From: marcia@netcom.com (Marcia)
Subject: Re: Guilt & weight
Organization: The Dolphin Conspiracy, Phase II
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1992 03:10:52 GMT

In article <Bw61sn.82n@akix.uucp> sue@akix.uucp (Sue Raul) writes:
>Whenever I'm at a party and a guy talks to me, I think it's because
>I'm "safe" in the same way that a gay man is safe to a straight woman.
>No one has to say anything but it's a "given" that no one's attracted
>to anyone else.  I have had male friends all my life but never anything
>intimate.  For any guy I had feelings for, I always felt they would either
>feel cornered or laugh if I approached them with my true feelings (the latter
>more often in the cruel teenage years).

I'm not sure how old you are, but you sound just like the voices in my head
when I was younger, in high school and in college. I was told all my life
that because I was large I wasn't attractive, people couldn't want to be with
me because I'm me, that the only value I had was what I could do for people,
and that I should be grateful for what meager crumbs of friendship someone
deigned to offer because that's all I was going to get.

Guess what? They were *WRONG*. 

I don't know exactly how I figured it out, but I know logic helped. That whole
litany was simply illogical: I KNOW that being large has nothing to do with
who I am inside. Of course, I then had to stop feeling that way. Reminding
myself of this fact over and over for years helped.

I remember one morning when I was fixing my face in the mirror, and I looked
at the reflection without thinking about it, without thinking who that was...
and I looked at the person and said to myself "She's attractive, and that 
smile is neat." It took about a nanosecond to realize I was talking about
myself...and cognitive dissonance set in :-). It's very hard to explain the
whole process, the shock, the change, the surprise....but it all starts with
one step.

Another thing that helped me was being a little adventurous with fashion. I
started trying on all kinds of things I wouldn't usually wear, different
fabrics and colors, and learned to look at myself dispassionately. I found a
lot of the fabrics and styles did nothing for me. Getting clothes that I 
liked and that I liked how they look on me did wonders.

Most importantly, though, I learned to really accept myself just the way I
am. I don't think you can ask others to do that until you can yourself. That
doesn't mean I don't want to change things, but that I accept that this is
where I am now. And I like who I am, and I'm going to like who I become.

There are still times when I feel like moldy cheese whiz: unattractive, 
lumpy, disgusting....but I figure that most people have times like that. 
But I don't feel like that all the time anymore.

>I've been with men who state proudly that they're for the first time
>going out with a woman and not thinking of having sex right away, like
>it's some kind of personal growth for them.

You could always be nasty and say something like "Oh, you too?"

>So I figure any man interested in me is probably a loser or
>thinks I'm a loser. 

Another thing to think about: you are insulting their taste when you say that
you are a loser. They chose you, and they do have a right to choose who they
want, right? And no one likes their taste in partners to be criticized.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marcia Bednarcyk                                  ADDRESSES: marcia@netcom.com
"Sweaty Snugglebunnies."                                     mlb@cisco.com
Newsgroups: alt.support.big-folks