Losing Leah is a special series about being overweight, dealing with moving through our culture in a fat body, and the joys and trials of losing weight and finding health.
To all the men I’ve loved before…
There is a rampant misconception in the world that fat girls don’t get laid…or find love…or date much. I am here to dispel the myth and give those of you who might look with pity on the prospects of the fat girl a different perspective.
I have been fat since I was about 8. I had my first “boyfriend” at 10, my first innocent kiss at 11, and my first make out session at 15 (thank you Rod Maynard for setting a high bar for your successors). I won’t tell you the details of the rest of my “firsts” but I will say that they happened at times that were a little late by some opinions and a little early in the religious circles I grew up in.
Be that as it may…I have dated all kinds of men. When people ask if I have a type I generally say “I like intelligent guys who can make me laugh, and if what they look like also turns me on…great.” And surprise surprise…there are a lot of different men in the world who are smart, funny, and that I find attractive.
But unless you are a fat girl who dates, you will never comprehend the looks of puzzlement or even jealous rage that can cross another woman’s face…often a THIN woman’s face…when a big girl walks in with a HOT man. I’ve dated some gorgeous men in my day from the gorgeous basketball player to the Spanish chef to the much younger marathon runner. And in each case I’ve been asked “Is that your boyfriend?” with a hint of “you’ve got to be kidding!”
Look…I’ve also dated men who I thought were beautiful but not classically or commercially so. And I’ve dated men with money, genius, and extraordinary artistic talent. And I have often been surprised, though why I don’t know, that people cannot imagine a world where a fat person would be adored, loved, touched, and satisfied.
A “frenemy” of mine, an athletic and body conscious marathon runner, once encouraged me over brunch to “lose the weight so that you don’t have to date only chubby chasers.” She found it impossible to grasp and told me she didn’t believe me when I explained that most of the men I date don’t date big girls exclusively. Hell…my best relationship was with a man who was previously married to a ballerina, then dated me, and went on to a relationship with an average sized barista.
Yes…there are men who only date fat girls. And yes, sometimes they creep me out because they aren’t with ME…they are with the body type they like and I’m just the person in the body. My perspective on this changed when my friend who is a gorgeous blonde model-type said she’d been broken up with by her former boyfriend when she’d died her hair brown because he could only “get it up” for a blonde. So let’s just say she avoid certain men for the same reason.
Give it some thought. Are ALL of your friends who are single also fat? I doubt it. Are all of the people you know who have never been married overweight? Nope. Do the people you know who live life happily and go on crazy dates (especially in Seattle) have to be large? They don’t…and they aren’t. Do you know any heavy people who have amazing relationships? I bet you do. Look around.
These are our biases. We built them on the back of TV, music videos, movies, and magazines. There are entire pockets of culture where this blog would be puzzling because they love people of all shapes and sizes. And more importantly, there are men and women that will have hot hot sex tonight with a person of greater than, equal to, or less than size and weight and they don’t give two shits about what you think about their fat partner because they are having a helluva good time.
So enjoy yourselves folks! And stop assuming you know ANYTHING about me and the hot guy on my arm. (Now…I’m off to find a hot guy for my arm. Don’t judge. It’s been a minute but I’ve been busy!) 🙂
Loveeeeee your honesty, your bluntness, everything about this!! And love you most of all!