DEAR PRUDENCE
WITH ADVICE ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS AT HOME, WORK & BEYOND
Dear Prudence: Over the past three years I’ve lost a lot of weight.
I look different, but I don’t feel like an entirely new person. I have always liked myself and known my worth.
In the past six months, several of my friends have asked me out. Two of them had turned me down (kindly) back when I was a bigger size. The third is my close friend and long-term crush, Michael. I do have feelings for him, and the thought of kissing him makes my mouth run dry.
At the same time, I’m still processing how much better people treat me now that I’m thin. It’s painful to navigate, and while Michael has always been great to me, I become anxious whenever I think about the role my skinniness played in his attraction to me. I want to date Michael, but I don’t know how to start or have this conversation with him.
Dear Suddenly Popular: Two things are of equal importance here. The first is that if you go out with Michael without ever discussing these fears, I think part of you will always wonder what he “really” thinks of you, and you’ll spend a lot of time speculating what you’re too afraid to ask him about.
The second is that you can bring this up with him without feeling as if you have to quiz him for the one correct answer. This man is a dear friend of yours and presumably treats you with sensitivity and respect.
If you were to say to him, “I don’t really know how to talk about this, since a lot of it’s very new to me, but one of the stranger things about having lost weight is realizing how differently people treat me when I’m thinner. Sometimes it painfully highlights just how little they thought of me when I was overweight. I’m not looking for advice or reassurance from you, but I want to be able to talk about it together,” you’d be leaving a lot of room for an honest conversation on the subject. Pay attention to his response and consider what it is you’d need to hear from him in order to consider going on that date.
Most importantly, I hope you don’t dismiss your concerns or desires out of fear that you’ll lose this new, kinder, more attentive treatment from others if you act insufficiently grateful, especially since you say this isn’t just about romantic interest but about how everyone treats you across the board. You have a right to be frustrated — or any other of a host of possible reactions — upon realizing just how much politeness, friendliness, and general interest others withheld from you based on your size.