Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

I guess, truth be told, I had to get a boyfriend before I could lose weight. It wasn’t that I needed someone to look over my shoulder or police me. It wasn’t that I needed a portable cheerleader to say “Good job, honey” at every turn. I definitely didn’t need another excuse to lose weight, and much less an excuse which was based on what someone else thought of me or my relative attractiveness.

What I needed was verification. I wanted to be proven wrong in my lifelong belief that I wasn’t good enough because I was fat. I had to work the fat-girl chip off my shoulder a little bit, to stop blaming everything in my whole damn life on my weight, and to be — just once — seen for who I am on the inside just as much as for what I am on the outside.

I also feared that if I were to wait until I had lost a bunch of weight before I started dating, I’d be bitter against the men that would be attracted to a thinner me. After all, the list of things I’ve got going for and against me will¹ basically be the same.

I’ll still be an artist, a therapist, an intellectual, an NPR snob, a musician, a world-traveler, and a culture geek. I’ll always be a writer and a designer, a bit of a packrat, and a sucker for fluffy white puppies. I’ll always know too much trivia about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ll always know the words to every single Rogers and Hammerstein musical. I’ll always have to pluck that hair from my chin every 5 or 6 days. I’ll always be me.²

In spite of my good qualities, though, I had managed to go 30 years without a boyfriend. 30 years without being kissed. 30 years, for Pete’s³ sake, without even holding anyone’s hand. It wasn’t for lack of wanting or trying, believe me. It was the chip on my shoulder — the belief (not the fact, since I know lots and lots of overweight people in relationships) that no one would ever want me. That’s why, when the Record Store Romeo asked me out on a second date, my response was a startled, “Really!?”

If 2007 is the Year of Regulation (by which I mean food and money), 2006 was the Year of Romance. I joined a few dating websites, wrote a cute, kick-ass profile, and waited.

Throughout the year, I dated a lot, actually. Every other week or so, I would go in and change the checkbox that denoted my body shape or size. It was more of an experiment, really, and a bit of a feminist rage against the machine. I mean, I would go out with these guys that were listed as “a few extra pounds” and end up thinking, “That’s not fair! They are more overweight than I, and that’s saying something. No one is questioning their body-image cred. That’s not fair!”

Besides, what exactly are the subtle differences between “Big and Beautiful” and “Curvy” and “Lots to Love” and “Full Figured” and “Could Stand to Lose a Few Pounds” or whatever other clever monikers the website creators concoct to spare us the shame of having to mark the medically-sound “Morbidly Obese” or the politically-incorrect “Fatty McFatterson?”

I’ll tell you what, though. Based on my unscientific experiment⁴, men on dating sites will not approach women on dating sites who are listed as being in the upper weight limits, no matter how cleverly phrased those weight delineators are. On the other hand, I got a lot of dates when I was listed as “Above average” or “A few extra pounds.” I got a lot of second and third dates, even.⁵

For the most part, since I had photos in my profile — including full-body photos — I never had a problem with the men I met when I was advertising myself that as “Above Average” or whatever, instead of the more accurate “Twice your body weight, no matter what your body weight is.” They never seemed overly turned off by my looks or my body. But, sometimes I got to feeling a bit dishonest. I’d go in and switch over to something larger. Something more elephantine. And, the dates would drop off.

So, yeah. I had a lot of dates. I tried to keep a good attitude about it, and mostly looked at it as an opportunity to collect funny, ridiculous party stories. I’d pretty much go out with every person who asked me, reasoning that I needed the practice. As the year waned on, I started wanting more. I liked some of the guys I was dating. I wanted to start holding hands. Kissing. Stuff like that. I wanted to know what it was like but, as a 30-year-old who’s never been kissed, I didn’t know how it worked exactly.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I did all sorts of juvenile things in preparation for the big 1K. I watched movies and went slow-mo through kissing sequences. “Move your hand here, close your eyes there…” It was like I was studying for an exam. I even asked one of my friends to come to my house and give me a first kiss just to get the damn thing overwith and get past the nerves.⁶

Record Store Romeo is an average-looking guy. He’s average height. He’s average weight. He is attractive and sweet. He’s not, as he puts it, a “chubby chaser” and I am the first overweight girl he has ever dated. But, he doesn’t care about any of that. He says that he really loves me for me and I believe him.

He and I have been together nearly 6 months at this point, and for the most part our relationship is really good. We have open communication. We care for each other and we care about each other. We enjoy our time together and have cute rituals and routines that make me happy. The best part is, when and if we ever break up, I am 120% certain that it will not be about my weight. He’s supportive of my current goals, but his overall attitude is, “Lose weight, don’t lose weight, it doesn’t matter to me. If it’s something you want, I’ll support you in getting it. If not, don’t do it.”

Now, my excuses are gone, and for the most part, so is the big fat chip on my big fat shoulder.

1. With the possible exception of increased self discipline and motivation, not to mention a little boost of esteem that comes from achieving goals but let’s face it. I don’t really need huge esteem boosts. [↩]
2. I realize that this may or may not be true… but it’s just my current line of thinking. What do I know? [↩]
3. Pete who? [↩]
4. And this could be based on any number of things, not the least of which is that I was trying to date in the Los Angeles pool, ugh. [↩]
5. Women, lesbian or bisexual women, on dating sites, though, don’t seem to mind. I attribute this to a collective conscience issue related to female body image and a shared sympathy. But, I ended up dating mostly men, so that’s a post for another day. [↩]
6. This, fortunately, was called off before the stupidity really set in. [↩]