The other day I decided to update my personal blog site with an updated weight loss picture because it had been almost two months since I've documented photographic progress. In the beginning of this journey, I didn't want my picture taken at all - even if it was the result of placing the camera on a tripod and setting the timer. When you're fat, you somehow know it, but you still have some sense of pride and don't want to be the object of photos…or the only object in the photos that's talked about. So to document my weight loss has been a self-conscious action I'm still not comfortable with, but glad I've done it.
One of the benefits of losing weight is…you begin to understand mentally you're starting to look good, and maybe members of the opposite sex are noticing it, too. I've been noticing since I started running again with the slightly cooler temperatures, that the opposite sex has noticed me and is voicing approval with honks and wolf calls. As I told my friend not that long ago, “It's not that I don't appreciate the wolf calls, it's just…where were they 10 years ago when I could've really enjoyed them?!” She doubled over laughing but completely understood I was making light of bad behavior.
As a child in science class, I remember learning about how magnets with opposite charged poles are attracted, while similar charged poles repel. We've all played with magnets and used the like poles to push the magnets around for fun. Unfortunately, this simple principle of physics doesn't work well in the real world, as I recently discovered.
I told my good friend of a step I'd recently made because of my weight loss - I put up an online dating profile on a major website. A date is almost foreign to me because I haven't been on a real one in almost ten years. As I became heavier with time, I found some men changed the dating rules when it came to fat women. The worst rule was, “If you want to date me, you're going to have to pay for the date”; it wasn't explicitly spelled out, but every date strangely went down the same road. Of course at the end, sex was expected by him, and that was going too far, so I gave up the idea of finding a good man who'd actually pay for the date instead of expecting me to all the time. That didn't happen when I was skinny, but I did pay for dates back then because I didn't think it was fair the man always had to pay.
With a couple of the latest pictures and a highly tweaked profile, I started to “prowl”, as my friend teased. I'm not a “prowler” - if anything, the excessive weight I carried has taught me to tip-toe through yards and carefully sniff around food bowls of eligible “tom cats”. After all, I'm still a little overweight, although I'm down to a size six and I run six miles a day. I've decided I'll go into a maintenance mode when I achieve what's probably going to be a size 2/4 and 120 pounds.
So with a profile uploaded, I made a few very cautious but realistic moves, and then sat back to see what would happen. I haven't heard back from the men I contacted, so it's hard to tell what the deal is with them. It'd be easy and self-destructive to automatically think they shuddered in horror at my picture, but reality is sometimes a man needs a little time to decide if he wants to make a move on a “C” list woman. Let's be honest here - we have our perfect (but probably can't get) dream mates on the “A” list, the “I think I've got a realistic shot with this person” on the “B”, and your “I don't know…maybe if nothing better comes along” on the “C” list. A “C” lister isn't bad, it's just we tend to try shooting a little higher as our confidence grows.
Two days after the profile had been loaded I received my first e-nudge from a man on the site. Considering I haven't had a real date in years, I was sorely tempted to jump on the first offer that showed up in my email box. I didn't feel any chemistry with this person right from the time I saw the picture pop up because… he was overweight. I'd guess this brave soul is probably 220 pounds, and trust me… I know exactly how 220 feels because I did weigh that at my worst. His profile was like reading an old DOS manual - boring, but informative considering the subject. He described himself as a drinker and gambler - two things when tied together are a recipe for disaster and addiction. He's not religious, and I am. The two enormous deal breakers were he doesn't exercise, and he eats mostly take out/fast food, which were obvious looking at his profile picture.
