Goodnight

Confidence is not something you have inherently. It is something you are taught, it is instilled in you.

I grew up overweight, it was reiterated to me time and time again that fat = bad. Fat = Ugly.

Then I grew up and was bigger than my friends, and I was not as beautiful in the eyes of society.

I had relationships with people that knew me well, friends that became partners. I was confident with them because I didn't have to pretend.

Now, if you are not overweight, fat, obese or any other descriptor, you wouldn't have ever had to make yourself small. My whole life, I was told to be thinner, quieter, less boisterous. My personality is fun, I love to laugh, I love to make others laugh. But that was wrong, I am meant to make myself smaller, in any way that I can.

So with these people, I got to be myself. The same self I am with all of my friends.

Then when I was single again, and the world switched to online dating, I could finally make myself small. I was well spoken via text, I was happy to speak on the phone, I was interested in anyone's interests...tell me more!

But then I went on a date once, and this guy never called me back. Then it happened again. And if you are happy with yourself, you think of all the things that it could have been, maybe they didn't like my laugh or they didn't think i was interesting.

For me, it was obvious it was the way I looked. Fuck, I wish I could go back and be confident enough to say "hey, why did you ghost me?" Maybe that would have been enough to instill some reassurance in myself. But now, dating seems too hard. It is going to be me, embarrased at the way I look, and then getting ghosted.

Someone asked me "why not have a one night stand?"

Because I can't be myself when all I am thinking is - this person isn't going to call me back. And I get that is the whole point of a one night stand, but I don't want that. I want some semblance of a connection. Not a forever one. Just one where I can be myself again.

I just don't want to go into anything if I can't just be myself. And so I put so much pressure on myself to lose the 50kgs that I need to be somewhat normal sized. So that if they don't call back, it's not my weight, its because I am a shit person.

Does anyone else get stuck on why a conversation goes so well, then fizzles?

Like I understand if you are not interested, then don't drag people along. But why would a wonderfully flowing conversation end up with a full on ghost?

I ask people not to ghost me, you don't know how hard being ghosted is to mentally understand.

But even months later I just thought of something and wanted to read a message. I went back and the text conversation was actually so great and exploratory while also being funny. It was so bloody fun. So why then did you not have the decency to say "hey, sorry not interested". Like those four words wouldn't have saved me some serious negative self talk.