The Weighting Game Overweight Singles Face Social Stigma Every Time They Consider Dating

Maybe you love food and hate exercise. Or maybe you’ve been trying fad diets for years, or really do have a wacky metabolism or thyroid. Or maybe your big hips are just in your genes.

The bottom line: You’re overweight and you aren’t unique. You’re one of about 58 million Americans who are overweight and the numbers are growing.

But in the world of dating, where body bias is open and even fashionable, extra weight can be a major source of pain and frustration - especially if you hate the way you look.

After all, there’s already plenty of negative reinforcement.

Personal ads, for instance, can use very exclusionary language, notes “Lacey,” a 47-year-old nurse who lives in Hollywood, Fla. Specifications like “thin and trim” or “height/weight proportionate” make her feel shut out; she’s a size 22, weighing 220 pounds. During the initial phone call, Lacey also dreads the inevitable: “So … what do you look like?”

“I had a phone conversation with one guy, and we were talking for about 30 minutes - and then I told him, ‘I’m full-figured.’ He said, ‘Wait, my daughter’s calling me.”’ And that was the end of that.”

Janice Styles, a 34-year-old secretary who lives in North Miami Beach, says she’s run into the same barrier meeting men through personal ads.

“I’d like to meet someone who can take me as I am now, but if he sees I want to lose weight, he can support me in it,” says Styles, whose dress size is between 30 and 32. “Obesity runs in my family, so I figure for a while there’s no dating going on here. It has made me antisocial. I’ve been invited to things, and I’ve said, ‘No, I’m not going. I’m not going to meet anybody.”’

That’s a mistake far too many overweight singles make, says Paula Levine, a Coral Gables, Fla., psychologist. Overweight people shouldn’t hide at home, says Levine. Sure, it can seem like no one wants to date someone who’s overweight, but that’s simply not true.

“I tell my patients, just come and sit on Key Biscayne Beach for one hour on a Sunday and watch every size and shape of woman walk by,” she says. “Watch who’s wearing a bikini and a thong, and they’re not all 5-foot-8 weighing 110 pounds. In every couple, is the woman petite and slim? In couples that have an overweight partner, do they look less happy?”

What’s their secret? Simple, Levine says - self-esteem.

“It boils down to how you feel about yourself in mixed company,” she says. “Do you feel self-conscious? Do you feel like you’re tugging at your clothes because you have to hide something?”

If your self-image is bad, Levine says, it’s much harder to attract people. Some rejection is inevitable for all singles, she says, but don’t assume you’ve been rejected because of your weight.

Self-image has made a big difference for Artis, a 26-year-old Miami radio receptionist. At 220 pounds, with a pot belly he isn’t thrilled with, he used to feel monstrous when he confronted the gym-obsessed gay club scene, especially in South Beach.

“One of my friends actually put me in front of a mirror and said, ‘Honestly, tell me what you see.’ I said, ‘I see an all-right-looking individual.’ The friend said, ‘Look again. When I look at you, I see someone who is very attractive, who has a good head on his shoulders, who knows what he wants and who’s beautiful inside and out,”’ Artis says. “Now, they can’t get me (away) from in front of the mirror.”

A critical key to feeling attractive, Levine says, is to avoid dating people with a weight bias. Example: “On a first date, the guy makes a reference like, ‘You’d be so beautiful if you lost this many pounds,”’ she says. Her advice: Move on.

Vanessa, a 27-year-old Miami administrative assistant, learned that the hard way. When she was a size 20, she married a man who’d recently slimmed down by 100 pounds - from 350 to 250. He constantly hounded her about weight.

“He said if I didn’t lose weight, we would break up. I felt terrible. I was always trying to diet, but when you have someone telling you that, it makes you feel even worse. We split up, and he said, ‘Go diet, and when you lose the weight, we can get back together again.”’

Now, she’s down to a size 12. He wanted her back, but she told him to take a hike. If he couldn’t love her bigger, he couldn’t have her smaller.