board77

This doesn't sound like an instance where TWT is receiving compliments.

Here, Lali...

clicky

Thanks, Rune! That's great.

The sad thing is I'm too brain-dead to even make a decent joke, and there's about 20 of them just waiting there....



Lali

I'm sure if you gave it some thought, you'd get a grip on one or two.

Somebody get Lidless in here! He'll know what to do.

From the looks of it, TWT is handling things just fine.

Lali I think your post after you read my post was right. But I think I have to get over that. It's just I don't know what to do. I wanted to try a ballroom dancing class but right now money might be an issue. It's just I get the email then what? I have never asked out anyone and well I don't know what to do on that front really.

Also in the past I have had an extreme fear of romantic relationships for fear of getting hurt or ending up in a terrible relationship. In my family my parents marriage was not ideal and I have been worried most of my life ending up like them. But then I realized (in the past year) their circumstances were very very different and odds are I wouldn't end up in a marriage like theirs. It's just now I feel like I am too late out of the starting gate and don't know what to do.

Ah yes TED well some at clubs (they are obvious), at malls and sometimes just walking down the street. Even conventions there are some people like that. There has been this one guy bothering me for now 3 years!!! (He is not a nice guy there have been complaints about him by other convention goers). It's just one of my main problems is finding a person in my age group. Also I don't get freaked out by compliments by guys on the street (some are actually just being nice) but I used to.

I've learned that bad relationships will happen, and you'll never find a good one without sifting through some bad ones.

There is one reason that I don't usually compliment women here on their looks, though Lord knows I could. I have in the back of my mind that other women will half say to themselves 'he didn't say that about me'. What could be a simple compliment turns into something divisive. I remember saying something nice about Estel's photo and Ro's hairdo because they came up as subjects in themselves. I have heard several of the women here question their looks who I think look beautiful though, both older and younger. I think it is enormously hard to objectively assess your own looks.

Was just browsing thru some old threads.
We've had some amazing discussions on this board.
This was one of them.

I miss actually conversing on this site.

Or just watching the pros handle it.

EDIT: I don't mean conversing chit-chat style as opposed to the ~discussions~ that yov mentioned, just any kind of thread where it doesn't take weeks before the replies come in. Or better yet, it gets multiple lives when people come back to write more because it has stayed in their mind. I love when that happens.




*E*

There's no place I'd rather go to discuss issues like this. Seriously. You guys are the best!

ngl, I just raced through the whole thread with my fingers crossed, hoping I didn't post here. No such luck, but at least I caught this...

Wilma wrote:

(I know I am never ever ever going to wear a bikini it's just not going to happen)

The first place we visited after the comic book store last year was Bikini Bay.

Granted, she didn't find the color she wanted, but still...




*E*

It would be great to hear if those who contributed to this discussion are any happier with their body shapes, 3 years on...

I'm sorry I missed out on this first time round. For the record, I'm a touch under 5'8", 136 lbs. I have a naturally high metabolism and find it nigh impossible to put much weight on. I have had 4 children, each time only putting on 30 lb, which was all baby & fluid, and losing 90% of the weight straight after birth. The rest, and more came off with breast-feeding. I'm a typical English pear-shape... My waist is tiny compared to my hips, so I can never get skirts and trousers to fit comfortably - and I hate hipsters - at my age I like to keep my midriff warm and covered!!! My top half again is a size smaller than my hips..which is depressing in itself. I know many of you are thinkin' what the hell is she complaining about? many women would say that they'd like to be as thin as me...but why, why, why??? Guys repeatedly state that they like a bit of flesh on their women!!! They'd far rather have soft and cuddly than skeletal supermodels. I would give anything to be able to put weight on and feel more sexy and attractive...


Regarding attractiveness, it seems to me that no matter how pretty a girl is, or how great her personality, her attractiveness to men will increase 10-fold in correlation to the size of her bust. Now, there's nothing wrong with that....it's human nature to want more of a good thing, after all. How many of us girls making do with 5 inches dream of a good 9 or more????

