What happens when I am not fat?

O.k. maybe I didn’t choose myself. The guy in my Stress Management was just too cute. Since my last blog, I had decided to get his e- mail address because in group he talked about how he liked to use the computer. I thought two things: it’s not his phone number so it won’t be like admitting I like him so it's less risky and two it’s not his phone number so it’s not like totally going against my therapist because again it’s not like saying I like him. Well, I was so nervous the day before. However, I went to Yoga and that really calmed me down! Yoga is wonderful. I am getting side tracked so I ask him right! And he gave it to me. After my hands shook as I gave him the paper and dropped the pen I was handing to him to write it down. Anyway, I wrote him two days later and he wrote back the next day. So I am all excited and I wait a day to e – mail him. Well, five days later no response. You know what I do? I e – mail him again to ask him if he got my e – mail. Nothing for over week! Today I go to group, no words exchanged. The simple answer is in my second e – mail to him I asked him if he had a girlfriend. Maybe that was just as risky as asking for his phone number. Well, you know what? I keep thinking in my head, “What if he does want to encourage me because I am still over weight?’ Which by the way, I weighed myself at the clinic today because a wise person told me you should always use the same scale and I lost two pounds in two weeks!

Now everybody is either saying, “Amanda, that might not be the reason.” Or if you agree with me, “What a jerk?” Well, here comes my question. “What happens when I am not fat?” I mean eventually I will get to my goal weight, right? And I plan to stay there! What if I don’t find anyone until then, will I ever know if the person would like me if I was fat? I have been the fat girl now for eight years! I know what it’s like. Also there are not that many medicines for schizophrenia that don’t cause weight gain. What if something went wrong and I needed to be put back on a med with a side effect of weight gain. I mean yeah, I still work out and eat good, but what if I can’t maintain a healthy weight. I was over at my friend’s house watching “Fat like Me.” And the main character, after posing as a fat girl, asked her boyfriend, “What if I was fat, would you still like me?” He said, “You and I are athletes. We like being physically fit that’s just who we are!” So I say the real jerk will be the one who likes me when I am skinny.

Now I want to say something here. Most of the men I have been attracted to have been skinny. That’s just what my psychical body wants. Maybe that’s the way the kind of men I am attracted to feel about their women. However, I learned a very valuable lesson when I was just nineteen years old. I meet a guy first weekend at college before classes even started. He was the sweetest and gentlest guy I’ve ever known (maybe besides my Dad). I ate lunch every Friday with him for about three months. I had pledged a sorority and while I was still a pledge we had our first formal in December of 1998. I had to ask someone so I asked this sweet and gentle guy. NO, he wasn’t fat. However, to me he was not psychically attractive. He just didn’t look hot. But you know what? He became my first serious boyfriend. He was the first boy I ever frenched kissed and the first person to ever see me totally naked besides family members. And at nineteen I fell in love with him. Even when I was in love with him I would admit to my friends he looked ugly to me, but I loved him for who he was and how he treated me. There is still a nineteen year old girl inside of me that loves that nineteen year old boy. If we meet today, the two thirty year olds would have to get to know each other before we could start anything. So no, if I meet him today I wouldn’t be in love with him. But I think that holds my answer in it. I will date a couple of guys over the next few years and have crushes on a few more that I probably won’t ever date. But in the end I will find someone who loves me. Not Amanda skinny or Amanda fat. Not Amanda with the high check bones. Not Amanda with the fair skin and dish water blonde hair. No someone who loves Amanda the funny, sexy, understanding, smart, and, as my best friend puts it, sweetheart. Now maybe that will never happen, but I feel it will. I believe that if you believe it’s possible it will happen. And if it doesn’t, I am not going to marry someone who just likes me because I am skinny!