You're viewing a single thread.
In my experience: He's emotionally available, interested in her and her experience, actually listening, gentle and honest.
I'm about the fattest, ugliest, loser nerd around and if I can be in a relationship with a succesful, beautiful, adventurous woman, so can anon.
I am sure it isn’t the case. The first part of the last sentence I mean.
Meh, I'm like really heavy, dangerously so even, and my many health problems (which don't help with the physical attractiveness) originate from that. So no, I'm ugly and fat and in many, many regards I'm a loser. But I have other things going for me.
GF wants into this discussion, this is her words:
I wouldn't call him the fattest, ugliest, looser nerd, but he is definitely fat and doesn't conform to any classic ideal of male beauty. Instead, he is very gentle, loving and tender and makes me feel like a goddess. He also does what he said he would do: he is interested in me, not just because he has to ask, he actually wants to know what I think and feel. And he is not afraid to tell me his feelings, honest and vulnerable, even if they are actually embarrassing and he may even be ashamed of them. He wants to connect with me emotionally, honest and with his whole heart.
So I guess I'm making up for it with inner beauty and that's precisely why I commented here:
I had already given up on love, I was a 40 years old, depressed, fat nerd with a career going nowhere. Really not physically attractive at all. I've been where so many of these Anons are. But through my significant other and the ones before her, I learned that you really don't need to be tall, fit and conventionally attractive to find love.
"Just" respect your partner, be open, be honest, be gentle, be caring and be interested, really interested in what she thinks and does and feels.
For me the hardest part was lowering my defenses and being vulnerable with her, telling her even the things that I thought she would find unmanly or disgusting, everything I was and am still ashamed of. And sometimes it's really hard to actually listen, to not just hear but listen, to not let her voice be drowned out in the multitude of voices from inside and outside your own head and things and media and events happening around you every day. I've really had to learn (and am still learning) to come to a calm focus and practice active listening. It's not easy, but I do it because I love her, and she's given me the mental stability and something to look forward to that has helped me start not only my weight loss journey, but also continue to work at becoming a better person, better listener and the man I want to be for her.
I'm far from perfect, I still mess things up, my weight loss progresses painfully slow, my mental health still has pretty bad days and I've fucked up listening again this week, just like last week. But I'll be damned if I give up again. And she's so incredibly supportive and appreciative, that I'm still wondering sometimes what the hell she sees in me and how I deserve someone so wonderful.
Fuck yeah.
I've thought for years that the most attractive features in a person are Curiosity, Care and Growth (as in, learning and improving yourself).
Sounds like you've got those in spades.
Rooting for you, man! Be kind to yourself too, you definitely deserve it!
Damn dude, seems like you're still winning to me. Just having that support goes a long way, hope you can keep at the weight loss (progress is progress) and have more good mental health days than bad (the more you practice the easier it gets, even if it's never easy).
Sometimes I hear Kevin Smith talking about himself in front of a crowd, and he immediately describes himself as this fat loser... and I always think bro, you're doing fine - great even - stop putting yourself down in front of others, it makes everyone feel weird.
Ugh, I just had a flashback to middle school, when my very attractive friend (who was already a model) complained that she was ugly because of an itty, bitty little zit she got one day.
Meanwhile I sat there, a relative pizza-face, thinking: Seriously? If you are ugly, what does that make the rest of us?
Yeah well Kevin did weigh 257 pounds and is a successful director, producer, writer and actor... I'm north of 400 and none of those things. But I got other things going for me, so I'm okay with being a fat ugly loser, I'm winning what's important to me.
Well I'm probably reading too much into it, but I just think that being publicly revulsed by yourself, even in jest, teaches others how to treat you.
I know that going the other way is the path to narcissism/arrogance, and pointing out your faults keeps you humble and telegraphs that you have no defences because you dont need any... but I think that works only if you assume that people dont take others at face value. Which we all unfortunately do.
Not really sure what I'm advising here, or what the middleground exactly is here, but hopefully you can see where I'm coming from
Both directions of it are defense mechanisms. And ime it's better to go the jokingly overconfident route than the self depreciation route, though I find a bit of both to be fun. That said here his self depreciation serves his argument.
Agreed on all fronts