To my mind, the problem is the double standard that it is socially acceptable for women's attractiveness to be judged in this manner, whereas women (okay, there are always exceptions!) normally do not judge a guy's attractiveness on the size of his equipment. Do you think if the same standards were applied that there would be queues of guys outside the plastic surgeons' clinics?

Just because it is harder for a woman to hide her physically attributes, why is it okay to comment and make lesser-endowed women feel unnattractive? If you are unlucky, as happened to me a good 18 or so years ago, a bastard of a guy will actually make comments about your (in his eyes) inadequate bust in front of other people. This was a work colleague, not even someone I was involved with! I am sure you can image how I felt at that moment... Normally, as Nin has commented in the past, you just feel invisible...you naturally get passed over for attention if your figure doesn't do the talking for you. And I feel it's a crying shame that women are made to feel less sexy and desirable if they don't have an ample cleavage to parade. It's no wonder so many resort to plastic surgery, and this pressure on women to feel that breast enhancement is the only way they are going to be attractive is so wrong.....

Wow, great thread. I wish I had the time to re-read it properly!

But before I run off to work, I wanted to post a musing: there IS a way to compliment someone without making it sound like a sexual advance. I have received some such compliments, when someone says, in an even tone of voice, or perhaps a smile, "you look good", or "you have such lovely eyes" or even "you have a nice figure". Yes, there IS a way to say these things without sounding like you want to undress that person! This kind of thing can make me feel great about myself. Whereas general ogling, wolf-whistling, dirty looks that reveal what the other person wants to do with you... only make me want to hide, they disgust me, they make me feel dirty. I only find blatant signs of sexual arousal in another person arousing when I find that other person attractive. Random strangers coming on to me saying "whoa show us yer tits love" will only get a swift kick in the nuts - metaphorical or literal, depending on my level of bravery that day.

I know that I'm not any happier with my body than I was back then. Then again, I'm not any more unhappy either, which is saying something considering I've put on a fair amount of weight in the years since.

The big difference for me is that I don't obsess over weight as much anymore. When we lived in Florida, I was beyond obsessed. The culture there was, I think, very bad for me mentally. There has never been any other place where I have lived where the culture itself seemed almost based on a fixation with appearance.

Unfortunately, that fixation continued on with me even after leaving Florida. I remember living in Burford, which was only a year and a half ago, and talking to Ber and Leoba about weight. Hell, bringing up weight as a topic when talking to anyone who would converse with me. For a time, debating weight was about my only subject to talk about. I can't even imagine how annoying that must've been for the people around me. It might've been better if it was an objective discussion.

To be brutally honest, it was mostly me almost bragging about how much exercise I did (to be fair, I did a LOT), whining that it didn't do any good (it did do a fair amount of good actually, but it didn't feel like it at the time), complaining about the culture that said skinny girls were the prettiest, and opining that it was only okay to be very skinny if a girls natural metabolism created her like that but that anyone who worked out to get that thin was gross. Basically, in real world terms, I came across as a defensive bitch. In hindsight, I will be a bit more kind to myself than that. I was, and am, pretty damned agoraphobic in the social anxiety/fear of people/fear of judgement sense of the word. The more nervous I got, the more defensive I would get, the more defensive I got, the more anxious I would get. Basically, if you've ever been in a room with me where I've been a massively defensive bitch talking about weight, then you've been in the room with a girl having, or about to have a panic attack. To this day, I have a difficult time leaving the house by myself, and I have an extremely difficult time doing it without wearing full makeup, nice clothes, etc. Going to a crowded place, even with Steve, is almost impossible to do without having a high level of anxiety or a full on panic attack.

I am, however, more settled in my own skin and don't feel so defensive about how I look than I was a few years ago. When we lived in Florida, I literally went for two years where I didn't leave the house by myself. Gibraltar has, in that sense, been very good. I still don't really know any people here, but the attitude about looks here is so relaxed that it makes it easier. I've seen women who must weight 2-4 stone more than I do and they're down at the pool or the beach in their bikinis, confident and uncaring about what people think. Even more telling, I've never heard anyone, not even the most annoying teenage girl, say anything sniggering or rude. I can honestly say that I've never lived in any place more relaxed about looks that Gibraltar. That's not to say that people here are sloppy in how they dress, or that everyone is fat or anything like that. It's just... I've never heard a single comment from anyone who lives here about another person like "she's too skinny" or "she's too fat." There's the usual amount of lack of self confidence, but I can honestly say that I've never heard anyone, even in passing, say something negative about the appearance of another person.




