Okay, so all my life I've been fat, and all my life I've wanted a boyfriend. Yes, I feel like I need a man to validate me. Yes, I feel worthless if a man doesn't think I'm beautiful. I'm losing weight so that I don't have to be 21 and on blood pressure medication, the fact that I've never had a boyfriend, well, I can't help to think that losing weight will help that along.

But what if it doesn't help? What if I meet my goal, and still no one loves me? Yes, I have a therapist by the way. Everyone tells me that I should focus on me, and not worry about getting a man (and please don't tell me that when I stop looking, I will find him. I simply don't believe it. I'm not going to stop looking as a pseudo way of...still looking). But no one tells me how exactly to go about not looking. I'm in college, I have lots of friends, a talent that I am passionate about, but for some reason, if I'm not the hot girl at the bar, my brain tells me that none of this matters. And it's weighing me down.

Please don't tell me that I have lots of time to find someone, and now is the time to have fun. Please, don't. I feel like I'm running out of time, actually. I went on an OkCupid date that was the WORST in the WORLD, and that's kinda spawned this latest bout of "wah wah no one loves me blah blah."

I'm 19 and also never had a serious relationship, if it's any consolation. I have also been fat all my life.

Losing weight will help you gain confidence, but not necessarily happiness. I had to accept myself as I was before I began to change myself. Maybe that is just my experience, but the sentiment around here seems to be love yourself before all else.

You can turn feeling worthless into motivation but it would probably be much better for your mental health to turn worthiness into motivation instead. No matter how strong willed you are, everybody has off days and there will be times that you slip up on your weight loss journey. If you feel worthless now, I'm afraid that when you do make a mistake you will feel even worse. Sometimes that mindset of making mistakes and feeling bad about it can turn into a cycle and push you right off the wagon before you realize it's happened.

If finding a boyfriend is your motivation for weight loss and that is what gets you up in the morning or making healthier food choices that's awesome and you should use it to your advantage. However, being healthier is a big part of it and YOU are worth losing weight to be healthier, happier and more confident with or without a man.

Deleted

Awww, thanks. I've been watching a lot of Gossip Girl recently, and apparently if we want a man, we're just supposed to carry around some dense philosophical tome, and bump into a guy who looks like he's into that sort of thing.

It's a shame to hear that you feel that way, but then again that was my mind setting for so long.

It is important to remember that your weight does not define you and there are men in this world who do not base their life around vanity. I can almost promise you that the feeling will not go away once you are in a relationship. It is an internal issue that needs to be fixed before you can begin to love yourself, let alone somebody else.

So many times I find myself upset about my appearance and my boyfriend of 4 years says I'm beautiful. He believes it, but I have a big issue believing him due to my low self esteem. This is something I need to take ownership of and work on myself. I would hate to see you fall into the same trap!

In the words of RuPaul, "if you can't love yourself, how in the **** can you love somebody else?"

TROOTH

Side note, that's you in your icon, right? I know it must sound weird, but I want to draw you so bad. I adore your nose. ...I like to sketch pretty people, okay?

That said, I totally agree with Airycuh. I love that RuPaul quote. I hope you can sort this all out soon.

Haha yes, that is me..and thank you for the compliment, fellow north carolinian.

1. I agree, I hate it when people say things like 'oh it'll happen when you least expect it' or 'it's God's plan' etc... I would much rather that people said nothing than some empty words that hurt more than they help.

2. I agree with Airycuh.

3. Mr. Right is going to love you whether you are 800 pounds or 120.

girl, i understand your feeling exactly.

I've been overweight since age 12. by the time i was 20, i was roughly 230lbs. i was the fat friend and never had a boyfriend and oh-so-desperately wanted to have one. even now, i am still a little bit the kind of person who needs a man to validate her (i'm trying to work on it...) and so i KNOW. and i am telling you, that is not a good place to be. because you know what happens when you are this type of person? you settle for jerks. guys who don't treat you right. and you don't do it consciously, you just do it cuz you SO wanna be loved, and you feel that any kind of love is better than no love at all... I am just telling you though, this is not gonna change when and if you lose weight. it has nothing to do with your weight. yes, your self-esteem was built down because of the weight, but once the weight is gone, things don't just magically snap into place and you feel sassy with no issues.

