Two entries in a row, my oh my.
I've been reading Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby (legends, btw. Look them up if you don't know who they are), and there was a chapter on life-partners. In the beginning of the chapter the authors wrote that it was a sad, sad fact that most of the people in the Fat-o-sphere are in long-term relationships. Very few of us are single.
As a single person, I noticed this. Unfailingly. I always tend to notice when people are in relationships - it's one of those things, like whether or not a person is religious, I notice purely on the virtue that I am not it. On the fatshionista livejournal community there are posts everywhere by people talking about going to dinner with the boyfriend or apologising for photographs because their significant other took it or asking for advice relating to their partner's fatness or the scathing comments their partner's parents give them about their own fatness. There is no doubt a lot of relationship mentioning on fatshionista.
Obviously this is great. It's great to see that not everybody who is fat is hopelessly, pathetically single (not that I'm saying I am), and it's lovely to see sites such as The Museum of Fat Love showing that fat people are just as capable and just as worthy of love as any thin person, and considerably moreso than anybody, fat or thin, who believe that fat people are somehow not worthy.
Having said that, this is a difficult issue for me. The longest relationship I've had lasted for, I dunno, a month? Maybe? And it barely counts as a relationship because we didn't do anything (no dates, nothing), and he was actually gay. Yeah, yeah, cue the laughter. I certainly got grief for it (the "Gillian turned her boyfriend gay" thing... although the person who said that was an utter bitch so it's not as if her opinion counts). But anyway, he was the only one. And that was when I was 15. Does this get me down? Um, yeah. Of course. How could it not? And for a long time I blamed my lack of success on my fat. Hell, often I still blame it on my fat.
The authors of Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere mentioned that being accepting of yourself as fat is made much easier when you have someone like a boyfriend. Someone who is not related to you (and therefore has no obligation to love you), who says that they think you are amazing just the way you are. And let's face it - friends that say that are not enough. It's nice when they do say that (particularly if they are also fat-accepting types, which sadly not many of my friends are), but there's a dramatic difference between a friend and a boyfriend, whatever way you look at it.
Despite not having what to many is a vital element in their fat-acceptance journey, I feel that I am becoming more accepting of my fatness, slowly but surely. I even feel that I could get all the way without getting a boyfriend. In fact, that's the thing. I feel almost as though I have no choice in the matter, because I have far more of a chance of becoming fully accepting of my fatness than I have of getting a boyfriend before my journey is done.
Is that a problem? Yeah, I think it might be. Because the thing is, what stops me from getting a boyfriend is this problem I've always had, where I don't believe I'm good enough. For a long time that was mainly because I figured I was too fat, too ugly. Now I think it's because of my inherent horribleness, and I can't really quantify what it is about me that is so horrible, but I definitely feel that I am. A lot of the time I, like I think everybody who thinks like this (and there are a lot of us, I believe) know I'm being silly and that I'm no more horrible than anybody else. But yes, essentially it's because of that. I figure that nobody would be interested in somebody as inherently horrible as me, and I've never sought anyone out, or admitted that I liked anyone or anything, because of that. I'm also painfully shy, of course. So the thing is, how am I supposed to become accepting of myself, including my fatness, when there is unlikely to be anybody at any point to tell me that they think I'm unerringly amazing and that they adore me with everything they've got?
What would be good is if I could get over all of it, and start to tell people I'm into that I'm into them. But that will probably take a long-arse while. For now, I need to focus on fat-acceptance. At the same time, I'll continue to sincerely hope that somebody will take the plunge that I am so petrified of taking and tell me that they're interested. Sadly that's very unlikely to happen. But I would like to believe that, despite my shyness and that niggling belief that I'm horrible, I can still complete my fat acceptance journey. But I don't know. How realistic am I really being here?
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