Dating is a minefield of half-truths, hand-holding and hedonistic new experiences; all things Kelly Glover embraces wholeheartedly.
So much so, the 39-year-old ‘plus-size’ blogger never found it hard to get dates, but after a weight-loss journey which saw Kelly lose 10 stone and drop down to a healthy 13-stone, the Australian was dismayed to discover fewer men approached her.
Why? Because ‘bigger women are seen as easy’, according to a friend of Kelly’s – who she asked for dating advice.
Musing over why she was getting fewer dating opportunities, Kelly turned to a friend who explained, in his experience, ‘people are more confident hollering at fat chicks’.
After being reminded of the ‘fat chicks are easy’ myth and experiencing a ‘light bulb moment’, Kelly is here to confirm it’s ‘total bull’.
She’s now set out to bust some myths about dating and is on a one-woman mission to, in her words, ‘ovary-up’ and prove to men, one size certainly does not fit all female stereotypes.
Writing in MammaMia, Kelly explained:
An unexpected side effect of extreme weight loss is that it’s harder to get dates. I know! You’d think it would be the opposite, right?
After losing 67kg I was half expecting a romantic comedy montage-style life of never-ending meet cutes with dates scheduled back-to-back all weekend long – but nope. It’s been crickets.
When I was 152 kg, I got asked out all the time. Seriously. All-the-damn-time… Now I’m 84 kg and size 18 (still fabulously fat) but there’s no magical mic drop moment. Instead I’m left tapping the mic asking, ‘Is this thing on?’
Kelly has embarked on a challenge – the aptly named 50 Fat Dates, which she documents in a candidly hilarious podcast – to go on 50 dates ‘as a fat girl’.
She continues to narrate her own experience of dating, saying:
You think fat chicks are easy? Go ahead and try to persuade a big girl you’re really into her and see how that works out for you. Good luck with that.
Truly pursuing a fat chick isn’t a sprint, it’s a freaking marathon!
For now, Kelly has learnt what she knew all along: To stop waiting for prospective partners to make the first move and grab the proverbial bull by the horns.
She’s now joined the female-led dating app, Bumble.
Kelly joins the ranks of so-called plus sized models, both male and female, who are smashing through the sizeable stereotypes regarding our fleshy forms.
Best friends, Kate Wasley and Georgie Gibbs suffered the salty end of keyboard warriors’ sharp tongues and shameless abuse, when Georgie was accused of PhotoShopping Kate’s body to make herself look slimmer.
Kate and Georgia have now started a social campaign called Any BODY to change the way we look at women’s bodies, and how we value certain aesthetics.
Kate, recalled her own reaction, telling UNILAD:
I was just shocked at how people came to that conclusion in the first place… It just really ignited a fire in me that something had to be done regarding body image and including different body types side by side on social media.
I’m just representing myself and things that society labels as flaws. I want to show people that cellulite is normal, it can occur in bodies of any size.
Kate herself was once a similar size to Georgia, but crash dieting on less than 800 calories a day as a teenage high school student left her battling her own body.
Now, in womanhood, Kate told us she just wants ‘to show that health comes in a range of different shapes and sizes and that you can be comfortable with yourself no matter what beauty standards society throws at you’.
Kate admits to spending her formative years working against her natural and healthy body shape, sharing a health transformation post which flips the usual #TransformationTuesday trope on its head.
Now Kate has learned to block out the white noise of other people’s judgement and can sleep easy ignoring hatred… Usually after spending her days running, boxing, surfing, and – of course – modelling, to keep fit and active.
It just goes to show how body comparisons – and the inevitable consequence of shaming – are worthless – as long as you’re happy and healthy.
As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.