Finding Love while Fat and Forty: Single, Dating and LDS

This is the sixth in a series of guest posts about being fat and female in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Please consider contributing your own post by emailing exponentabby@gmail.com.

By: Angela G

These words are hard to write. I am 43, I am LDS, I am single, and I am fat. I don’t like saying I am fat. Sometimes I play mental gymnastics and say, “I have fat,” declaring that this isn’t something that defines me but an attribute I own, kind of like “I have a cold” or “I have brown hair.” Surely this isn’t the most important thing about me. 

I want to believe we live in a world where we realize all bodies are different, and someone might be a gazelle while another is a harbor seal, and that’s okay. I want to believe that, in the words of Lindsay and Lexie Kite, my body is an instrument for my use and not an ornament to be admired. Being “pretty” isn’t the price I have to pay to occupy a space marked “female.” I want to believe I am valued for my heart and soul, not the package those things come in. After all, man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart – and we want to be more like the Lord, don’t we?

These are the things I want to believe. 

I have grappled for most of my life with the mental and emotional weight that comes with a larger physical weight, and I decided decades ago that my looks were not my currency. Since adolescence, I’ve been more than happy to lean on my brain, humor, extroversion, optimism, positivity, and fun-loving nature. Over and over I tell myself, if there are 99 incredible things about me, and this one kind of sucky thing, I am still worthy and loveable and valuable, right?

I’m not able to look in the mirror and say this body is a gift from God. I’m not able to consider the parts that are the most ugly and be grateful for them. I live in the United States of America in 2024, and bodies like mine are not celebrated or desired.

I am reminded of this, over and over again, in my current social status as a single woman. I did marry at 22 to a man I met at BYU, to whom I apologized before our wedding night that I didn’t “look like a Victoria’s Secret model.” My weight, among other things, was a source of criticism for most of our marriage, and we divorced after 12 years and two kids. Then I was thrown onto what we affectionately call “the island of misfit toys,” where men and women in their 30s and 40s are single and part of the fun is figuring out why. 

We all have a story, and I can’t help but think how my weight is affecting mine.  

Perhaps you might read some of this as a blanket generalization on dating. Maybe it is. But it is also commentary on what it means to be “attractive” as an LDS person. Time and again, a “sweet spirit” hasn’t gotten me very far. 

Here are some of the conversations I’ve had over the last nine years with LDS singles:

One man told me it was important I have skinny friends and not just fat friends. It’s social suicide, he said, for larger women to only want to be around each other. Skinny women are social currency, and large women need them. One man on the Mutual subreddit arrogantly declared women were clueless not to realize “what a massive dealbreaker being overweight is.”One man said his father taught him the most important thing in a marriage was that every day he could wake up and look over at his wife and be attracted to her. I thought, this is what your dad taught you? Attraction is the most important thing? Every day? What if she has the flu? Or is leaking breastmilk on the bed? Or is fighting cancer? Even then? One man explained that attraction was what he felt when a woman walked into a room. I said, “What if she opens her mouth and she’s clueless and ditzy and rude?” He replied, “That’s why I go on a lot of first dates but not a lot of second dates.” I followed up, “What if a woman walks into a room and you’re not immediately attracted to her, but she opens her mouth and she’s smart and funny and interesting?” He responded, “We will only ever be friends.” To this man, no amount of personality could make up for a lack of physical attractiveness.One man online told me he only needed a small bit of personality in a woman and her looks made up the difference. I responded that perhaps the opposite was true for many women:  we just need something cute to work with, and then positivity, humor, romance, whatever, seals the deal. He agreed with me but offered no sympathy for the double standard. Again, it was reinforced personality cannot make up for a lack of physical attractiveness.One man met a woman online who lived a few states away and was quite enamored with her. They talked for quite awhile before meeting in person. I was surprised at how bothered he seemed when he said she was 20 or so pounds heavier than he thought she was. I reminded him, “Didn’t you said this woman was amazing? What’s the big deal?” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Guys like skinny bitches.” One man told me repeatedly that I was sexy, but when I asked what exactly was sexy about me, he got defensive. “Can’t you just believe me when I say you’re sexy?” Surely he could have said my eyes or my smile or my hair? He couldn’t easily point out anything, and that felt odd to me. (Maybe as a “words of affirmation” person, I am asking too much of the men I date.)I’ve lost track of how many men, when asked what they’re “looking for,” claim they only want a woman who keeps her covenants, loves the Lord, loves her family, etc., all the generic “spiritual” requirements. I challenge these men. “At last Sunday’s single adult fireside was a room full of single women who love the Lord, have temple recommends, and love their families. Why aren’t you asking every single one of them out?” They look at me like I’m crazy. A woman told me she read a book that explained a man’s “ticket to dance” is his money, and a woman’s “ticket to dance” is her looks. I went to a wedding with this friend, and she had a protein bar instead of wedding cake. There is a ton more to say about how this is a disservice to both men and women trying to date… but yet, I live this. I literally go to single adult dances and watch beautiful women get asked to dance while I awkwardly get a drink of water. I am friends with an attractive (“skinny”) woman. In one night, two men got her phone number right in front of me. There have been not one, not two, but three men who have called me while dating her to complain, ask for advice, and confide in me. I finally realized that I was the “DUFF,” the “designated ugly fat friend.” 

