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Very Honest Men Explain Why They Don't Like To Date Fat Women
Learn more about our review process. His voice was deep and his pants rode low, sitting on his hips hips I would soon know well, in the biblical sense. I also currently have a body-positive partner who unapologetically adores me with a passion and humility that warms my heart every single day. Derek is my neighbor, though we met online. Calling myself a BBW is new to me. It feels scary, but good — really, really good.
Guys don't like me because I'm fat. Here's why.
And more than that, it feels safe somehow. Before I started identifying myself up-front as fat in my dating profiles, I had spent hours, days, months pondering whether I wanted to be a party to upholding the worldview that the most important thing about me to a potential suitor is the size of my body. Chick I resolutely did not. But by that point I had had enough terrible first dates and I mean terrible as in they excuse themselves to go to the bathroom and never reappear type of terrible that I decided to take the harm reduction approach.
I convinced myself that this was honesty. This was empowerment.
Instant chemistry
And in a way, it was. We meet up and our chemistry is ri- dic -u-lous. He starts with caressing and then moves straight into what I would call worshipping it. And he does all that too. He fat left my place at around 2 a. We hang out a second time, then a third time, all in dating first week. And by "hang out," I mean we spend time being sexy at my house. You know the Three Ds? Even chick women know these horrible rules. So, even though Derek had asked dating see me multiple times in the first week and was clearly attracted to me, I did not push to see him in daylight outside my apartment because I was worried I see more come off as too needy.
After that hot-and-heavy week, Derek asked if he could come over the following Monday. We had yet another a steamy session, and were lying in bed, talking about philosophy or Tarantino or something, and holding hands. After a pause, I gathered up my courage and asked him if we could go out next time we saw each other, maybe get coffee. There was silence. As each moment of hesitation passed, I felt more and more like a kid who just broke a vase and was awaiting punishment, vulnerable as hell.
He said something about being busy. And then he leveled with me. I mean absolute idealbut if I dated you fat my friends would never let me hear the end of it. I mean, I had to hand it dating Derek for explaining a mystical part of heteromasculinity that had heretofore been suspected but never, ever confirmed.
Not me. I had considered this sort of thing before — that men got together in a secret meeting and decided that they would use their collective bargaining power to have sex with fat girls but never date us — but had convinced myself that I was just spinning a conspiracy theory.
After he left my apartment that night, I cried and cried. It was at around the age of 5 that chick began to tell me that something was fundamentally wrong with me and my body.
From first grade right up until the day I graduated from high school, the boys in my class told me no man would ever be seen with me, let alone marry me. And after a few years of a dozen boys saying the same things to me, I truly began to believe them. And so I did what many fat girls in my situation have done; I started dieting. That quickly turned into long bouts of starvation that continued into my college years. The hungrier I was, the more men desired me.
It was, sadly, as simple as that. Even in the depths of my eating disorderI never lost my chubby cheeks or my double chin. Most of dating st louis men I went out with shamelessly criticized my body. I dated men who encouraged me to lose more weight, even though I basically had subclinical anorexia. Everyone and everything around me seemed to be telling me that being fat was chick problem, not these men verbally berating and judging me.
It never occurred to me that there were far worse things dating being fat like, for example, dating these dirtbags. I thought I was saying to every potential fatphobe out there: no need to apply. Instead, I dating attracted a man who wanted me to take him to the Church of My Glorious Fat Rolls which dating me feel empowered and hot as hellbut he only wanted to see me privately which snatched that all away and left me feeling humiliating and ashamed.
This problem persisted even after Derek.
Here's Derek, "just being honest" with me
Identifying as BBW meant I could weed out men who hated fat, but I was faced with a new problem — I was attracting men who had a strong desire for fat that they didn't want people to know about. I didn't know what to do. It was about something else, something that went way beyond me and my life. Other fat women go through the same kinds of exploitative and degrading things.
I want to break the silence for all of chick while being clear that we have so many different kinds of experiences. This is an advantage not all fat women have. Likewise, I once vented on Facebook about how men only wanted to hook up with me. Another fat woman replied in the comments that having access to hookups was itself a privilege that not all fat women have. However, in working with hundreds of women queer and straight over the past decade, I have found that there are some overlapping realities we tend fat face when it chick to dating.
Stigma — as much as individual actors — is to blame here. Fatphobia is so ingrained, common and pervasive that many of us don't even realize we have these beliefs: that fat people deserve less respect, dignity, and love. Would I be just as supportive of my child, niece or nephew dating a fat person as a thin one? Derek is in my rear view mirror now, and so is the idea that I need to change my body. And when we began having sex, which I initiated after almost two chick of seeing each other, he could sense the parts of my body that held lingering insecurity and gently gave them a little extra attention.
He truly sees me, and I want to be seen. In the years following Derek, Fat evolved and learned, set boundaries and mostly just tried not to lose hope because I wanted love more than anything.
Dating the biggest shift happened when I decided I had a new rule: zero tolerance for food or body criticism. I would end things immediately if my date said something negative about how I ate or fat. That was a game changer!
Then, later on, I began to question my own unconscious bias and bigotry. But I realized that I never felt comfortable in those relationships.
I wish I could take credit for coming up with some amazing secret that led me to this beautiful relationship with a loving fat-positive man, but I think to offer some multi-step secret sauce would be an insult to me and to other fat people. We need a culture that this web page committed to ending fatphobia — in dating and everywhere else — once and for all.
She lives in San Francisco. Body-Positive Quotes. How to Raise a Body-Positive Kid. How to Shut Down Diet Talk. The author. The author and her boyfriend, Andrew.
Guys don't like me because I'm fat? Well, I don't like them because they're judgemental.
What Is Disordered Eating, Exactly? Is it Possible to be "Overweight" and Healthy? Virgie Tovar. "Fat" - Continue Reading Below. Investigating Anti-Diet Culture.