After all that meandering, the gist of it is, I'm not any happier with my body than I was a few years ago, but I am not scared of it or peoples reactions to it anymore. I am more comfortable in it.

My feelings about my body shape haven't changed- but I've come to realize recently that I do have a sugar addiction, and that coming to terms with that will probably get me down to a healthy weight again. (Yes, I've gained back the weight I was losing in this thread)

And I'm not joking about the sugar addiction. It's literally a drug for me and other sugar sensitive people. Read "Potatoes not Prozac" by Kathleen Desmaisons for more info, if interested. For some people, eating sugar and other simple carbs causes a release of beta endorphins in the brain and one gets that "feel good!" feeling and can get addicted to it-- with all sorts of adverse consequences.

I'm detoxing now.

I've come to a completely different place in my life. Losing weight and being in shape have nothing to do with how attractive I want to be. I exercise daily now, not just walk and at the end of April I am going to start a running routine with a friend. A year ago I would never have thought this. However in August I had surgery to correct some of my stomach muscle tearing having twins did almost 20 years ago, I also had breast reduction surgery, both for my back. So this last year has been life changing for me as to my outlook on weight. I am the thinnest I have been in a long long time, have tons of energy and eat completely differently than I ever have before.

I guess by the 'worlds' standards I have become more attractive, but to me it's not about that at all. I am not trying to please anyone with my 'attractiveness'. I am exercising and eating differently for my own health. My energy level is through the roof simply by eating differently, and it has a ton to do with cutting sugar out of my life completely. I don't eat a meal that has more than 12 grams of sugar, be it from actual sugar or from simple carbs.

I have not had a soda in 7 months, diet or otherwise. That was hard, but now I don't miss them at all. I eat fresh veggies and lean cuts of meat and don't eat out much at all. I haven't eaten fast food in I don't know how long. Drink water or tea mainly. Doing all of this has been hard, but I do not do any of it to be attractive, I do it now because I want to feel good physically. My bones don't hurt much anymore, my number of flu/colds have decreased and I have a good time exercising.

This all said it took me years to figure out that exercising should be fun and found an exercise that I like, which is dance. I still do the belly dancing for the core training but thanks to a friend who is a dance instructor I have added hip hop, jazz and salsa to my dance steps. I prefer salsa and sambo.

Strangely all of this has nothing to do with losing weight now, it did in the beginning. And it never really was about attractiveness, or it hasn't been in several years.

I think if someone is trying to improve their attractiveness for vanity they will have a hard time reaching goals.

Plus I have always thought the most attractive thing a woman can be is confident in herself. That doesn't come from Cosmo or Vogue, it comes from self acceptance and self love.

Well enough from me...

There is something about being in the over 30 crowd that has made me a lot more okay with how I look.

I have been the one bitching about my weight and criticizing everything that everyone else ate that I thought was too fattening. As a teen, I was borderline anorexic (5'9" and 98lbs or 44.5 kilos). I obsessed over grams of fat. I would have hated to have been around me anytime before I was 30.

I have gained about 20 pounds in the past couple of years, but I think that I look better for it. And my husband likes my softer tush.

I don't even know.

I have read this topic (almost) thoroughly, and still hesitated to post, mainly because, if Lily here says she used to be borderline anorexic, I was anorexic when I was 13 (34 kilos at 1.62 m), and two months away from death by starvation, the doctors said.

Um, it doesn't help. I mean, besides all the psychological effects (I used to be a kid with a healthy appetite, a fast metabolism and a devil-may-care attitude towards food), you also get a lot of physical problems, i.e. anemia, lack of calcium and magnezium, lack of vitamins, and, in my unfortunate case, celulitis - which doesn't disappear no matter if I'm size 36 or 38 (I usually vary between the two), and with which I'll have to live and eventually die.

Anorexia ain't good for you