I used to see stuff on television about convicted murderers serving life sentences meeting someone by mail and marrying them and wonder what in the hell was wrong with me that I was a relatively affluent single guy who couldn't meet women and couldn't connect with any of the ones I did infrequently meet or ocassionally date.

I knew guys who were total deadbeat drunks, mean as snakes, stupid as rocks, as giving as Saddam Hussein, who went from one woman to the next. What was the matter with me?

I felt that besides being fat, that there was something fundamentally the matter with me, and that fat was an expression of some deeper, more deadly flaw. I say earlier in the thread that I think people bear full responsibility for their weight, and I believe that. But what I don't believe is that we should feel ashamed or like lesser people because of that.

I met my wife by a series of random events that make me a believer in fate, because we fit so perfectly. It was only after we met that I started to think I could be loved; every other relationship in my life was short-lived. And I was sure it was because I was fat, and they saw whatever it was that lived under the fat. That massive character flaw I expressed via my fat, that others could sense and I couldn't.

I still don't know what the flaw is, or was, or that it even existed. Maybe I didn't meet the right woman for 37 years because I just hadn't met the right woman. I thought I loved another one, but I really didn't. I didn't understand that at the time.

I've begun to think it wasn't a massive character flaw, but a series of compulsions, apathy -- and yes, physical problems -- that got me to 340 pounds. My perception of self is now that I'm not this massively flawed person who would be better off observing real life than participating in it. That's what I thought most of my life. I've been able to focus on my real flaws and work on them -- the obsession with getting "my share" of the food; my fundamental laziness (I am lazy). My passivity. Those things are just character traits, not this huge flaw I always thought I had.

I felt unlovable, until I found the right person to love. I had these daydreams of how I'd cope in 20 years, being the 400-pound uncle to my brother's children, living alone and unhappy. I look back now and am glad to have survived.

Scott

I can see this thread has really struck a cord. Psychological issues notwithstanding..I ate and I ate a lot. Candy bars 3 for 1.00. Oh yeah..and I ate all three usually on the way home. Whoppers for 99 cents. Gimme 2 of them! Buy one pizza and get the second for half price..yeah baby! 20 ounce cokes...gimme gimme. Buffet?? Bring it on!

That's how I used to do it. Thank goodness I have found a new way.

Add me to the list, too. I can't begin to tell you the crap I lived off of. 2 sandwiches from McDonalds, HUGE order of fries, regular Cokes, pints upon pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, candy bars, etc. It was awful!

Kyrasdad, I hear you on this. Couldn't have put it better myself. However, at 45 you begin to wonder when or if things will start to go right.
Interesting. I'd say I share the other flaws you mention too.

Ian, you're a convicted murderer and deadbeat drunk?

Wow, Scott, that just about sums up my love life right there, except for the part where you find someone.

I'm 39, and those are the thoughts and feelings I've had all my life. I am the lonely aunt (complete with 2 cats) who dotes on my nephews. I am the woman who can't understand why I seem to be only 39 year old woman who has never had a serious long term relationship in her life. It can't be only the weight, it hasn't stopped every other woman from experiencing relationships, so it must be a tragic flaw on my part.

But I'm not sure I feel any better hearing that you actually found someone after all this time (though I am very happy for you that you did! ). To hope that such a thing might happen for me just feels like a pipedream (and a delusional one at that). My mind goes to thoughts such as, is it just luck then, you have to hope to meet the right one? If it's just luck, then the pessimistic part of me (honed to a fine art after all this time of being alone) is sure I'll never be that lucky. I feel like my only hope right now is that it is the weight, and if I can take it off, maybe I will find someone. Then I get that little voice in the back of my head that says, it's not the weight, you know that, something is wrong with you. But then the logical part of me says, just like Scott expresses above, but I am normal other than the weight. I have a good job, I'm a nice person, I'm smart, loving to my family, loved by my family and friends.

Okay, this is too depressing a topic for this early in the morning, and my collegues actually don't know I'm such a sap about these matters, so crying at my desk is not an option, so I'll get out of this while I can.

Valerie

Can it be true, "I'll be happy when I'm thin"? I think not!
I weigh more now than I ever have. At 5'7" I'm 18st (252 lbs). My hair has now departed to the extent that I find myself walking round supermarkets looking wistfully at shampoo. BUt something in my attitude, especially toward women, has undergone a sea change recently. Strangely, I'm noticing more interest from women now than at any time since my early twenties. It all about vibes, man! Now if the interest was, uhm, of an interesting nature.....

I keep winding up underneath Ian..but I digress.

To pull us even further from the original topic of this thread. I have to say that at 226 I am no way no how a light weight but I have noticed an incredible amount of attention that I am receiving from men. Although I am thinner I am still not quite a "brickhouse" far from it actually. I think its more me feeling better about myself. Its a confidence thing I guess. Its me not dressing myself up in a tent and walking with my head down.

