Being fat and being confident in western society will often be met with, “Um…that’s not a thing!” or “Aw, how brave!” or the all too familiar, “How dare you!” Yeah because how dare I not fit into the stereotype of the sloppy, smelly, sad fatty who only leaves the house to buy alltehfoodz! *RageFace* Being confident in a fat body makes many things in life easier, but it also makes some things harder. For me it’s job hunting and being perceived as both over and under-qualified for the same job, older and younger and thus not taken seriously. WTF?! I cannot control how others view me, but it sure sticks in my craw when they don’t make a lick of sense! The other thing that is harder as a confident fatty is dating, surprisingly. Yeah, you might think it would make it easier, but men aren’t used to dealing with confident women, let alone fat confident women! (I wish I could comment on my experiences with other queer women but my experiences have been very limited and not exactly noteworthy, unfortunately.)

It’s true! While I have nothing but good things to say about most of my experiences while dating as a confident fatty, the truth for many is a bit darker. If you’re a fat, cis-gendered, heterosexual or bisexual woman and okay with that and say so in your online dating profile, you can expect to get a variety of messages from doodz. I have no other words to describe them without an endless string of curse words. They find it appalling, offensive, wrong, illegal somehow that someone who is a woman and fat could possibly be confident in this world. And they have a point, because they and much of our society do not want us to be confident. It’s so much harder to profit from people who actually like who they are in the world. Oh you thought dieting was about health?! Ha-ha! It’s NOT!

We’re supposed to be the grateful fatty that just cayunt beleeev that a mayun would be paying attenshun to us! Wheweee and my oh my! *FansSelf* Except NO! We needn’t settle for such idiots, nor do we owe them our time, attention, replies or energy. NOPE! Back off jackasses, we ain’t got time for you! Not happening! I refuse to respond to those kinds of messages. If anyone in my dating pool (age, location, interests) wants to pique my interest they better start by trying to have an actual conversation. Insults and flattery will get you nowhere and/or blocked. And we’ve all had some rando-dood hit on us only to turn on us when rejected, “Baby, you’re so fiiiiine! Let me get a better look at ya! Give me your number! Take me to your place!”  “What do you mean no?! You’re a fat, ugly-ass bitch anyway!” Riiiight! *Chuckles* So fat and ugly that you were begging me to take you home?!

They want to give us fashion rules, labels, shame us towards “improvement” (or so they claim but none of us believe that shit anyway) and of course make us the butt of every lazy-comic’s joke. Uhhh…NOPE! Not cool, not okay and just plain stupid, thanks. Don’t you love it when folks who know nothing about you, your life, or your anything also feel entirely entitled to tell you all about you and what you need to do? Yeah, no, me neither! Ugh! Shut the fuck up and mind your beeswax already! I find that the people who do this aren’t exactly happy with themselves. Or the women who tear other women down. Stop that! Who is that helping? You? It’s not! I promise it’s not.

People get real mad when others don’t follow the nonsensical rules they’ve chosen to live by. Hearing a certain idiot’s “dear fat people” shit and hearing more than enough people saying under their breath, “I wish I could eat whatever I want…” yeah well you can! You choose to live by made up rules with zero logic behind them. You choose to be an asshole to others and bully people you have deemed it necessary to attack when you could be working on your damned self! Yeah! Self work is a thing! Fatties have had to do this work their entire lives in order to appease the assholes! All that time what were you doing? Oh yeah that’s right, being a bullying jackass. Way to be. NOT! All of the assholes in the world are so busy congratulating themselves for bullying people somehow different from them that they’ve never actually had to reflect on their lives, actions, development, consequences and contributions to the world. This is my opinion, mind you, but it seems pretty obvious by how they choose to speak to us.

There have always been fat bodied people in the world and there always will be. We didn’t choose to be fat anymore than we got to choose our parents, eye color or sexuality! What is a choice is how we carry ourselves in the world, how we treat others and how we allow others to treat us. You don’t have to fight back directly, you don’t have any obligation to defend others or speak up when it’s not safe for you to do so. You are not the asshole whisperer! You fight back by living your life without listening to the assholes and bullies of the world. You fight back by living the life you want to live, by leaving the house with your head held high and wearing whatever the hell you want! You don’t owe anyone a damned thing! You are worthy of all of the love and happiness this world has to offer!

Live your life, dear fatty. Live it and live it well! Live your life in any way that you see fit. Find fulfillment in it and in yourself. You deserve to decide what you want in your life and what you don’t. You don’t have to put up with the bullies and the assholes, even and especially if they are related to you. Anyone who truly loves you will show it! Anyone truly concerned about your health will ASK YOU how you are feeling! People who care will show it. Don’t waste your time and energy on people who will deplete, use and shame you. That is not your purpose in life. What is your purpose? Well, that is entirely up to you!

Rad Fatty Love,
<3
S