One of the pernicious things, for me, about being overweight was the label. The indelible announcement about yourself. When people first encountered me, the first thing they knew and saw about me was my size. Whether I, or they, liked it or not, that meant they had already made a judgement about me. Most of the time, I doubt it was flattering. Being fat is associated in many minds with self-neglect, over-indulgence, laziness, ill health, unhappiness and a whole host of other negative impressions.
I have to admit it’s also associated with those things in my mind, because for me they were all true. Unhappiness, to massively over-simplify, made me fat. Being fat made me unhappy. It seemed to be an unbreakable trap and much of the time I came to just accept it. I would think to myself that what I was doing amounted to a slow suicide, I expected to die early. Although I didn’t want to, I accepted the inevitability of that. So there was no point battling against my weight, I would never be able to change it anyway, so I might as well indulge myself because it was comforting and at least temporarily allowed me to feel, somehow, good.
So I ate and drank too much, did no exercise, had as much fun as I could at work and socially and accepted that my path was set for me.
A classic tale, in other words.
I also tried to make myself, and my weight, as invisible as possible. Because it was impossible to be seen without being judged, I tried not to be seen. Not in a reclusive way, but I wanted peoples first impressions of me to be formed before, or as soon as possible after, they first caught sight of me.
I avoided being in photos. There are 30 years of my life with virtually none of me. The few that exist make me cringe. Some because of just how bad things got (I was on the inside, looking out, so could avoid confronting the reality). Others, when I was much younger, because it was so much better than I thought at the time. I was thinner and more attractive in reality than in my head.
One way I avoided photos was by taking photos. I was an obsessive clicker, and even made my living from photography for a while. The other side of the camera was a more comfortable place for me. My career has defied my introvert tendencies and forced me to do quite a lot of public speaking. I never, ever, watch the videos.
I was early on the internet and became a master of online chat, long before there was the bandwidth for cameras and photos. It was all about the banter and I was really good at it. I could start a conversation with a few words and establish a real connection in a few sentences. It was a great comfort that nobody could see me.
Inevitably, though, once we established a connection people wanted to meet up. I wanted to, too. I was single, lonely, desperate for a partner. But I rarely met anyone. Because our conversation started invisibly, their mental picture of me was of the person they wanted me to be. The person I turned out to be, physically, was always a disappointment. So I let a lot of people down by refusing to cross over into the real world from the virtual one. When I did, I made sure to do it early in the relationship, and I tried to paint a picture of myself to avoid disappointment.
But, in my experience anyway, not many people really fancy fatties. The fact that anyone, ever, was interested enough in me to want to be with me, to sleep with me, was and is a source of amazement. There’s another blog post to be written about that.
Back to invisibility. I did, and do, love it. Blending in, not being noticed, detaching my persona from my body.
I used to achieve through, as much as possible, absence. From photos, from places. It didn’t work very well, and I managed to have a great circle of friends and career success anyway. But I always carried the knowledge that, to some extent, everyone who knew me saw a fat man. It was a big part of who I was.
Now, it’s different. I am invisible in the best possible way. I am just average. I don’t stand out. Physically, I’m just an average guy now. I don’t stand out in the crowd. It’s hard to form a strong impression of me before I open my mouth. I have become ordinary in the best possible way.
Its bliss.
Suddenly thinner 