Dear Man I Met On Tinder.
I was on another date when I received your message. He returned from the loo to find me in a flood of tears. He was lovely, but baffled, and hasn't been in touch since, funnily enough.
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).
You may think are 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 describe myself as a woman who loves pizza, and include links to my Instagram page, where I have the #everybodysready bikini shots I took on my 30th birthday. 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 bringing down a peg or two"? I have to ask - we all know the internet is a dangerous place to be a woman with opinions (I discovered this first hand when I ventured a response to those obnoxious bloody adverts).
I showed your message to friends who expressed shock, horror, embarrassment on your behalf, and a desire to cause you actual physical harm. One male friend told me I have a lovely bottom "if unmarriageable". I laughed with them. Then I cried in my Slimming World group. That's right! Slimming World! You see, I already KNOW that I'm overweight. I can tell you exactly how overweight I am - 20 pounds. I've already lost 15, and I've a stone and a half to go. I'm happy with that. I will get rid of it, safely and healthily. Does that mean that I can't love and enjoy my body now? F*** no.
I'll never see or hear from you again (you may feel the need to respond to this blog. Please don't. There's nothing you can say that will make me think that you're not a disgrace to your gender).
What truly concerns me, the real reason I'm responding so publicly, is the fact that you have a 13 year old daughter. A talented illustrator, who collects Manga comics and wants to visit Japan as soon as possible.
I want you to encourage your daughter to love, enjoy, and care for her body. It belongs to her and only her. Praise her intellect, and her creativity. Push her to push herself and to be fearless. Give her the tools to develop a bomb-proof sense of self-esteem so that if (I'll be kind. I'll say "if".) the time comes that a small, unhappy man attempts to corrode it, she can respond as I do now.
Simon.
Kiss.
My.
Exquisitely.
Unmarriagable.
Arse.
P.S. "Slip of a girl"? CHRIST ALIVE, that's creepy.
P.P.S. You're not 5'11
