There’s something to be said about monogamy, as it relates to self-confidence. It’s pretty amazing to find that *one* person who will (fingers crossed) always love you, always find you attractive, and always tell you so. No doubt it’s up to you to create your own self-image and to not base it on other’s opinions of yourself, but it sure does help knowing that someone is always going to be into you, no matter what.
And then you open up your relationship. Suddenly you’re asking the world to comment on you, to judge you for who you are, but more specifically what you look like. (Sex is, after all, the main driving factor in most open relationships, and it’s usually driven by appearance!) Doesn’t that just seem crazy?
A friend of mine mentioned yesterday he didn’t feel attractive enough to be taking part in his open relationship and that just crushed me. That even as confident, honest and strong people we can still worry about such silly details sometimes makes me feel a little hopeless, but we are all human and not everyone can feel good all the time I suppose.
I gained a new confidence about myself once I opened up my relationship. I’ve always had body issues, sure. Being anorexic, bulimic AND an obsessive exerciser in high school is more than enough to f*ck anyone up for a while, but I worked through them all after college, out of necessity really. It was either keep my self image and body image tightly linked, or try my hardest to separate them and start to see who I am as a person outside of the fat. To give my personality a chance was all I could do to keep from not going over the deep end, and still to this day I make a conscious choice to separate those two images, although they might attempt to merge with each other on a daily basis.
Most people who know me would probably classify me as quite a confident person, and I have to chalk it up to survival of the fittest. My self-image has to be stronger than my body-image or else I would just go mad. But while I am that confident girl I put out there, I’m also very much not and it can hit me on the head sometimes when I’m least expecting it.
When I opened up, I discovered this almost secret society of men that seemed interested in women with curves and a big bum. I started to mildly entertain the idea that I could be a sexy woman even with extra stuff attached to me, as much as I desperately want to remove it all. I had always felt sexy to my husband, but when opening up I realized that his admiration could only take me so far. I had a threshold that I would reach, feeling good on my own, as my own person, with or without someone else’s positive feedback. Then there was an additional threshold that only he could take me to. When I started to receive compliments from this secret society, I realized that there was another level that I could get to. That feeling sexy based on someone else’s view of me made me feel good, and sometimes it was nice to just feel that and not worry about whether I was relying too heavily on the opinions of others or not.
The problem with all the positive attention is how strangely easy it is to take it for granted after a while.
“Oh great, someone else likes my curves, my eyes, my lips, my honesty. Big whoop dee doo.”
It doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate it all, to some degree, but it does start to take on this air of falsehood. It seems unbelievable and becomes irrelevant; expected almost. Especially with online dating. Oh sheesh, especially with that!
It’s important to treat every situation as it’s own unique time in our lives, every person as their own unique self, but what happens to me is that I seem to need this reassurance from everyone I meet / date as to how I look, what’s good about me that makes me worth talking to. If someone doesn’t say they like my curves, my eyes, my lips, my honesty, I start to feel like less of a person because it’s become something I’m so used to lately. As terribly narcissistic as I know that sounds.
Do I not know these things already? Sure. I’m pretty confident in that which makes me awesome, and yet I know that not everyone shares the same views on what is and what isn’t so. I know myself that it’s not possible for me to find everyone attractive and interesting and awesome, so why do I give a shit if other people do of me or not? Why can it bring me to tears and run my life from behind the scenes as much as it does? I’m not sure, but I think it would be a good idea to evaluate it a little.
The hard truths about myself …
- I hate my body, yet I know what other people like about it so I deal with it and silence that voice
- I don’t think I look good in any of my clothes, so I’m constantly buying more to make it alright, day-by-day
- Everyday I deal with some bullshit clothing option that is uncomfortable or doesn’t fit how I want it to because I just can’t fit into the smaller things and I am constantly resenting others for that
- I try to eat healthy and work out, but honestly being that healthy scares me because of the paths I have traveled before to be that “healthy” as I don’t want to be bulimic, anorexic or an obsessive exerciser again
- Part of me wants to be those three things so I can just fast track to something better
- If I’m attracted to someone and they’re not physically to me, I feel like a loser for being friends with them. I feel lame for flirting with them, even lightly, as I don’t want to gross them out that *I’m* flirting with them and I’m so yucky to them. (Even though I still find it much easier to give people compliments as a result of being so open, I feel uncomfortable complimenting those I’m attracted to as I’m almost positive they’ll feel gross about me even mentioning of the sort.)
