For most people, their first ever date is a milestone that will remain in their memory forever. There is so much pressure on that first experience of romance and depending on how it goes, it can have a huge impact on your self-esteem.
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So just imagine that on that first ever meet up, your date points out something about your appearance that you’ve felt insecure about your entire life. That would be a truly painful experience and it’s one that happened to a 20-year-old woman who refers to herself as weirdcryptid. In her recent Reddit post, she tells the story of her first date and how it “ruined” her:
Some background, I’m 20 years old and have never been in a relationship. There’s not one single reason why I haven’t been active in the dating scene, there’s just been too much life going on in the past few years for me to even consider romance. One of the reasons that has stood out in the long run: I have struggled with body image issues since middle school and I realized I’m certainly not what society considers conventionally attractive. I’ve been described as androgynous looking in the past, and a stranger once claimed I “have an interesting face that is almost kind of pretty”.
This hasn’t stopped people from coming onto me, flirting with me, etc. but I can’t help but wish I was effortlessly pretty. Even though I’ve mostly come to terms with my unconventional looks, there’s one big insecurity I just can’t look past: I’m a fuzzy lady.
Every part of my body is coated in a layer of hair. It’s not as extreme as it could be, but it controls my life. My arms? hairy. My face? Fuzzier than your average woman. My back? It could be used in the bathroom to soak up water from the shower. I have hair on my tummy, my chest, my boobs, my neck, my fingers, my feet, my toes. The list goes on and on. The worst part of this is I can only do so much maintenance. I was cursed with extremely sensitive skin, so most hair removal methods cause me to break out in rashes and acne. I learned this the hard way. A friend even once joked I have “man arms”.
Most days I wear long sleeves, and I’ve gotten more comfortable wearing short sleeves, but I’ve lived in fear of ever wanting to become intimate with anyone because they will see the rest of this Amazon.
Well, this time has arrived sooner than expected. I’ve been talking to this guy, and it’s the age old “we’re just friends” sorta thing, but we recently both admitted we’re kinda into each other. We ended up going to a movie.
He was kind of joking about kissing me and holding me before we even got to the movie, and it’s cheesy high school stuff but it still made me blush. Anyways, we get into the movie and we’re buying tickets. I don’t look my age so I had to get out my ID.
He freezes as soon as he sees it and bluntly goes “Whoa, you look like a dude in your ID. Are you trans?”
I was horrified. He’s someone I’ve come to trust and his choice of words ruined the rest of the night for me. I remained quiet and stiff even when he tried to get close with me in the theater. I have nothing against trans people and there’s no shame in being compared to trans people, however the situation is unique in how offensive it was to me personally, just because of my self perceived body dysmorphia.
Afterwards he just kept telling me how cute he thinks I am, and he really dug the knife in with “Why do you wear makeup? You don’t need it,” which just really hit hard when he looked at my ID, a picture of me without my makeup, and said I looked like a dude. At the end of the night, I broke down in tears and told him what he said about my ID really hurt, and he apologized and said he regretted saying anything. Humans make mistakes, he’s young, and he’s not the first person to look at me and think “androgynous”, I guess it was just a painful reminder.
He’s always telling me how attractive I am, but I have a running fear he might’ve noticed the hair on my arms and been suspicious. Maybe the ID was an excuse to ask the big question, which he denies. Now I’m feeling unsure about the whole situation, because we’re still talking, he still wants to do dumb cute stuff with me, and he’s going to end up seeing my “manly” arms soon or later, or maybe he already has noticed and doesn’t know how to bring it up.
How do I approach this situation? I’m aware this is most definitely a hormonal thing (I have a thyroid disease) and I’m in the process of getting things sorted out, but what am I supposed to do when I feel untouchable? It’s not going to end up just ruining this fling, it’s going to follow me into every relationship I get into. I don’t want that, and apparently my body hates me and won’t let me fix my perceived flaw without covering me in rashes. And I can’t change my face, so I end up feeling like I wear my makeup like a mask and as soon as anyone sees me without it, they’ll scream.
I don’t know how to move forward from here. I’m considering telling him we need to remain just friends, no cuddling or hand holding or couple-y stuff, just because I don’t want to face reality.
What a horrific experience that must’ve been. You can see how much impact one comment can have – that guy probably didn’t even realise what he was saying and said it as more of a joke. But because of her insecurities it completely ruined not only their first date, but potentially their relationship.
As you can imagine, many of the comments on the post are positive – hopefully this girl can rekindle the relationship with this guy and build the confidence she needs to be happy in herself.
For a different kind of first date disaster, remember the girl who got stuck between two windows trying to catch her own poo?