I try hard not to resent other women for being beautiful. It’s not their fault I have extra weight or we live in a world where they are the clear winners. The worst part, I think, is that these lovely women walk into a church dance or Sunday fireside and are automatically a potential love interest. I don’t have that luxury; it isn’t automatic for me. I have to earn the opportunity to be romantic potential. And sometimes, even then, I feel like a man is doing me a favor by considering me, with all the other options out there.

Another hard part about all of this was recently discussed on this very blog. When I consider LDS theology, I find it extremely unfair that my eternal exaltation is contingent on someone else’s decision to choose me. Yes, I get a choice here, thankfully, but if this doctrine is true, I am only half of the equation. If “salvation is an individual thing and exaltation is a family thing,” my path to heaven is only possible by an alleged knight in shining armor exercising his agency, which I obviously have no control over. This depresses me. 

My therapist hears all about this. I worry I’m simply not pretty enough to have the relationship I want. I worry I don’t deserve it. I worry I actually have a type of reverse body dysmorphia, where I think I’m prettier than I actually am. And lastly, I worry about the “scarcity mindset,” which is where I am trying to find someone who is LDS (already tough to do in my metro area), who sees the world the way I do (a bit left of center, prefer life outside of Utah), AND is attracted to me. It feels impossible. 

One last story. I was at a pool party. I was in a swimsuit but conscious of my every move, lest my stomach be too roll-y or my arms be too flappy or my legs be too chunky. A man my age whipped off his shirt, showing a round hairy stomach and tan lines, and executed a killer belly flop. Everyone laughed. I laughed. He was a star. And hours later, I was seething in a spiral as I tried to fall asleep. This man is ALLOWED to be fat, he is ALLOWED to exist in this world as he is, and his body is OK and acceptable AS IS, even celebrated!, but mine is not. Everyone loves him. Women have crushes on him. Hell, I have a crush on him. But for me, this is not allowed. My body does not fit.

Sometimes I try to lose weight. Sometimes I don’t. Those are tales for a whole separate blog post. For now, I go on dates, I go to singles activities, I’m on all the apps. I flirt, I kiss, I cry. Some days I feel so much hope, and other days I feel none. I work on my relationship with my body and my understanding of divine creation, of agency, of human love. Again, I am not sure how my weight is affecting my story… but I do know my story is still being written. This is my reality, and I am living it.

Angela G loves any opportunity to be creative. She is a big fan of cats and dogs, book clubs, Taylor Swift, D&C 78:18, and the occasional memorable yet expensive family adventure. She lives in the Pacific Northwest but will always call the East Coast home.

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