Love in the fat degree

Toilet Humour

I missed out on many things when I was bigger.  I couldn’t go horse riding, abseil, go on rollercoasters, bungee jump or any of the multitudes of other things that women in tampon adverts get up to.  When it came to men, I was hopeless and even if one was interested in me and tried to chat me up I would turn on the snark as I would assume it was for a bet, or he was winding me up and I shotgunned so many retorts, self-deprecating remarks and jokes at them they gave up as they didn’t fancy a relationship with a female version of Stan Boardman.  Unrequited lust was a familiar feeling in my early twenties – I would never dream of telling anyone I fancied them for fear of giving them a heart attack.

I used to work for a funky IT start-up company that in their infinite wisdom, installed unisex toilets (i.e. there was a boys and girls but they were in the same bit, if you get my drift?) This, I think was meant to show how 'on trend' and 'cool' they were. (Watched too much Ally McBeal I expect), however it just made them look too cheap to buy a decent workspace.  There was a real life Adonis who worked for the company, who I won’t identify as some former colleagues read this blog. I had been infatuated with him from afar for many months, batting eyelashes, giggly shyly whenever he was near and regularly shaving my legs in the hope that one day he would notice me.

One day, I needed a pee, as you do, and I went into the loo and by the basins was this hunk of a man, having a gossip with a friend.  I was mortified, thinking, 'He can't hear me pee!!!!  He must think of me as a demure princess with no need for icky bodily functions!'  I couldn't just walk out; otherwise I'd look like an indecisive toilet lurker, so I went into a cubicle and prepared thoroughly to ensure he wouldn't be able to hear me tinkle.

I put loo paper down the front of the loo to deaden the sound, pulled my trews down, tensed the pelvic floor muscles to ensure a delicate trickle escaped rather than Niagara falls, and did the classic 'nightclub hover over the loo' so I could aim the pee at the loo paper sound buffer. (Ladies, you know what I mean. It is the twin sister to the ‘I need a pee in the woods so will scrunch my knickers and trousers together with one hand to avoid splashes and lean precariously on a tree with the other hand whilst dodging nettles and buzzy things.’ It is also second cousin to the ‘This toilet cubicle is so small I have to actually step up on to the toilet seat in order to close the door behind me and I have to hold my bag under one arm whilst trying to undo my fly’)

So, following much preparation and quiet fumbling with the Andrex I prepared to pee, doing the hovering aiming towards the loo paper buffer.   Unfortunately, I overshot my angles and ended up peeing into the back of my own trousers.  Thus, I was trapped in the cubicle, reeking of my own urine whilst he stood outside thinking I had fallen in.  I sat there for nearly 40 minutes drying off.

Chubby Chasing/Avoiding

Bizarrely, this is actually a true story.  Rather than tell a fella I fancied him, I would find convoluted ways of soiling myself.  As a bigger/larger/fatter person, whatever you want to call it, dating is something to fear in my experience.  You either get chaps who won’t come near you because you are fat or you get chaps that won’t leave you alone because you ARE fat.  These so called chubby chasers made it worse because the blokes I liked didn’t like me (to an extent) because if they had admitted they found me attractive, their friends would accuse them of being a said chaser.  Gosh that was a long sentence. Apologies.

I appreciate that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and just as I tend to go for blue eyes, slightly taller than me and a bit hairy then there are people who will want brown eyes, shorter and smooth as Lionel Richie in a nightclub.  But….but…… I felt that all of my other attributes (and faults) were completely written off as soon as people saw the blubber.  I would stand in nightclubs and pubs and literally feel about as sexy as a lamppost as eyes would literally drift across me as if I wasn’t there.  A chair would have had more chance of getting a snog than I at times.  Of course, once again, I am picking out the  worst bits in teh interests of interesting but it happened often enough for me to remember.  

All of the relationships I did have whilst overweight started with friendship first, as if people needed to get to know my personality to be able to see behind the fat.  I don’t have anything to compare it with I guess, maybe slender women do this too, but my perception is that the first initial ‘Raaaooowwrrr’ factor seems to be easier to garner when slim.

Girl Power

Thankfully, I pulled a goodun.  I did this through subterfuge and sparkling wit and a reliance on the slight loopiness of men, but I got him.  My now husband had just moved up from the sticks to the bright lights of London and was working at the same firm.  I liked his muscly arms and kept missing my last bus home so I could stay at his flat.  Little did he know that unlike most of the West Country, buses run past 8pm here in London, the fool.  Anyway, after much demure staying over (him on the bed, me on the floor, me on the bed, him on the floor, topping and tailing) and him being too much of a gentleman for my liking, I took matters into my own hands and purposely spilt a pint of water down my front so my top went see through.  The poor love didn’t stand a chance.  The lesson here is even when you are fat you have BOOBS and lots of men like BOOBS.  

My husband loved me when I was big and he loves me now I am slim.  I asked him a few weeks back if he fancied me more now I was slimmer.  This, as you can probably guess is one of those questions that will result in a huff from me no matter how he answers.  Because he is a sneaky genius, he responded like this: ‘I have always fancied you but fancy you more now because you are happier.  When you are happier you smile more, and there is nothing so beautiful as when you smile.’ 

I’m really quite glad I didn’t pull one of those fellas in the pub……..