Could you explain this more? I can completely understand taking appearances into account when deciding on who to pursue romantically, but it seems strange for me in regards to friendship.
We evaluate everyone on their appearance.
An obvious example might be person A in dreads, tie-dye, flip-flops, with a peace sign necklace and patchouli perfume eating lunch at an outdoor cafe. In walks person B, wearing birkenstocks, a save the planet tshirt, a hemp necklace, and a flower in his hair. Next walks in person C, wearing black dress shoes, black dress pants, black leather belt, white button-up, black suit, navy blue tie. Do you think A is going to evaluate B or C as a better choice for conversation and possibly friendship?
Now replace person A with someone wearing running shorts and a running shirt, person B with someone in biking pants and a helmet, and person C as someone 50 pounds overweight. Does the B or C answer change?
Weight is part of appearance, and we take appearance into account when choosing friends, lovers, and even business partners. We probably should not judge people on immutable characteristics, but weight is not one of those.
Why would looks be a factor in choosing my friends?
You either like somebody and get along with them or you don’t.
I have a lot of friends, fat and thin, tall and short, rich and poor, black and white, ghetto and WASP, liberal and conservative, devout and atheist, barely finished high school and rocket scientist.
They are my friends, we get along, we have fun together, we have each others backs.
Their looks have nothing to do with it.
Sorry, coder, but I for one can’t relate to that at all. I have friends from both of your A, B and C scenarios. Even in high school I didn’t fit into any clique. I had friends who were jocks, dopers, geeks, nerds, big, small, pimply and smooth. I’ll freely admit to being very particular about who I dated, but friendship is, and always has been, open to anyone.
So, they were supposed to ask her out when they thought she was unattractive?
I have friends from all those scenarios too, but I think all people gravitate towards friendship with people that are similar to them on some level, and since nobody can interview everyone they meet to see if there’s anything there, we all use appearance as a shortcut to whether we should put effort into social interaction with someone.
Oh right. I am slow.
I’m with her (and you) on this one - aside from how she was too fat for them before, how is she supposed to date someone who will be gone the second she gains five pounds? These guys have proven themselves to be shallow - when someone shows you who they are, it’s up to you to believe it.
What, should we all be wearing fat suits in some sort of weird lifelong shallow hal test? How does sahirnee’s friend know if the men who ask her out now will still be there if she gains 5 pounds?
I’ve lost 30kg and I agree there’s a big difference in how I’m being treated now (factoring in my age which is against me, 'cos being a post-menopausal woman makes a person invisible as well).
My colleagues don’t treat me any differently but sales staff definitely do. That said, wearing nicer clothes and having makeup on also gets me treated better than wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with a bare face.
Eons ago when I was young and single, I noticed that when I dropped a lot of weight, I had a lot of married men hitting on me. It pissed me off. It also led me to regain much of what I’d lost, which pissed me off even more. Shallow jerks. :mad:
“We” judge people on immutable characteristics all the time.
How many females who have posted to this thread would date a male who is shorter than you?
Thank you! It’s been bloody hard bloody work.
I can understand men treating a woman differently if they are attracted to them. But coworkers? My boss? Losing weight did not make me better at my job.
That has to be the strangest reason for weight gain I’ve ever heard.
Duh.
Ha! I don’t consciously fail to stop for them, but the OP made me realize there is a chance I’m doing something like this unconsciously, so I’ll try to pay more attention to myself.
Are you a woman? If so, I’d assume women get treated better than men when they lose weight. I used to be about 50 pounds thinner than I am now and didn’t notice any difference.
I think people who know you (coworkers, bosses, etc) are excited for your weight loss and have more respect for you since everyone knows it is an accomplishment to lose that much weight. I assume they’d treat you better if you just had a kid or had some other accomplishment.
You get back what you project. You may not realize that you’re projecting more confidence and self respect, but I’d almost bet that if you asked someone, they’d say that there’s something different about you aside from the weight loss that they can’t really put their finger on.
Have you considered that they are all seeking a way to manifest encouragement for your Herculean effort? That maybe they appreciate how hard it must be to make the changes you’ve made? And most people, who get into better shape, hold their heads a little higher, look people in the eye more, etc. People may be responding to those subtle changes as well.
Keep up the great work and congratulations!
Yes
I’m sure it’s possible that I project more confidence. I know I feel very different inside. I don’t feel like I’m all hot now or whatever, I just feel normal. I can’t actually believe that I did it to be honest. I can’t believe that I had the strength to this. It’s shown me that I’m a lot stronger than I thought.
I worry that once I hit my goal weight that I won’t be happy with it and will keep trying to lose more. I’m hoping that I can be happy with how I look rather than with a number on the scale.