[Nikaia]

Or at least overcome the fear of someone seeing you naked?

Cause I've got a date for tonight, if I can get ahold of her to get directions, and I'm SO scared. I've never met this girl before - we met on the internet - but I've seen pics of her, and given her a few of me. But it's different giving someone pics of you posing so that all the problem areas are camouflaged, or when you're wearing an outfit that hides the bad parts, etc...and being in person with them and possibly going to bed with them for the first time. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I'm trying to imagine her reaction, and all I can think is, Who would be attracted to this? I don't know that I would be.

How do you get past it and actually believe that someone might find you sexy in some way or something, or even just stop panicking every time you think of them seeing you naked or *gasp* touching you? Particularly if the person in question has a very slim body herself (or himself).

Sigh. I'm probably working myself into a panic over nothing, or at least overexaggerating it, but still...it's been bothering me.

[futuresurferchick]

I don't really have and advice, just saying that I feel the same way you do. I hope this doesn't make you feel worse but I can imagine it might be especially difficult for you because it's another woman right? It's more of a direct comparison. I dunno, maybe not. Anyway all I can say is that we are too hard on ourselves and we know it so I hope you can go out and have a great time and get past that insecurity.

[Dawn2Dusk]

Wow. You remind me of myself when I met my current boyfriend for the first time. Long story short, we met online and after a year of chatting, writing letters and talking on the phone, decided to meet. He had seen pics of me and I had of him and like you said, it's so easy to make yourself look different in pictures than real life. When we saw each other, there was an awkward silence. Lol. He saw that I was so heavy (I weighed 184 lbs at that time) and he was really, really skinny. A few minutes of talking later we realized that we loved each other too much to just stop seeing each other because we both looked different from each others' expectations, you know? It's been a little more than 6 years since and we're still going strong

What I'm saying is, relax. There probably isn't any bigger turn off for anyone, guy or girl, than insecurity. If you guys already have a deep connection going on and if it's true, the weight might come as a surprise but it shouldn't interfere with having a great time with her. Just be yourself, relax and have the time of your life. Anything that's bound to happen will happen (if you believe in fate). If she senses that you're nervous about your weight, it might make things awkward. So relax.

[kaplods]

I think we sometimes think our clothes hide more than they do,you know? Unless you have weird growths on your body (that you don't also have on your face and hands), I don't think anyone who has ever seen a "real naked body" or two is going to be very surprised.

By the time someone is ready to peel their (or your) clothes off, they probably have a decent idea what you're going to look like nekkid. They've probably even "felt" some if not most of what they're going to see (I'd kind of hope anyway, the thought of getting nekkid with someone without at some of the preliminary touchie-feeliness sort of seems less romantic than a professional wrestling match (go to your corners and come out nekkid).

My husband and I were both over 300 lbs when we met - when we finally got around to being nekkid together (he was shyer than I was, we were "dating" three weeks before I was even sure if he "really" liked me, even though we were seeing each other every day - not even a kiss on the cheek, Geez - but he was waiting for me to make the first move - of course I was waiting for him to make the first move, anyway regardless when it finally came around to getting nekkid time, we both knew that hardbodies weren't going to be under the "fat suits," but it still was a little "weird," for about five minutes.