(and, yes, I am of those who never did take a liking to Brad Pitt’s looks.)

kate, you have no idea how much I needed to read this right now.

I met this amazing guy back in early November, another musician, and SUCH a beautiful man, in all ways that I’ve seen so far, beyond the physical, but including it (IMHO). And we had that instant kind of electricity/eye intensity thing….but he kept avoiding meeting my eyes. And I kept telling myself he couldn’t meet my eyes because he didn’t want the fat chick/didn’t want the fat chick to think he might be interested. NOTHING to do with the fact that he was in a relationship, huh? I’m such an ass. And I KNEW he was in a relationship, and I kept avoiding HIS eyes, too! But deep down somewhere inside me, it was all about the fat!

This past week, I discovered he has become UN-partnered within the last couple of months. And lo and behold, the night I saw him, at a jam, he gave me this beautiful smile when I came in the door. And I kept catching him peeking at me all night, and looking away when I’d catch him. And he offered me his guitar to jam with, even though I have my own. (Yes, I played his guitar – and blew him away by jamming Led Zep with it! :P) And I STILL keep saying these things to myself: “No way is a guy that beautiful interested in me; I wonder if he’d ever be able to get past the fat?”

OMFG, what is wrong with me? I mean, that deep down inside nasty-ass self-hateful voice of mine makes it out like the fat is the only thing that could keep us from it! And I thought I was soooo over it, but it’s still there, still fucking up my ability to make eye contact or string together full sentences around a guy whom I think of as “too beautiful for me.” Even though we are so much the same in every other way except body size – I know my worth as a person, and feel his equal in every other way, except I keep comparing his tall thin frame to my fat one and wondering….if….if….. I have to keep telling myself that I am beautiful, too, in as many ways as he is, and my fat is NOT the negating factor to the physical beauty part. But it’s soooo damned hard. And it’s still limiting my ability to not act like a total idiot when I’m around this guy. I am scared to even dare hope, because the pain of being wrong would be too great with a guy like this, who is so fucking perfect for me that it’s not even funny, and with whom I experienced this “other-wordly” connection so great that I find myself comparing every single other guy I meet to that unexplainable thing, and finding the others falling far, far short by comparison.

That’s what being fat in a culture that tells me I’m ugly and not worthy of anything good has done to me: made me too scared to even hope for something I feel is utterly right for me.

Well, anyway, those are my thoughts. Thanks again for re-posting this, kate, I really did need to read it.

Kate, I so, so wish someone had pointed that out to me almost twenty years ago.

I was married, for about six years, to a guy who met me fat, married me (temporarily) thin, and spent the rest of our marriage moaning at me for not ever being thin again. Turned out thin was what he’d been aiming for all along. But, you know what? From little things in the way he acted over the wedding and honeymoon period…when I was actually thin…he didn’t really like me thin either. In fact, looking back I believe this guy had big, big problems with liking or respecting any woman, apart from possibly his mother…but that’s another story.

In the thread where we were giving advice to our 14-year-old selves, I mentioned living alone. For me, doing that after the divorce was a hugely liberating thing. It was meeting ME for the first time, and it was only after I’d gotten to know this mysterious person, what she liked, what she wouldn’t stand for – all that – that I was remotely ready to have a real relationship. I wish I’d had the chance a lot earlier.

(Oh, and Annie – I was one of those women you describe at age 30. I had to release a lot of myths – that guys automatically knew how to do it, that it should happen automatically within a couple of seconds of contact, that if it didn’t there was something awfully and permanently wrong with me, a helluva lot of baggage about sex and control and what women were and were not supposed to do – before I actually found out what I’d been missing. One more thing that I wish I’d learned a lot earlier.)

I have had conversations with adult, middle-aged married women who had never experienced an orgasm and I was horrified. Didn’t they experiment with their bodies to find out what did it for them? Didn’t their husbands give it a shot and try to figure it out with them? One girl had a hooded clitoris and couldn’t orgasm until she had her clitoris pierced (uh- for me, OUCH!) but after that she was fine. Whatever it takes, y’know? Hell, if it takes vibrators, shower massage implements, massive experimentation with a willing and patient partnet – there’s where you go! A man who is fully satisfied knowing his partner never comes is not worth your time, if you ask me. Even if it takes many “sessions” and many hours. THAT is a partner worth having. Lots of foreplay often helps, and a total lack of pressure in the experimentation.

Am I totally off topic here? I hope not, but I may be. But still, if you can find someone to experiment with you and find your ULTIMATE happy zone, where you finally relieve that otherwise unscratchable itch, I say that’s someone far worth the while.

Of course my husband loves to tease me about this – we were traveling through a beautiful – absolutely beautiful – verdant canyon with many trails, and he saw the trails and was excited by them. Well, I’m kinda disabled and the trails didn’t interest me. Then he said, “Well, I could put you down on a log and pleasure you…” and I perked up noticeably. He cracked up and said, “Ok, will there be coming on this trip? If there’s coming involved, then let’s go!” or something like that. So we both had a hysterical laugh…which is of course a nice aphrodisiac too. Or at least a nice bonding thing.

Might be trite, but learn to come all on your own, and then experiment with your lover to see how he/she can get you there too. Simple F***ing generally doesn’t do it. Just “doing it” is largely worthless. Find the sweet spot, find your pleasure zone, and settle for nothing less than someone who will bring you there, who ENJOYS bringing you there. I’d stay a virgin forever rather than not find a lover who WANTS to and CAN pleasure me. I am perfectly happy to bring him there as well. Might not be simultaneously, but who cares. :)