I’m ending a relationship because I’m fat.
We have passionate, easy, hours-long conversations, warmth, affection, respect, and outrageous sex. OUTRAGEOUS. Friendship, respect and hot sex: a pretty great foundation, right? What more can I ask for?
Everything.
Neither of us have butterflies. We were intensely comfortable with each other, right away. We’re both romantics, so naturally this worries us. Where is the infatuation? What does the lack of infatuation mean? Where can this go if it doesn’t start with addiction-like chemical highs?
I asked around. Lots of people seem to think this is no big deal, maybe even healthy. Mature. Real.
But I have a gut instinct about The Issue and it is this: I am everything he wants except thin.
I think this way a lot. I’m pretty sure that if I was thin, men would be lining up even further around the corner to date me. I am pretty, have a pretty good career, possess a dazzling personality if I do say so myself, am smart, talented, funny, artistic, warm, magic with clothes and makeup and ridiculously high shoes, and a sexual GENIUS. If I was thin, any man I chose would think he hit the fucking jackpot.
This is not (just) insecurity. This is cold-eyed social reality. Our culture trains people to see fat as a problem, as a shorthand for all sorts of moral failings. We don’t associate fat with attractive. And what, a good feminist might ask (ahem), is the point of a woman if she’s not attractive?
My friend keeps saying that he is attracted to my mind. Well, that’s wonderful, but you can’t fuck my mind. You can’t hold hands with my mind at an office party. You’re not walking down the street with my mind. You’re not introducing my mind to your mother. This mind comes in a fat body with all the social messaging and meaning that swirls around that presence and that word.
He has not said anything directly but I feel it. He is hedging about what we are to each other. I know what that means and it means I have to be strong. I have to believe in myself enough to stay out of a dynamic that will make me feel like I am not beautiful enough or thin enough or good enough. Because I am enough.
He’s not weak because he can’t accept me as I am. We all have physical preferences and attraction is not a choice. You feel what you feel for who you feel it and that’s the end (or the beginning) of it.
So that’s it. This is the choice I’m making: to walk away from an amazing friendship and even more amazing sex to preserve my self-respect and my faith that I am lovable just as I am.
I am. But the journey to that love is an uphill and tedious climb. The dating odds are stacked against fat girls. It would be easier to just conform, to diet and endure the mental and physical deprivation necessary for losing weight, and then choose from the queue that would form for access to my thin self. I may do that, not out of self-hatred, but out of sheer practicality: I want love. And, I can tell you from direct personal experience, fat can be a barrier to romance.
Despite what the fat-haters say about the dangers of Fat Acceptance, no one sets out to become a body outlaw. The rewards are vastly smaller and sparser than the risks and the social penalties. It would be easier to just conform. And I may do that. Because although I deserve love just as I am, and am lovable just as I am, and won’t accept anything less just as I am, just as I am is just not getting me what I want.
I shouldn’t have to alter myself to find love, but that might be the reality of this little social construct called the world. I don’t live in a world all by myself where I make the rules by myself and life unfolds according to the principles and whims I decree all by myself. Sadly. Happily. Really.
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Sadly, happily, really, and almost.
This is an update. I wrote this post to fight-club my way to a decision and course of action that would not require a throw-down with cognitive dissonance every damn day.
Blogging is that process for me. I write to unwind my wooly thoughts, instincts and fears and arrive at a decision. Hopefully a good decision. A self-respecting decision. And I did. I chose not to join a relationship in which I would have to accept a ‘not good enough’ feeling. I chose not to trade my confidence for companionship. I decided to end things before they even got started. It felt honest, brave, and necessary. It felt fucking awful.
Even mixed with a triumph of the soul, the consequences of this decision were going to suck. Really suck.
The hard, unpleasant, unwelcome prospect of being without someone I like and respect forced me to do something even more honest, brave and necessary than walking away from him. I talked to him.
I checked to see if my ‘instinct’ was an intuition rooted in subtle signals (his, maybe) or fear and insecurity (mine, surely). I asked him about his feelings about weight and women and attractiveness and me.
We had an awkward, painful, inspiring and invigorating conversation. Turns out we’re good. Game on.
Wow. I’m blown away by your writing!! I can understand why you felt insecure: our society judges women so harshly, although I’m sure that the collective “we” judge heavier men harshly as well. But women the world over get it the worst. We are, indeed, judged by our attractiveness and outer facade.
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ok, just plain love this one… my favourite so far.
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and Monica I love YOU.
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Beth, thanks so much for your comment. Things like what you just wrote affirm a basic decision I make everytime I get scared to write or publish something: if I’m scared, I have to do it. And those are the pieces that allow me to connect with people. And what else is there?
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Kelly, a brave post and I’m glad that you haven’t ended things yet. I’ve been in more than one relationship where the woman decided she knew what I wanted, despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite my sincere protests. And yes, once it was the thin thing, which was not fair. I did not care. I really didn’t. But she thought that because I was a man she knew things. My opinion meant nothing.
Always, always be willing to hear someone out. Then, if your gut still says bolt, then go and Godspeed. But having someone decide they know your mind is a brutal feeling and can be devastating. That relationship made it hard for me to trust the next woman, which wasn’t fair to the next woman, or to me.
Perceptions are way harder to debate your way out of than facts.
I’ve been there.
I know you’ll make the right choice, though. Your genius is not just limited to physical gifts, I’m sure of it:)
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Thanks Josh for your loooooong and excellent comment! You’re completely right – I can’t know what anyone else wants. Hence the asking. The talking. This understanding business is a collaborative venture
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Oh, amazing, brave, and beautiful woman. You are enough…and you are not too much. No matter the ending of this post (or this story), you are fighting the fight on more levels than I can even count. It’s stunning. You are stunning. And I feel honored to be in conversation with you, to read your words, to hear your heart, to be inspired by your integrity, and to know another who unabashedly wears high heels.
Bottom line: beauty, dignity, and truth embodied in every way possible. You.
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you write from your generous heart and your words land. thank you.
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Kelly, Kelly, Kelly… You are a wonderful writer and a beautiful human being. Think of the wonderful messages you are sending your daughters every moment of every day, just by your awareness of the societal pressures and values they (we) face…
I was totally with you on your decision to bolt, then so delighted with your actual ending (thus far!) Game on? Yowza! So happy to hear that the friendship (and fabulous sex) is still intact! Congrats on making such good choices!
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I’m glad this worked out the way it did… some of the biggest relationship mistakes I have made came from assuming I knew why someone else was acting a certain way, or that I knew what they wanted, or didn’t want.
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Hi, Kelly. I just bestowed the “I Give Good Blog” award on you. Check it out on my new post. May it bring you increased traffic and some new readers!
Best regards–
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