i got my first boyfriend when i was 22. when i met him, i had already lost 15lbs on a diet that would make me lose nearly 60lbs. i was feeling more confident so part of me thinks that's why i could finally open myself up to someone. we were together for 2 years and it was a pretty bad relationship. but i stayed in it because i would always think "if he leaves me, no one else will want me!!", which was completely ridiculous, because by the end of the relationship i was around 170lbs, and pretty sassy-looking (if i do say so myself ). in the end i left him and he came chasing me for weeks. shocking me into realizing that i had the power in the relationship all along..

it took me a long time, many years of dating jerks, of discovering myself and starting to accept my body and thinking that i looked pretty damn fine even if i was still a little chubs, to build that self-esteem back up. and i get hit on a lot and i am flattered by guys, but i still have a problem of man-dependency even though i am not that scared fat little girl anymore. it's hard.

so what i'm trying to say is, you need to work on yourself, on your insides, on accepting yourself as you are and embracing yourself as you are. fat or not. i'm not saying you don't need to lose weight, but what i'm saying is that you won't be magically better when you do. and when you learn to love yourself, or at least accept yourself, you'll find that maybe you don't feel the need to lose as much weight as you thought you did, and you'll find that maybe you'll be able to meet a nice guy a lot more easily than you thought.

i guess i rambled a bit. feel free to pm me if you wanna chat about it more.

You took the words out of my mouth. Learning to love yourself is more powerful than just losing weight.

I was overweight since I was a kid. I always thought that my problems would be solved if I were thin. Everything would be awesome! I would have friends, boys would want me, etc.

Well, actually I got all of that stuff when I learned to love myself. I was still fat when I made some of the best friends ever; I was still fat when I met my fiance; I traveled the world while I was still fat; I got my Master's degree while I was still fat.

I learned to love myself because I am WORTH IT. Everyone here is worth it. It doesn't matter how big or small you are—don't wait to be thin to start your life.

Don't hate yourself thin—it's a horrible way to get there.

I think it's a feeling a lot of overweight women experience. We're told our worth is measured by our appearance basically since birth. My mother constantly picked on me and my weight growing up (while buying me fast food and soda) and now as an adult, that self consciousness is something that I don't think will ever go away. I'm going to be 24 this year(!) and I've never had a boyfriend. I've never even been on a crappy date. My resume with men is an absolute blank. This actually doesn't bother me, but as a teen I just assumed that I would never date anyway, so I never looked forward to it. I never wanted to be a girl constantly looking for her SO to validate her self worth either. Also, even without having ever dated, I know that the saying, "If you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else" is true. It's actually caused me a lot of issues over the past few months. Around fall last year, my self-esteem hit an all-time low. I hated myself and I wanted everyone around me to hate me too. I strained a lot of my relationships with friends and family.

what you just shared rings so true. and the truth is even if you find someone we wouldnt be able to have a good relationship and allow love in till we love ourselves. I have been learning that slowly over the past couple years. Find out who you are and what makes you tick and embrace it and love yourself. be at peace with yourself. So that when God does send you the right man to complete you then you can show him true love.

I can resonate with everything you're saying but speaking from experience, it's completely wrong. Losing weight for that reason will only spark more insecurities and more problems. Learn to love yourself first! It's the one thing I wish I could go back and change.

Been in exactly the same head space. EXACTLY the same.

Let me say this - and I don't mean this to discourage you - You will have a very difficult time succeeding at your journey to health if you're coming from a place of self hatred. Self hatred drives us to self destruction. You need to get to a place where your weight loss is motivated by your love for your health and your life - even if it takes the first few pounds coming off for the wrong reasons to get you to that point.

It's a constant struggle for me every single day to say to myself that weight loss won't "fix" all the other issues in my life. But I say it. Every day. Start with that dose of reality. BUT ALSO SHOW YOURSELF LOVE. Reward the goals you reach. Indulge in things you enjoy doing. Challenge yourself on a daily basis. If you love to feel beautiful, learn new hairstyles and makeup tricks. If you're happiest outdoors, leave the dishes in the sink a night or two and go for a walk. Love a good movie or an old book? Lose yourself in it. Join groups, clubs message boards etc related to your interests. Surround yourself with people who like the same things you do. In short - round yourself out as a person. Don't just fix your physical body, hone and reward your mental and spiritual body. Soon your self worth will grow and not only will you lose the weight and look good, you'll be in good enough shape on the inside to have successful relationships and fall in love, and it will happen when you aren't even looking.

You're so young. I know you don't want to hear that, but you are. You have THE WORLD at your feet, and you're so smart making the decision to be healthy now. All things in time. You'll find yourself and love in time.