Confidence and Romantic Limiting Beliefs as a Plus-Size Woman - #1

Written in May 2024 

I’m quickly discovering that the nature of personal growth is cyclical. Having written about my self-improvement and self-love strides in the past, it may come as some surprise that I find myself at what feels like another starting point. Though if you’re someone who consistently works on themselves, this may be a familiar refrain to you. 

I read The Tragedy of Heterosexuality recently, after becoming completely disheartened at my lack of satisfaction in heterosexual romantic relationships. I wanted some sort of confirmation that my experiences aren’t abnormal and maybe even some answers on how to improve the situation. While my experiences were profoundly validated by the book, I found myself at a loss for clear next steps in my romantic journey. Ultimately, it felt like the author’s answer to the problem of the tragedy of heterosexuality rested entirely in the hands of men. While I don’t deny that it certainly seems like heterosexual men are the ones who need the most emotional work to be ready for equal partnership, I’m not content to just sit around and wait for them to take that work upon themselves. True romantic love is an entire aspect of life that I sincerely want to experience, and the idea of waiting on others to do the work before I can fully experience it sends my overachieving, only kid who did any work on group projects heart into despair. I have very little faith that people will take on work that seems unnecessary just for the sake of making things better for other people, so very little faith that men at large will intentionally endeavor to transform for the sake of women enjoying heterosexual relationships more fully. It seems like a pipe dream. 

It’s not a problem I’ve solved, even with continued reflection, because the only other options seem to be either accepting the status quo of heterosexual romantic relationships (over my dead body) or getting comfortable with the idea of being alone so we don’t settle for less than we want in romantic relationships. While I’ve done a lot of work to achieve that second state of being, and it’s something I encourage all people to do to build protections against settling, it’s still not an ideal situation. Either option feels like settling when what you truly want is a deep, loving, equal partnership. 

This idea of a lack of agency over the ultimate trajectory of my romantic life had me looking for other ways I might be lacking agency in dating with a keen eye out for things I could actually fix and give some power back to myself. One of the most glaring things that came up was my scarcity mindset regarding dating. While there is ample evidence (as referenced in The Tragedy of Heterosexuality) that deep, loving, equal partnerships between heterosexual couples are scarce, I have unintentionally been limiting my options even further for most of my life. 

Because of being plus-size and having a reserved, intellectual, and ambitious personality, I have convinced myself that I am just not what men want. I’ve been operating under the limiting belief that there’s no feasible way the men I am attracted to would ever want to be with me as I am. I’ve been treating this belief like objective fact since I was young and had the idea confirmed over and over again when none of my crushes felt the same about me. That led me to adopting a “take what I can get” mentality and dating men who didn’t even come close to making me happy, further cementing the idea that I can’t get what I truly want into my mind. Now that I’ve outgrown settling, my determination to be okay on my own feels like an extension of that defense mechanism. None of it attacks the limiting belief that I am inherently unlovable and undesirable to men as I am. 

It’s a strange feeling, because I do have a deep well of self-love inside me. I am confident, empowered, and comfortable in my body. I don’t feel a desire to change fundamentally, I don’t speak negatively to myself much, and I go after what I want in all areas of life aside from romantic. I learned to love myself despite that lack, and still take pride in the fact that I don’t feel the need to change who I am in order to appeal to men. Loving yourself regardless of whether men validate you is hard work in our society, and I’ve managed to do it over the past decade. 

However, it was a punch to the gut when I realized that despite how much I love myself and how much I truly believe I’m capable of anything I set my mind to, I still don’t actually believe I’m capable of attracting the love I want in the body I’m in and with the personality I have. What a fucking Catch-22. My journey toward self-love hinged on the fact that I loved all aspects of myself despite what men thought of me, and in doing that, I somehow convinced myself that any man I could love would most likely not find me worth loving. It’s a crock of shit, and yet, it’s my current mental reality. In truth, it doesn’t matter that I think it’s their loss for not being interested in me, because it still winds up with me in the same situation: wanting deep romantic love, but never having it, and, increasingly, believing I never will.

