At first, when I was thinking about this piece and Michelle Thomas — who reversed-shamed a Tinder date in 2015 when he said he adored her and thought she was funny and pretty, but could never have sex with her, and subsequently broke up with her — I thought I didn’t have any appropriate stories.
Me, without a story? Me, someone who’s constantly struggled with her weight (especially as an adult), had no stories of being told how amazing I was if only I’d lose a little weight.
I’ve experienced fat-shaming way too often.
Do you remember the time before Tinder when we were forced to either go to a bar or go online to meet someone?
I was always very clear about how I looked and always sent a current picture. I was diligent to the point of obsessiveness about an attitude of “This is how I look. If it’s not your thing, that’s OK.”
I never wanted to see someone’s face fall upon meeting me, or having them give me the “You’re pretty, just not my kind of pretty” speech.
Why is it that no matter how honest you are about your looks, men don’t believe you?
In her response to the text from the man on Tinder, she wrote in a blog post:
“You may think all my profile pictures are ‘FGASs’ (That’s Fat Girl Angle Shots: pictures from angles that slim and flatter the girl. Because men only ever use candid, brutally-lit, unfiltered pics). But I think they’re a fair representation. And I’m pretty upfront about who I am…
I like to think I come across as a confident, happy woman. But could this be the very reason you have targeted me? Did you see me and think, ‘She has far too high an opinion of herself, she needs to be brought down a peg or two’?”
Thomas wasn’t out to fool her date. When they went on a date, they ended up having a wonderful time together, laughing and talking over a great dinner.
Maybe she thought they’d clicked, but I don’t think she was picking out China patterns. She probably was a little hopeful with modest expectations.
Then the next day, she received a cruel text, including this passage:
“I’m not going to lie to you… I adore you Michelle and I think you’re the prettiest-looking girl I’ve ever met. But my mind gets turned on by someone slimmer. Shallow? It’s not meant to be. It’s the same reaction you get when you read a great author or see an amazing image, or listen to a piece of music you love, it has that instant reaction in you that makes you crave more. So whilst I am hugely turned on by your mind, your face, and your personality (and God… I really, really am), I can’t say the same about your figure. So I can sit there and flirt and have the most incredibly fun evening, but I have this awful feeling that when we got undressed my body would let me down. I don’t want that to happen, baby. I don’t want to be lying there next to you, and you asking me why I’m not hard.”
For me, the idiot I met online made me mix tapes, and we talked for hours about music, movies, and books. We met in person and had what I thought was a great time.
He wasn’t exactly hot, but he wasn’t hideous either. Then he said the words no one wants to hear: “You’re just not my type. I like hotter girls.”
Did I mention that he was quite a bit overweight, and was between jobs?
Yes, this guy wasn’t a prize and if I’d been honest with myself, I would’ve seen that he wasn’t good enough for me — not on a physical level, not on an emotional level, and certainly not on a mental level.
But he felt he had the right to choose or not chose me; that the whole thing was in his hands. What would’ve happened if I had been good enough for him?
When Thomas got that horrible text, instead of letting him fat-shame her without any response, she wrote back the greatest response and turned the tables on him:
“You don’t have to fancy me. We all have a good friend who we look at ruefully and think ‘You’re lovely, but you just don’t tickle my pickle.’ We wish we were attracted to them, but our bodies and our brains don’t work like that. And that’s fine. What isn’t fine is the fact that, after a few hours in my company, you took the time to write this utterly uncalled-for message. It’s nothing short of sadistic. Your tone is saccharine and condescending, but the forensic detail in which you express your disgust at my body is truly grotesque. The only possible objective for writing it is to wound me.
And I’m ashamed to say, for a few moments, it worked. You stirred a dormant fear that every woman who was ever a teenage girl has — that it doesn’t matter how funny you are, how clever, how kind, how passionate, how loyal, how determined or adventurous or vibrant — if you’re a stone overweight, no one will ever find you desirable. I like the way I look. I don’t look like Charlize Theron, and that’s fine — I look like me, and I like myself (I’m sure I’d like Charlize Theron, too if I ever met her. I hear good things).”
I actually felt a little sorry for her loser date. Here she was, this amazingly beautiful, smart, vibrant, funny, talented woman who completely took the internet by storm.
Articles have been written about her, she was making television appearances, and getting every kind of offer imaginable. She was thrust into the stratosphere.
She even crowd-funded a book. She’s a writer, performer, podcaster, and comic, and even though there are still haters who try to take her down, she took full advantage of her moment.
And why shouldn’t she? She said what many of us never had the chance to say, and she stood up to her fat-shaming bully.