Recently a conversation with a one-night stand who has become an online … buddy(?) informed me that I was a fantasy of his. He had wanted to sleep with a larger woman, and there I had come along at the right drunken moment. I was glad to have been included but upon hearing his reasoning I felt terrible about myself. I felt great for being able to provide a fun evening, but the base that the evening was built on made me feel awful. It’s not that I live in denial, I see my body attached to me daily, but recognizing it in that sense hit home hard for me.
Then tonight, a new friend pointed out that I’m awesome, but not for him in the looks department. That’s a fair comment. No one can be for everyone. Yet why does it sting so much? It even stings me when someone says they don’t want to be with me simply because I’m in an open relationship. That’s the biggest obstacle of all and should in NO way sting me, and yet it still does.
It stings me when I can’t be pretty enough to make my ass just disappear. That I am not cute enough to create the illusion of a perfect body attached to my head. That I have to wear stupid leggings under my skirts to avoid fat girl skirt leg syndrome!
Even after dating / sleeping with someone I remain convinced that it was a strange blip in time that caused it to happen, and that they are not, never were, and never will be attracted to me. Well, that sounds a *bit* extreme. I do end up accepting that some people just like me as I am, as much as part of me strongly disagrees with their choice sometimes.
Yes, there are many cans of worms associated with open relationships. This is one I am doing my best to deal with. To go back to only knowing what the most important person in my life felt about me, not needing to worry or wonder about the rest of the world was a quite different time indeed.
Sometimes the simplicity of monogamy sings out to me, and it’s song is very sweet.
A lot of food for thought here!
I have, from time to time, considered a cost-benefit analysis of the poly life. With all of the possible pitfalls…emotional landmines, issues with dividing one’s time between more than one person in an equitable fashion…what are the motivators that ultimately make it worthwhile? And is there some common factor among poly people that compels them to do it?
Experience has shown me that virtually no one is happy with the way they look. A cultural milieu that constantly reminds us that we’re never good enough will do that. But this issue seems to be especially prevalent in the world of polydom (I’m not basing this observation on just one or two examples). My assumption has been that going poly is a way of seeking approval; of being validated and made to feel desirable. Being with one partner for a long time, it’s easy to start taking their affection for granted…receiving it from someone new is a way of being informed that ‘you’ve still got it’. I think this is a big part of why a lot of people don’t start getting active with swinging until later in life.
For me, it’s not so much body image issues as it is baggage left over from my youth – when I had zero confidence around women…when I was convinced that I was unattractive and would never have a girlfriend. That illusion was eventually shattered, but something I grapple with is that I fear that somewhere deep in my sub-conscience, there is a self-destructive side to me that wants to lob a grenade into my relationships, so I’ll wind up alone and have my self-concept validated again (this hasn’t actually happened, which is why it remains a ‘fear’). The self-concept is a very potent force, even if (especially if) it’s a negative one. But I think being able to shine a light on it is a way of not being ruled by it.
And for what it’s worth…I do happen to be one of those guys who likes the curves and a big bum. But I don’t think it’s a small little cult…I think I’m in the majority. Only a tiny fraction of women can wear a size 0, and an even tinier fraction look like models….and yet the human race manages to keep falling in love, fucking, and reproducing.
Good entry… the fact is I feel a lot like you do when it comes to my own attractiveness, or more specifically any time someone does sleep with me… like it was some sort of freak occurrence that they actually wanted to.
Beyond that though, I guess I should count myself among that “secret society” in that I prefer curves to bone thin. Ultimately, you should be doing what feels good to *you*, as long as you do it healthily – which admittedly, is not always easy. However at least you can have solace in knowing there’s probably more people finding you damn sexy the way you look now
But, it should be about you, and if that means you work to lose a little more and feel better about yourself, that should be more important.
All the best of luck to you
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!