I’ve convinced myself that I’m just being realistic when I make an effort to change my body not because I think it needs changing, but because evidence suggests that the people I want to be with won’t look at me twice if I don’t change it. And I don’t mean that the people I want will think I’m devoid of value because I’m plus-size. I would never want to be with someone who thought negatively of someone simply because of their weight. But it’s been my experience that no matter how enlightened and body-positive a person is, people in plus-size bodies, especially ones whose sexuality is more quiet and reserved like mine, are always glanced over as potential recipients of attraction upon first meeting. It’s always seemed that if I don’t flaunt my body as an object to be consumed, show off my curves as commodities, there’s no chance I’ll be approached in public. At parties, on the rare occasion that I meet a single straight man who isn’t detestable, nothing romantic ever flourishes. We might get along and have great conversations, but that's where it stops. No flirtation, no asking for my number or to see me again, none of it. And I never dare to ask, because I’m so used to feeling unwanted, I wouldn’t presume attraction.

I’ve only been asked for my number by a stranger once in my nearly three decades of life. And even though I’m an introvert, I get out - I go to cafes and bars and events all the time. I’ve been to clubs and concerts and beaches with lots of eligible singles. Hell, I traveled all over Europe meeting new people and even then, nothing remotely romantic developed without the help of a dating app. The one time a person I didn’t meet on an app asked me for my number, he was the bartender at a wedding I was attending. He may have asked many wedding guests for their numbers that night, I don’t know, but what I do know is it was one of the rare occasions that I was being boisterous in public and dancing like there was no tomorrow - not something I did because I was looking to attract anyone, but because I was at a wedding surrounded by friends and family I’ve known my entire life and felt comfortable being a little rowdy. That is only something I feel drawn to do on rare occasions. All this has done is solidify my sense that if you’re a plus-sized woman, but not the type to draw attention to yourself, then spontaneous attraction isn’t something you get to access. Being loud and boisterous and the center of attention is just not something I’ve ever felt drawn to do. Yet, it feels like a barrier to entry to dating for plus-size women in a way it isn’t for thin, conventionally pretty women. 

So all of these experiences have convinced me that I have to change either my personality or my body to attract a man that I would want to date. And it seems wild to me now that I’ve been operating as if those are my only options for so long. I can either settle in a relationship, settle to be alone, or change some fundamental part of myself to get the relationship I want (which, would it even really be the relationship I want if I have to do those things to find it?), and that’s it, those are my options. That seems profoundly limiting for someone who considers herself empowered and liberated… 

That idea has been the foundation of my approach to dating for at least the past few years, if not my whole dating life. It wasn’t until listening to the Unf*ck Your Brain podcast recently that I discovered not only are those thoughts not serving me and making me feel generally shitty about myself and my romantic prospects, but they are more than likely changing my behavior in a way that makes it almost inevitable that my experiences would confirm those beliefs. Because I think spontaneous attraction isn’t in the cards for me, I don’t even attempt to make eye contact with men I’m attracted to in public, send them a smile or strike up a conversation in an effort to start something flirty. If I do end up interacting with a man I’m attracted to by chance, maybe he’s the cashier or bartender or his dog runs over to my setup at the dog beach, I’m friendly and cordial, but never try to extend the encounter, even in a way fitting an introvert. I shut things down before they even have the chance to start. 

Sure, there’s the possibility that I could change that behavior, be slightly more flirty and try to call in a spark with someone and still have absolutely nothing romantic happen, but I won’t know until I try. So that’s my new goal - to be intentional about being open to the possibility that maybe someone I want could actually want me. It feels like a completely ridiculous mindset right now, given all of the evidence in my own life and in media that confirms it being ridiculous. I hope, however, that it can begin to feel less ridiculous and become something I can embody and truly believe in my daily life.