Weighty Issues.

"Even though I have fat thighs, 

flabby arms 

A pot belly still gives good lovin'"

words from Freshly Grounds "Pot Belly"

I've grown  so much in the last little while.....but not in a good way.  I've put on weight, and a lot of it. I may go so far as to say I may possibly be at a record breaking high. *SIGH* My closet is full of neatly folded clothes that I have now expanded out of. I'm like an obsessive compulsive snake who neatly folds its shedding and vainly keeps it hoping to "one day fit into it again."

The phrase "love handles" is a complete misnomer....in my experience love and fat, mix like oil and water.
The effect of the extra pounds are somewhat devastating and my self esteem is hanging in the balance. I tended to shed pounds quickly and without effort each time Roger left. It gave me some source of comfort to lose that weight. My weight was so inextricably part of the sick and twisted dance of betrayal Roger and I had become a part of. It was something Roger kept to himself, but his array of brightly coloured tarts were all far more slender than I and I always felt that in some way, those fat molecules had something to do with repelling his affections.

Once after we had separated for almost a year, he decided to come back. I vainly and foolishly took him back.He came back, not as the penitent sinner, but rather as a shrewd businessman. WITH CONDITIONS!
One condition was that I kept the weight, I had lost, off. It was out in the open. When the pounds started creeping  back he viewed it as a breech of contract, simmering with an angry resentment and of course finding solace for this betrayal with some far more slender women. I try not to notice the irony of this.

If it was only Roger who came to the party with these shallow conditions for affection, I could probably brush  things off, viewing Roger as a defective male, but that hasn't been my experience. I find it hard to think about issues of weight and love, but circumstances have forced me to view the whole subject again and its as complicated as INCEPTION. ( the movie) This comes as a shock to a girl who grew up with a dad who loved her mom whatever her size.

I decided to do some investigative work. I interviewed a male. ( over a chocolate milkshake with a delicious dollop of cream on top...tsk...tsk...) He felt that yes, if he had married me and I was slim and trim at the point of "I do", he may also have felt betrayed and let down by excessive weight gain.

 Whilst he admitted some initial attraction to me when we were reacquainted,( some 15kg's ago) he did admit to the waning of those feelings almost directly proportional to my weight gain. A real knock on the nose for my already reeling self esteem, but lets keep things scientific for the purpose of my study.

Indeed this weight gain has definitely lost me bargaining points in the male attraction stakes, and I do so want to earn those points, but alas that is not all. Like the chicken and the egg, the weight gain costs some confidence points, a real kicker for the male populace who like their mates happy with life and confident Very overweight I am told ,is when your belly and your boobs are of equal size...( this has cost me several minutes in the mirror, trying to gauge how far my belly has to go to equal my breast size and has left me wishing I had bigger boobs!)

It would seem that males in general appreciate confidence, and would take an ever so slightly overweight girl with confidence, rather than a skinny one, all covered in self loathing and self doubt.So here I am an overweight girl, whose boobs and belly are in a photo finish race to the goalpost, all covered in self loathing and  riddled with insecurities. Many years ago, apart from my frightfully pale skin, a figure like mine would have been revered by the African men, who found beauty in dimpled thighs and wobbly bits. Beauty is really culture driven and in this culture which reveres the young and slender,at least some men like Freddy Mercury understand that Fat Bottomed Girls ....make the rocking world go round!!!!