Valerie - I don't know if I can say anything to help but wanted to send hugs your way. I've had every single thought you expressed...I know it's hard but please believe there's nothing wrong with you. You express yourself so beautifully and it's obvious your a caring person.

I don't know why it seems to work out for some people and not for others. I was lucky enough to meet my husband when I was 35 (and fat, flawed, not self confident, doting aunt with 2 cats, etc.) and he was 40. So I know it can work out even if you can't believe in it anymore.

Patti - thank you! But now I am crying at my desk! Good thing everyone is out at lunch.

It's just more and more difficult to believe in might happen the longer it doesn't.

I've gotten to the point where I accept my life as it is most of the time. Have accepted that if I am alone forever, it's okay. I do enjoy the life I have. I just think it would be a lot better and more meaningful with someone to share it with.

Valerie

Valerie

If that is something that you really want in your life then let that be part of your inspiration for losing the weight.I sometimes think that one's change in attitude after losing weight makes one more "approachable" as a person.
You are beautiful and still young. You could have a wonderfull life with a partner if that is what you need and want....

Make it happen for yourself if that is what you really want .....Go girl.......

Valerie,
Me, one year ago - 30 years old, single mom because of a relationship that didn’t last much past the conception, living in a trailer park, weighing 350 pounds. My mother telling me I needed to lose weight so I could find a dad for my son, and at the same time not wanting me to spend any money on the prospect. Most of my dates only wanted…well, you’ve heard that big women are easy right…no, me neither, though they all apparently had. I had completely given up dating, and hadn’t in several months. I had a good job, luckily, but not a lot of friends, because I am a single mom. My sister had all three of my other sisters, plus my niece stand up with her in her wedding, but didn’t want me to, because “the style of dress she had chosen wouldn’t be flattering for my body type” (In other words, I was too fat)

Me, Today – 31 years old, under 300 pounds for the first time pre-pregnancy (7 years), married to my high school sweetheart, who showed up on my doorstep one day, literally (okay, he called first, but it had been years since we had talked), buying a home with a yard (I actually got to mow my lawn last weekend, it was cool!), telling my mother to kiss my arse, and best of all, making sure that my sister was the FIRST one I asked to have stand up with me, so she could “help me choose a style of dress that would look good on all of my sisters, not just some of them” (she looked very uncomfortable when I said that, but she did apologize.)

I say if you want to give up on finding love, go for it. It usually happens when we aren’t looking for it anyway. But don’t give up on yourself, because you are a great person. Who’s to say that if you started having some confidence in yourself someone wouldn’t take note, and snap you up. But if that never happens, and it doesn’t for some people, you need to be happy enough with yourself to get through the years.

You are a great person, and you don’t need to have a “significant other” to be that great person.

Sorry about the book, sometimes I just can’t seem to get down from that darn soap box!

Ellen

Well said, Ellen. What are we, Martians? Yes. That's probably exactly how some of us feel. No. we are bloody not!
'It' happens, I'm sure. One day, while your pricing up the toilet cleaner in Sainsbury's, love jumps up and bites you on the arse.

Just thought I'd add my voice to the chorus. 31, single forever, watched 3 younger siblings match and start hatching, watched many many friends do the same... and have had all the same thoughts as Scott had and Valerie has. I'm flawed, I'm unloveable, I'll be alone forever, etc etc. It *is* the weight but it's also not just that but the vibe and attitude, and how you've been taught to see yourself because of the weight. But how do you change an attitude you've had for so long etc etc ad nauseam. I'd wax more eloquent but you've already done it so well and I've talked about things like this before in my journal plus it's 1am here and I'm too tired to think straight.

I guess we just have to hope that Mr or Ms Right will eventually show up (and probably make an effort to actually find them, too) like they did for Scott and Ellen. My friends have been on dating websites for years and I've avoided them like the plague cos I'm so filled with insecurities and fears and issues. Today I started writing up a profile to put up. It's a start.

Deborah

Valerie, you sound just like I was until a couple of years ago. I'd never had a long-term relationship and I didn't understand why. Then I found someone and everything changed. I still remember what it felt like to believe there was something wrong with me .... There were quite a few spinsters in my mother's family, and late marriers, and I wondered if it were a personality trait. My brothers were also late starters.

I won't tell you "it will happen" but I can tell you that I thought it wouldn't and then it did. And since you cannot know for sure, it makes as much sense to believe it will happen as to believe it will not. And luck does tend to be on the side of the optimist.

BTW, I consider it an advantage to me now that I came into this relationship emotionally mature but without any "baggage" from previous failed relationships. It was painful for a long time to be so lonely, but I really wouldn't want to change my past.