Weight and Romance

The other day, I put out a request for any questions that you guys might have about me or what I think or anything that you would like to see me blog about.  I received this in an email:

In one of your Aug posts, you asked if anyone had questions. I’m new to the blog so you may have already covered this.

Noticed you got down to ~179 but then gained almost 90 lbs back to ~268. Now you’re on the way back down (well done). Wondering whether when you’re on the heavy side or slim side, it affects your romantic life? Or whether you’re even interested in dating at one weight versus another? I’m a woman and I find when I’m heavy, I hide from men. If I’m not comfortable with myself I have the toughest time being with someone else. So, I’d be interested to hear you blog about that.

First, welcome to my blog! And thanks for the “well done” and the question!

Second, I’ve really been struggling with how to respond to your questions and with how honest I want to be (not that I would lie…but you know what I mean).  First, I knew that I had written about this a couple of times in the past, so I did a bit of digging on my site and came up with a couple of posts.  I know that there are others, but it’s hard to know what search terms to look for when you’ve been blogging for over two and a half years.

First, there is the post, “Single Ladies,” that I wrote back in March of this year discussing the “weight loss/loose skin/dating people with weight struggles of their own” issues.

Next up is one that was a whole lot more embarrassing for me to write (and probably for you all to read LOL), “Weight as a Shield.”  I wrote it back in May of this year.  I really cringed in reading it.  But hey, like I have posted over there to the left of this blog page, I’m trying to choose authenticity.

Now it is August, and to be totally honest with you all, my opinion/thoughts on some things have changed a bit.  Sure, I still struggle with self-consciousness.  Sure, I still look in the mirror and cringe at times (what woman doesn’t at any weight).  Sure, there are moments when things really bother me.  But I think I’m growing into my age (will be 33 next month) and my body and my self-confidence.  While I still have all of those moments of intense vulnerability, I also have quite a few when I feel damn good about myself.  Moments when I feel sexy and worth it.  Moments when I realize that life is too damn short and that if a guy can’t see who I am and appreciate who I am as I am then he’s obviously not the one for me.  No amount of wishing is going to make someone be interested in me if he’s not, and it would only be hell on us both to be in a relationship with someone who wasn’t.

Of course, that’s all easier said than done, and like I said, there are still those moments of intense vulnerability, but I’m starting to subscribe to the fake it until you make it form of confidence building.

Let me break it down by weight stages for you:

• At my highest-highest weight, I honestly never felt good about myself physically and my self-esteem was rock-bottom, but I know that there are women out there at that weight that are absolutely beautiful and confident and I salute them!  So while I did want to find someone to spend my life with, I personally held absolutely no hope in my heart whatsoever.  This also was the period of time within about two years after my brother died and I was having an extremely difficult time with his death.  Still do sometimes.  But during this period of time, I completely cut myself off from the world.  I even backed away from family and friends.

• Now before my brother died and I started gaining that extra weight because of it, I was about 60 pounds lighter.  And that’s about where I was through most of college (though I did lose a great deal my freshman year only to regain it) and my adult life until he died.  Even being 60 pounds lighter (about 40 pounds heavier than I am now), I was still incredibly overweight.  My self-esteem was still pretty much in the toilet, but there were a few men that were interested and I had rare moments of self-confidence (a drink or two never hurt LOL – reverse beer goggles).  But I was much more interested in dating and much more open-minded to the possibility of there being someone out there for me.  I still held myself back though.  I still had a hard time being close to people.

• As my weight dropped lower and lower, my confidence grew and grew.  I started noticing the attention of more men.  Now, whether there really was more attention (I’m sure there was) or whether I was just opening myself up to actually noticing it more, I don’t know for sure.  I felt better about myself, wasn’t afraid to step out in public, walked confidently,  and greeted the world with a smile far more often.  I found myself *looking* for that guy more often.  I’m naturally flirty anyway, but I’m sure I also flirted more.  But as I mentioned in the posts above, even at this weight, there were the issues that I had in dealing with the permanent (minus plastic surgery) results of my trip up the scale for most of my life.

Which leads me back to where I am now.  Still self-conscious.  Still a bit uncertain.  Still those moments of shame about what I’ve put my body through over the years.  Still hesitant and self-questioning.  But there’s also now the part of me that will still be hopeful.  Still be confident.  Still be sexy at times no matter my weight.  Still be open to whatever life throws at me.

Instead of this hiding behind my back:

My attitude towards life is now this:

You know what’s funny?  Is that as much as I struggle with posting things like this and with even having my blog at all, I think a lot of my new-ish attitude has a lot to do with having this blog.  Over the years that I’ve spent reading other people’s blogs and having people comment here, I’ve learned that there are some pretty decent guys out there if you give them a chance.  They’ve got their own set of insecurities and struggles and many have been hurt just like we have.  In fact, there are some darn right amazing guys out there.

I’ve also become much more fatalistic in my attitude towards life (though as I’ve said, I still have my moments).  If things don’t work out, regardless of what area of my life I’m talking about, then I won’t let it be because I didn’t try.  It’ll be because it wasn’t meant to be.  All a part of trying to be a bit more bold.  [I'm definitely still a work in progress in this department.]

Even funnier is that joining Twitter reaffirmed the faith that I developed from reading blogs over the past few years that there are decent guys out there.  In fact, I shared this a while back, I believe, but one such decent guy told me this one day when I was bitching about the damn scale:

A number is no measure of a person — their personality, their sex appeal, what they offer. It’s all subjective.

You can never have too many reminders of that.

Someone else posted this today:

I used to think that being invisible would be the greatest super power out there. Recently, I realized how terribly lonely it would be.

It is lonely.  I’ve spent the last many, many years of my life trying to be invisible.  No more.  My hand is outstretched.  Hi world!

Thank you again to the person who sent me the blog idea.  I hope this answered (in a terribly wordy, long way) your question.  Please feel free to follow up with me if you have further questions about anything I said. *Hugs*