I don’t see posts like this enough here but from I learned from my personal experience and people all around social media platforms, it’s a pretty big issue.
As a woman that has been a little bit overweight for years and didn’t really care about “being sexy” ecc, I was dressing a little bit too old for my age let’s say (I think pretty much every girl that’s been overweight during the 2010s knows what business casual teenager style means), I wasn’t really used to be on the receiving end of male attention.
The truth is, you can have the most beautiful face in the world but if the body doesn’t match, you receive less attention, especially here in UK where there IS a beauty standard (I’m saying this in a bitter way, I think it’s pretty normal). It wasn’t anything dramatic but loosing 40 pounds can completely change your appearance.
Long story short, I worked my ass off, started going to the gym, found active hobbies (running in the morning, horse riding), got in shape, had a massive glow up. I care about my appearance, about what I wear, I discovered that I do in fact love to dress and look sexy and to show off my body.
In the last few months I’ve been receiving so much attention from men I’m not sure I’ve ever received before in my whole life. I feel the attention and eyes on me when I go out, even to the grocery story, I understand I’m perceived as very attractive even though it was initially a (very positive) shock since I simply wasn’t used to even 10% of what I’m receiving now.
The thing that frustrates me and that no one is talking about enough is that the self confidence didn’t increase overnight. My self image is still fragile and mentally still doesn’t match the outside.
I still feel so insecure and my self esteem is still so low that every time I see a guy that I might like or whenever I get approached, I just feel blocked and don’t even know what to say. It’s a type of shyness that comes from old insecurities that I want to overcome but don’t know how.
I can feel that inside I’m a completely different person, my personality just never had the opportunity to grow and express itself due to my problems with self-image, but I want to finally feel fully myself.
I get so frustrated because I see a lot of women that are so quick to respond and give quirky answers and know how to talk with men and what to talk about and are just so confident and sure of themselves even though they say they don’t feel “conventionally attractive” and I’m here feeling like externally I look great and get all the attention one might want but get stuck and feel like I sound dumb and not interesting at all.