I’ve weighed over 200 pounds at 5’2. I’ve lost and regained more weight than most people weigh. I know how overweight people feel. I am overweight. I have been judged, I have been body shamed. I have battled my weight my entire life. You don’t have to explain to me how overweight people feel.
Attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder. Did her date think she was hot? Then she was not delusional. Did her date think she was unattractive? Then she was delusional. Either way, she was confident and had a good time.
There are tall overweight women who look good to me in a bathing suit, so nothing you said tells me.
This was just a thought in my head at the time. She said she looked awesome in a bikini. I thought to myself “I wish I had that confidence. No, I would be delusional if I thought I looked awesome in a bikini. Does that mean she’s delusional too?”.
I see now that I should have just kept my thoughts to myself like I usually do. Lesson learned.
There may be cultural issues at play here. Since attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, “delusional” is a loaded term, but “arrogant” might be fitting – not so much for feeling that she’s attractive, but because “cutest thing in the pool” is a comparative statement.
In my culture, arrogance like that would be viewed as obnoxious, whether the person crowing about their own attractiveness was conventionally attractive or not. If I went around talking about how I was the hottest guy in the room, people would distance themselves from me, even if I looked like Brad Pitt.
However, this is essentially the character of Donna from Parks and Rec, and she’s beloved for her confidence. Is it because she’s African American? Is it because overweight people are so often the underdogs in social situations? I don’t know, but braggadocio is more acceptable in certain circles for sure.
Also, at the risk of oversharing knowledge gleaned from 30 years on the internet, she may also be part of a, um, fetish movement. BBW, feederism, etc. Extreme confidence, a “bigger is sexier” mentality, and some level of exhibitionism are all hallmarks of these communities. Going to a pool in a bikini on a 2nd date would make more sense in this context, if she met her date through a fetish community, for example.
I’m a fat lady of average attractiveness who can look pretty when I put on makeup. I understand the yearning to just have more confidence in how you look. I have social anxiety about going out in public and being harassed about my weight (it’s never happened, not since middle school.) I am insanely jealous of anyone of size who feels confident about their looks, and that kind of confidence tends to boost how attractive someone may be perceived.
I think people are focusing more on what seems like body shaming and less on the fact that you have internalized fat phobia - you don’t understand why other people don’t feel bad about being fat because you feel bad about being fat, and other people have made you feel bad about being fat. Society hates happy fat women. How dare we enjoy life when we don’t fit traditional patriarchal beauty standards?
You can’t solve it overnight. But you can work on it.
I recommend the podcast Maintenance Phase which is a witty show hosted by a fat woman and her skinny friend, all about idiot diet trends but always with some close examination of unhelpful messaging we get about fatness, weight loss, how we define what’s healthy and attractive, etc. It also deconstructs a lot of myths about obesity by examining the research. It’s a good show if you want to move past your own internalized shame about your weight.
I know from previous posts you have an extensive history of trauma, so I think you may have some internal voices that aren’t your own telling you bad things about yourself.
It’s good you spoke up because this can be your wake up call that it’s time to work on a healthier relationship with your self-concept.
Thanks for saying this. I couldn’t articulate it, but that’s what stuck out most for me. FloatyGimpy feels she can’t look pretty because she’s fat. But lots of fat people look good to themselves and to their friends and romantic partners. She can, too.
You both rock.
Spice_Weasel I was actually hoping you would pop in because I knew you would understand what I was trying to say.
Ditto! I really enjoy this podcast.
She is delusional.
A 6 is hot compared to the 3’s.
I was a lifeguard in my teens, I worked at a number of different places; the Y was mostly little kids getting lessons & retired people doing laps. I worked at an apartment complex that was mostly retired people & occasionally the grandkid(s) they had over. Anyone in the middle generation would automatically be the ‘cutest thing in that pool’ even if they weren’t all that cute.
The recent byplay between @Spice_Weasel , @puzzlegal , & @FloatyGimpy have been superb. I was going to put those ideas together if y’all hadn’t beaten me to it.
Trying to continue from that platform I’m going to triangulate a bit.
There’s a LOT of room between “delusional” and “confident”. Room for different opinions in the beholder, and room for different opinions in the person themselves.
All of us who are ego-healthy view ourselves through semi-rose-tinted glasses. Folks who are positively ego-delusional are viewing themselves through wildly distorting fun-house mirror glasses. Folks who are mildly ego-unhealthy view themselves through shit-stained glasses. Folks who are majorly negatively ego unhealthy view themselves through shit-encrusted dripping glasses of doom and gloom.
All of those are delusional a little bit. Some towards favorable, and some towards unfavorable.
I’m a 65yo guy. I’m lean & wiry, not soft & flabby. But I’m gray, losing hair, small as men go, wrinkly in spots & blotchy in others, etc. But I’m proud of how I look. I can’t fix my age. But for my age I look good. Here in Miami we have a saying:
If you got it, flaunt it. If you don’t got it, flaunt it anyhow.
So I do. You (any you) can choose to say "I can’t fix being [whatever is your big shortcoming], but I can be damn proud of the other stuff I do / am. It’s only delusional if you’re to far wrong about those other things.
Being scrawny I’ll admit that heavy is not attractive to me. But I do see heavy women who are rockin’ that look with power & confidence and I can admire how well they do with it and how happy them seem to be in their skin. And that latter, “happy in your skin” is a very attractive look on anyone.
The converse, sadly, is also true. A person miserable in their own skin is a total downer to everyone around them. And not attractive at all. Nobody, not even Winnie the Pooh, really likes Eeyore.
One thing I’d like to see culturally is a move away from messaging to women about how everyone is beautiful. You don’t want to feel terrible about yourself, but what if there were more important things for a woman to be than beautiful? What if it was in fact okay to not be beautiful? How radical would that be? All that time and attention and money the goes to advertisers might instead result in more positive outcomes for society. The problem is not really women feeling like they aren’t beautiful. It’s the fact that being beautiful is considered such a critical goal in the first place, as opposed to being educated, compassionate, an interesting conversation partner, a good problem-solver, a supportive friend, or something else.
Part of a health body image is knowing what you bring to the table as a whole package. You might have features you don’t like, but there are those you do, and you know how to accentuate them. And if you can live your life grounded in reality, both in the negatives and positives, but focus on all the things that make you an attractive partner, not just your body type, I think you will do okay.