Not Hot Enough to Write Home About: Dating While “Thick”

Despite body positivity, I’m still a “category.” Dating when you — and your partners — have a complicated relationship with your weight hurts.

Content Warning: In this article I discuss weight loss and gain (specifically by number), body sizes and “types,” and general body-conscious experiences, especially while dating. If that’s not your thing, consider passing on this.

I’ve been…many weights in my life.

Growing up, I considered myself fairly fat (and continued to until about five years ago) regardless of how big I was. I’ve always been bottom heavy, and that was a major faux pas in the 2000s — even for a child.

The swing around to BBL culture has been a trip. But already, the body positivity movement feels like its waning under the shadow of rapid-weight-loss drugs. (Rapid-weight-loss diets, on the other hand, are older than the Earth itself.) It leaves me to wonder if things ever changed that much at all. Men are still objectifying, just in a different way.

Being anything over a size 12 has been an emotional boomerang for me over the years.

If I can see your stomach at all, you’re fat.

Actually, big hips are “mainstream” now.

No one wants to date you.

Everyone wants to date you — as a category of woman.

It kind of feels like “thick” actually means, fat, but I want to hook up with you anyway. Luckily, I still want you.

I now know that more men like “bigger” women than you’re led to believe. Some men I’ve dated were honest: their friends will make fun of the women he’s dating. And him for dating those women. (Had his friends made fun of me and my size? Made fun of my exes for finding me attractive?)

Some guys love that you’re “thick,” and they will love you for it. But they will not publicly date you.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FEELING FAT

In third grade, we traced our bodies — yes, crime-scene style — to make life-sized posters about ourselves. My outline wasn’t egregiously larger than anyone else’s. But when I found out we were had to include our height and weight in our bio, I freaked out. I remember I was around 100lbs or so. I had my mom come in and talk to my teacher to see if I could lie about my weight.

There, perhaps, began my real journey with body-consciousness.

My mom started helping me dress in “slimming” outfits around 5th or 6th grade. I can’t really be angry at her for that; she was trying to help me the way she knew how in the diet-culture hell of that era. Plus, I went through puberty insanely early. With all that going on (and just, like, the way I am) I was bigger than the average girl in my class. But I was not fat, at least in my current opinion.

In high school, I weighed 164lbs at 5’6.” Looking back at pictures, I think the same thing: I was bigger than some, but not huge. Not “fat.” Honestly, all I can think about is I wish I’d appreciated that body when I had it.

In my freshman and sophomore years of college, the heaviest I got was around 200lbs. Same story. I was a little “chubby” but not “fat.” Whether or not other people would have said so, I don’t know.

One body size or type is not herently better than another. I don’t believe being “fat” is bad, and I don’t mean to imply so. This is about how I saw myself, and what I was taught to think in the 2000s: I was larger and therefore, obviously, less attractive than my smaller peers.

After a few years at 200lbs, I started Wellbutrin and went down to around 165–170lbs way too fast. I didn’t care. I may have been more obsessed with my weight than when I’d been bigger.

For the first time in my life, I felt hot. I’ve always done well, but I felt like I was outperforming my past self. Bagging people I didn’t think I could have. I was having a good time. I loved buying smaller clothes and taking selfies. I was obsessed with my collarbones.

Once you start to lose weight easily, especially through no fault of your own, it can become an addition. I’m skinnier than I’ve ever been before; let’s see how far I can go!

I gained a little weight back after my Year of Skinny, but I wasn’t worried. I still didn’t feel “fat” anymore. At 180lbs, I started dating a guy who open about chronically dating “thick girls.” It was objectifying to a point, but he was generally tasteful.

I loved that someone was obsessed with my body because of, not in spite of, my size. He really wanted me, and it convinced me that other people really did, too. He made me feel extremely attractive — a feeling I retain to this day.

As we dated, I gained more weight. Probably because,

a) I was comfortable with him, and

b) food was one of the (few?) things we had in common.

Whatever it was, I gained weight and was around 230lbs towards the end of our relationship. At the time, I was very self-conscious, knowing I was loved but worrying about other people’s opinions again. I hated myself for gaining weight even as I told myself I didn’t.

Looking back on pictures back then, yeah, I was bigger. But I still looked good. Not just my face, but my body, too.

After the breakup, I lost weight rapidly like I had on Wellbutrin. (This was mental-illness weight loss not mental-health-medication weight loss.) I continued sleeping with my ex, and losing weight. By the time we ended things for real, I was still losing weight.

I still do now. Sometimes on purpose, mostly not. But it’s just as addicting as the last time.

WEIGHT, WEIGHT, DON’T TELL ME!

I’m telling you how much I’ve weighed throughout my life not as a point of comparison but because we all need to talk about it more.

People are ofen surprised when I tell them how much I weigh. I am fairly muscular underneath it all (I swear !) but I also think people have no clue what a certain weight can look like on a woman.

This is absolutely borne out of a culture where no one talks about their weight explicitly. It’s a problem today, and it was even worse when I was a child. It was entirely taboo to talk numbers regarding weight.

I started being open about my weight maybe four years ago. With family, with friends, with dates — who usually thought it was Cool you’re so open talking about that. My reasoning is, you already know what I look like. What’s a number going to change about that?

Sometimes a lot.

Men really don’t like women to be 200lbs, as a concept.

THE “RIGHT” KIND OF CURVY

Being a “thick” girl with the “right” proportions is advantageous. When you’re bigger but built the way you’re “supposed” to, men (and women) are more likely to tolerate you.

It also means that men will send you a first message on a dating app saying Don’t worry, I’m into thick girls. Categorizing you, and implying you were worried about that in the first place? Delete!

It means men will comment on your body in public. On the street. Very audibly and disgustingly.

It means a guy you dated at your skinniest will hit you up after you’ve gained weight and lost it again to neg you for losing weight. He made it clear he was disappointed that I wasn’t “thick” anymore. (Even though we dated when I was much smaller?)

If you’d told child-me in, like, 2007 that I’d be negged for being slim instead of fat I would’ve called you a big fat liar, and I would’ve meant it as an insult.

EATING WITH GEN Z & HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

About a year ago, I went to a book club brunch with a group that was largely younger than me. A solidly gen-Z cast of (lovely) characters.

As a child and adult, eating out with other women has always felt like an unspoken competition over who orders the smallest plate. I haven’t always followed this rule, but I’ve always been aware of it. When I started losing my appetite (and weight) for long periods of time as an adult, I loved that I was ordering tiny dishes and only eating half. (Ignoring the fact that I wasn’t eating because I was always nauseous and really missed enjoying food.)

So, I was at this brunch, I was nauseous and barely hungry, and very aware of the fact that I was at a table with a bunch of gorgeous women, and I ordered a small dish. One I figured would be acceptable among attendees.

Color me fucking surprised, then, when pretty much everyone else at the table unabashedly ordered a full plate of food and ate most of it??? The most normal thing in the world, but it was the first time I’d seen it in a social setting like that. I almost felt self-conscious that I wasn’t eating like that.

It gave me hope for a world full of these young adults, women, that order whatever they want, and enjoy it while the world crumbles around them.