Being a Fat Girl on Tinder

I used to be a big fan of online dating, but this week, I had a big fat change of heart. Maybe I’m not going to meet the love of my life on Tinder after all.

I am proud plus size/fat/curvy woman, but it’s not always been this way. In a society where fatness is seen as disgusting, I’ve spent my entire life being conscious of my size. It’s taken a long time and a hell of a lot of personal growth to get to my current mind-set of unadulterated self-love.

Online dating was never a safe-space for me. Everyone uses the most flattering photos of themselves on their profiles but I always felt like I had to include an unflattering body shot to show how fat I really was. I also tend to make some reference to being plus-size on my profile, but even so, I feel like I am being deceptive. In my opinion, phrases like plus-size and curvy have been high-jacked by the fashion industry of late to refer to girls who are a size 12. I’m a size 18. So “curvy” seems like an understatement.

From my experience, people are attracted to bodies like mine for one of two reasons. Firstly, there are people who are not generally attracted to fatness, but fall specifically for me. Secondly, there are people who fetishize fatness. I’ve had relationships of both kinds.

When a man who is not typically attracted to fatness falls in love with a fat girl like me, it’s basically a sign that my personality has won out over his natural-aversion to fatness. But in that way, it’s much the same as when anyone else falls in love. It doesn’t matter if they have a muffin-top or thunder thighs, frizzy hair or can’t dance; you fall in love with their flaws as much as their perfections. But this kind of love-based attraction takes time to cultivate. It’s not something you can achieve in one Tinder date, let alone one Tinder profile.

On the other hand, there are people who are physically attracted to fatness. On Tinder, where people are often looking for hookups, I have been approached by men who are turned on by plus size women. There are even specialized dating apps that cater to this audience, which are designed to be a safer space for fat women, because the people who use them are attracted to our body type. The problem is that there is a fine line between attraction to fatness and fetishizing it. More often than not, when I use these specialized dating apps, I feel sexually objectified because of my fatness.

This week, I decided to go on a Tinder date with a man who I knew was just after a hookup. It was after Valentine’s Day and I was nursing a broken heart over a guy who had told me he was in love with me and hadn’t spoken to me since. So I decided to find myself a date and try to cheer myself up. Enter, Daniel. Before we met, I asked him whether he was into plus size women and he said he was. I decided that his acceptance of my body was what I needed in the moment.

When I first met Daniel in a coffee shop in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, he seemed really into me, but halfway through the date, he got a “phone call”. I’m pretty sure he faked a conversation with work, feigned some emergency, and told me he had to leave right away. Date over.

At first, I was pretty embarrassed by the whole thing. I berated myself for playing along with Daniel’s work emergency instead asking him to be honest if he just wasn’t into me. But in retrospect, it was a kindness, on his part and on mine.

I know that my body is a turn off for some men; that’s why I seek out people who are attracted to it, because it lowers the chance of rejection. But in this case, I was rejected even though Daniel said I was physically his type and to that I can only say “c’est la vie.”

Two years ago, I might have taken this experience to heart and believed that it was because I am not beautiful or worthy of love. I don’t believe either of those things. Whoever I end up with, I know they will love me, fatness and all. I’m just not sure I’ll find them on Tinder.

[I would maybe suggest a title, because it seems more like a specific incident about a specific date]