodies attractive as well, but the limiting, body-based exclusion seemed to be a glaring hurdle as I found myself newly single and presented with the dating world once again. Once I started to meet
more men, however, I quickly learned: All those rules about sexual attraction that I internalized my entire life? Yeah, those were made up.

Totally and completely.

Maybe you already know this. Maybe this didn't slap you in the face like it did me, but it shocked, stunned, and thrilled me beyond belief. I COULD DATE ALL THE PEOPLE.

It turns out that no body is inferior (and consequently no body is superior), so
all bodies
have the opportunity to be paired with
all bodies.
This isn't an opinion. This is a fact. I see it in my life. I see it in other people's lives. I see it everywhere.

Everywhere except in what those advertising people produce.

Fuck those guys.

With this shining new epiphany I started to paint the town RED. I was not only armed with the knowledge that my dating options just expanded tenfold, but also armed with the confidence that my body wasn't “bad” and “undesirable” as I had thought for . . . y'know . . . my entire life.

I don't know if there are words for how powerful that epiphany really was.

Feeling emboldened and untouchable with my new secret discovery, I created a new purposefully unapologetic online dating handle. I made a profile under the name “SexyAndFat” and then proceeded to post full-body pictures. Lots of them. From all angles. I fell in love with dating online, and would casually check my inbox and filter through the hundreds of requests to select my dates for that week. After being in a horrific long-term relationship and also being chained to the
idea
that I wasn't deserving of attention and happiness (and sex!), I had decided that I was going to soak up all the attention, happiness, and sex I wanted.

I started to do what made ME feel like a babe on dates. I dressed up in miniskirts and fishnets when I wanted to and I dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans if I felt like it. I no longer felt that I needed to compensate for my size. WHAT A FUCKING CONCEPT.

I accepted attention, respect, and adoration. I had decided that I was okay, and therefore I was. I worked on my emotional well-being. I surrounded myself with incredible people. I dated a different person every day when it felt right. I also dated just one person, or no people, whenever
that
felt right. I had finally realized that I was not only worth people's time, I was also desirable, sexy, and totally and completely okay.

My body advocacy skyrocketed. I started traveling. Loving. Engaging. Giving. Receiving. Saying yes to the excellent and no to the less-than-average. I started to love myself unconditionally.

Sure, there were the usual ebbs and flows of dating, which for me usually looked like a couple of months of
OMG SO MANY DATES THIS IS SO FUN
followed by months of
Jesusgod THERE IS NO ONE in this town I wanna stick it out with
. But after a (long) while, a very sexy guy came into the picture (in all his fucking magical glory), and we clicked so hard it hurt. It was all there. We had chemistry. We knew how to respect others. We were both capable of epic communication. We gave only genuine compliments (which gave me soulgasms). We had fun nights followed by serious nights followed by ridiculously silly nights. We discussed progressive and hot topics and would also entertain ourselves for hours acting out what we thought my cats were thinking. There was patience, balance, human compassion, and really fucking hot sex. Our Venn diagrams overlapped PERFECTLY.

I have a guess as to why the timing was just so. Why this gem of a guy didn't come before the last boyfriend, and why he didn't show up when I first started dating after the breakup. It has something to do with this marvelous quote by Stephen Chbosky in his
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
:
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
²
And boy, do we ever.

If I had met him before the last boyfriend, or just after the breakup, we might have hung out. Maybe. Maybe we'd have played pool and drunk wine and possibly have gotten frisky. But it wouldn't have worked, and it certainly wouldn't have lasted. Because back then I
didn't believe I was worthy of something so genuinely wonderful. Back then I don't think I knew what genuinely wonderful even looked like.

The relationship I have now with that very sexy guy is still beautiful and solid. Of course, it isn't perfect (because no one's is, silly); I have my baggage and he has his, but our baggage mixes and matches perfectly . . . it looks really cute together. I'm happy about our cute, magic baggage every fucking day. And what if this relationship were to end? Well, then I'd find another wonderful connection that also has the respect, admiration, and joy I now know I deserve.

But while I've been cruisin' on this newfound love boat, much of the world has remained unaware of what I discovered in my epiphany. They still think that fat chicks are limited in who they date/marry/bang/love. I suppose I can see why; everywhere we go we are only shown couples that pair like bodies together. TV's
Mike and Molly
? A perfect example of a couple we don't find
too
surprising because they're both social pariahs, and therefore the attraction is socially acceptable. And we see the pairing of straight-sized bodies with straight-sized bodies . . . well, everywhere else. Movies. Television. Perfume ads. Everywhere. What this means is that when the world sees the
phenomenon
of a straight-sized person in love and lust with a fat person (as is the case with my boy and me), they are either blown away to the point of fascination (cue “mixed-weight relationship” TV shows) or they're freaked out and then quickly proceed to act like assholes.

The mixed-weight-relationship shows are frustrating, but
I really dislike
that asshole reaction, because it creates a larger issue beyond hating a fat body.
That issue being? The way these people proceed to shame the men who find themselves attracted to or dating women with atypical body types in our fat-phobic society
.

When the world looks at a “sexy” man with a fat woman, there are many assumptions: that he is settling. That he would prefer something else, but is forced to date a lesser lady. That he has a questionable fetish. That he is a perverse abomination. That when it comes to his sexual preference, there is something inherently wrong.

(I'm mentioning heterosexual men in this instance because we expect them to follow all social rules—dating included—without exception. Those with what the world considers “alternative preferences” have already broken “traditional protocol” and therefore receive significant ridicule in additional ways.)

Any body can be paired with any body. Fat with fat. Thin with thin. Fat with thin. Thin with fat. And everything in between.

This may seem obvious, but it's something that our culture struggles with on a fundamental level.

I had an experience a while back where I was out with my boy one night (looking hot as shit, I might add), and as we headed back to our bikes, someone (I'll call him Stupidly Drunk Dude) accosted My Him with the jeering question, “So, you're out hunting for cellulite tonight?”