The thing is... I don't think they're attractive at all.
This is not to say I'm fat-hating, or that I'm discriminating against bigger girls, but I just don't find that physique attractive. They're beautiful women in their own right, but they're just... not my type, if you get what I mean.
I somehow flipped to an MTV-like channel at one point in my childhood, and was drawn in my the cool edginess of the models of a fashion runway show. I just told myself that I wanted to be them, and my young mind did not comprehend this "career" to be a size-specific one - I saw beautiful girls strutting down a runway, and that looked very attractive to me.
And I was a gluttonous child - to the point where at an annual health check, a nurse wrote in red pen in my health booklet "overweight". My dad was the first to jump in as an "intervention", though I would've appreciated his efforts more if they had been more tactful in approaching it.
I was told constantly to lose weight, annual family visits did not help, as they insisted on pointing out the obvious.
When I started getting into boys, they seemed to prefer those with more traditional feminine traits - which included being slender. At least, I assumed this as one of the most widely used nicknames for me was something along the lines of "fat pig".
There's an existing school of thought which describes the characteristics that an individual tends to criticize in others, are actually characteristics that they themselves posses but are unhappy about. For example, an individual may be easily agitated when a person does not take initiative to make a decision, because this individual may have the "issue" with themselves.
I suppose the same theory could be applied here - I've struggled with what they call a "curvy" figure now for most of my lucid life, and I perceive them as unattractive aspects.
Thus, I may have carried this perception on to other women - Ashley and Tess both have beautiful faces, but I can't perceive them as attractive to myself.
My boyfriend's liking for non-skinny girls also can be explained with this theory, as he was super skinny in the past and found that being so skinny was not attractive.
As I internally condemned myself for being rotund, I also condemned the girls I saw who had similar features to mine - stomach rolls, cellulite-heavy thighs, etc; all the while mooning over girls who had the "desirable" features I severely craved - flat stomach, skinny arms, slender thighs that could fit into cute shorts without the danger of splitting seams.
Now that I think about it, this is quite ironic, as my aspiration is to be Instagram-fitness-model skinny, while he appreciates some healthy softness in a woman. In this entire journey of getting my "dream body", he's been very, very encouraging and supportive - firmly telling me that those girls that I fawn over are bodies that I will never achieve as my body type does not fit, and showing me models who have a more similar body to mine which are equally as attractive.
I don't think I will ever "learn to love myself" until I reach a certain physical appearance that doesn't involve a bulging belly and jiggly bingo wings. I don't see that as an issue until I internalize the self-hate for not being born naturally skinny or for not having a passion for sports and fitness.
And having said that, I don't think I'd ever appreciate women who have the same physical features that I don't like on myself. By saying this, I'm not nullifying their efforts to push size-inclusiveness in the fashion and beauty industry, or their other efforts in other fields.
But for now, I can't see excess weight as anything other than something that needs to be worked off. For me, it's a physical and psychological barrier to feeling good about myself.
For women who can love themselves regardless, that's good for them. I admire women who have the confidence to carry themselves regardless of how much society "condemns" their appearance. As for myself... it's a different story altogether. :)
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