I suck

Man, I really feel like a whiney bitch lately. Doesn't help that I've felt like I've been getting sick for a week now. Never actually sick, just like I'm coming down with something that never seems to come but keeps me feeling pretty awful. So, in the spirit of this mood, I'll not be talking about politics or pop culture or anything of significance or interest. I'm just going to be whining about how much I suck. Just warning you now.

I'm just feeling really freaking lonely lately. I've been single for over 5 months now, which is pretty long for me. I've been largely okay with it, unmotivated to really look for someone, but that's all crashing down now. I'm really missing being with someone. Its not about sex. Its the closeness, the intimacy. Sharing my bed with someone. Holding them close to me. The feeling you get when the person you're with just looks at you. Its about providing someone with emotional support and being supported by them. I'm missing it all right now and its really bumming me out.

The way I see it, there are three things that go into a relationship. Intellectual stimulation, emotional stimulation, and physical stimulation. I'm not sure its fair to say any of the three is the most important, and I'm also young enough to still feel that I can look for and find all three, but its hard not to be pessimistic sometimes. It seems like it should be easier, but I guess it never is. With my last girlfriend, I was very physically stimulated and very intellectuall stimulated, but there was never an emotional stimulation. Never that spark of something more. I liked her. I liked spending time with her, but that's not love. I think part of that is because I held back something important to me because I was afraid of being rejected for it. What I was holding back was my passionate belief in fat acceptance. I knew it was something I needed to be able to share with someone to really feel a connection, but I was coming out of a relationship where I was rejected for it and it scared me.

I think I'm only know getting over that rejection. It wasn't even like I was dumped for believing in fat acceptance. No, my girlfriend decided she didn't believe in it anymore, but knowing how important it was to me, she lied to me about what she was doing. She went on a radical, starvation-style diet, ramped up her excercise dangerously, and was never honest about any of it. She knew I couldn't support it, she knew it went against what I believed. She knew because I told her. Not as a warning, but out of appreciation. I had never knew what it was like to be with some who felt the same way as I did about these things, and it made so amazingly happy. I wanted her to know how happy it made me feel. I wanted her to know how much appreciated her and being with her. It wasn't to try to order her around. It was to thank her.

The common complaint when someone objects to dieting in a partner is that its their life and their body and I can't make their decisions. But, isn't this my life? Can't I make decisions about my life? I cannot support dieting. I know that is built on a foundation of lies and misinformation. I know that it won't work. Maybe for some FAs, its just about the fat body, but thats not it at all for me. If it was, I'd just sit back and wait for the diet to fail. Odds are 19 to 20 that the diet will fail, if even that. Odds are also 9 out of 10 that the diet will result in her being fatter than she started. If it was just about the body, I'd just sit back and wait it out. That's not what it is about. Its about sharing my life with someone and knowing that on the things that are really important to me, we feel the same way. Its about not being asked to support something I know is a mistake. I regret not getting the chance to talk my exgirlfriend out of what she was doing to herself, but I'm also upset that I wasn't able to make a decision for my own life. I'm upset at how depressed I was over it and how self-doubting I became. I'm upset at how I hid this from my last girlfriend, not letting her in and something I feel so passionate about. Not being able to share that. I'm upset that some of the fear remains. Maybe if not in the form of being afraid to be honest, but being afraid that I'll never find someone to share this with. Or being afraid that even if I do, I may not be able to trust it. Or that I will be able to trust it, but I'll be lied to again. And there just aren't any easy answers about this.

Its not like I need to be with a gung-ho activist. I'll be happy with someone who has decided that dieting is wrong and who is trying to learn to accept herself as a fat woman. Acceptance is always a journey. I know that in my own life. Its never easy, its never perfect, but you keep working towards the goal and that's what is important. When I broke up with my last girlfriend, I started putting up personals ads and I kinda mentioned fat acceptance but always in very coy ways. It was clear people didn't get what I meant. Now, I'm very upfront. I mention fat acceptance directly, even discuss it a bit and how important it it is to me. It should be clear what I mean, but I still get responses from people who just don't care. I got one yesturday from someone who was pre-op WLS. Not she came out and said this, I just recognized her screen-name as someone who had agressively backed WLS at a BBW forum in the "how dare you disagree with me" vein. It just makes me sad. I know its wrong and I can't just make it go away by saying that I'm sure this girl will beat the odds and it will all be wonderful. A few "success" stories can't make me ignore the truth of it and the truth of the pain that the weight loss culture causes. It just makes me sad. And yesturday, it made me annoyed that they didn't come out and say this. They acknowledge that I mentioned fat acceptance and responded using language that I wouldn't disagree with unless I knew what they really meant by it. I just felt like I was being lied to again and it made me angry. I fired off a brief email chastizing them for not being upfront in their response since I was upfront in my ad. I probably should have just ignored it, but I felt like I needed to do something to reclaim my right to feel this way. My right to my beliefs.

But, I don't know if I can hope to find someone who will agree with me about this. Its tough and its discouraging. It seems like the only people I ever find who seem to have the "total package" live far away are are otherwise involved. Putting up personals at a local site is an iffy proposition. Even the good responses might not really get what I was saying. The BBW dances in this area just depress me most of the time. They seem like a great big diet support groups sometimes. A WLS support group at its worst times. Thats not an environment where I feel accepted as an FA. I don't even get why these women want to be with an FA. I know a lot of FAs are very wishy-washy in their commitment to being an FA and utterly ignorant about fat acceptance, so I guess that makes it easy to assume that being FA just means being attracted to a woman during the time she's losing weight and after that it doesn't matter. Why do you want someone to think fat women are sexy when you are getting WLS? Just in case it fails? Because you don't respect our feelings at all? Because you assume we must not really mean it?

Years ago, the BBW dance scene seemed to go hand-in hand with the activism side of things, but that's been lost. I know a lot of activists knock the dances as trivial, but I think it could really be a useful way to reach out and educate people about the movement. I think this used to happen with no effort. The environment alone did it. That's changed, though, and I don't think any real education is going on. I don't think any outreach is happening. I think now it'd be tough to introduce any since there is such institutionalized hostility towards fat acceptance at the dances. Its a real missed opportunity, I think.

How do I find someone to be myself with? To share myself with? To just hold close to me and enjoy doing absolutely nothing? Is it really too much to ask for? And that's a rhetorical question. I once asked that at a fat positive forum and got the utterly depressing response from many people that "Yes, it is too much to ask for. Just give up." I don't want to give up, though. I know how happy it can make me feel to be with someone I could share this with. I know how wonderful all that quiet intimacy can be. I know its what I want and what I need. I just wish it was what I had, because I right know I just feel mopey and alone.