1. The guy is clearly a f’in idiot.
2. It doesn’t help that us mamas are sensitive about our post-baby bodies.
3. Good for you for buying clothes that fit now. I avoided that for too long and it wasn’t cute. Then I justified my purchases with a “well, when I get preggo again these jeans can be for my post-baby transition”. I literally have *at least* 4 different sizes of clothes, and am trying to be organized about it.
4. It’s not just you unhappy with you. As smart as you are, we are impacted on some level by society and what is considered acceptable. Mom’s with 2 year-olds? and a BMI higher than we’d like? Not acceptable.
5. The grass is always greener. I am .5 from pre-preg weight…or rather, the-day-I-found-out-weight. But you know what? Still feelin’ like plumpville and my body is definitely organized differently.
6. Lastly, keep on keepin’ on!

This one or this one?

Laura: I think you hit it. I’d prefer to think that he, instead, is hoping to find the “whole package” — and I just wasn’t it. But realistically, from parts of our conversation, I think he needs to grow up, and that you’re correct.

Jenny: Yes, he gets a partial point for being honest. It’s his absolute right to have preferences, and I would never say otherwise. What I find odd is that I revisited his profile, and while “curvy” wasn’t one of his choices, “a few extra pounds” was — and to me, that implies more weight! Eh, whatever.

Mike: Boy, would I love to be a fly on the wall for that counseling session! The great irony of this? He’s a therapist. I think he just phrased his email badly. Rather than being ambivalent about my figure, he was ambivalent about ME. I’m reminded of the scene in The Truth About Cats and Dogs where Abby says, “…but those things don’t come in that package. They come in THIS one.” Yup.

I’m calmer. A girlfriend gave me a little bit of a reality check/reminder that if I’d carried myself like a million bucks *without* mentioning my curviness, it’s possible he’d not have even thought twice. But really, I doubt it — he actually commented at one point, “you’re extremely self-confident, aren’t you?” Why shouldn’t I be?

One final thing — Mike, you mentioned arm-candy, and I completely agree with that guess. I wrote a post a couple months ago linking to one by Hugo that describes exactly what you suggest!

So he is ambivalent to your womanly shape is he? I hope he doesn’t mean “ambiguous”, saying that he is luke-warm about it. No man has a half-hearted opinion about how women look. No man.

If he is ambivalent it means he feels two very intense things. As a counselor for almost 30 years, allow me to give an educated guess as to what he feels intensely opposite about. (I love doing this when I don’t have to counsel him…although I think my rates would hit the $200/hour mark with him).

First, he probably finds you intensely attractive and several times in the date I can imagine he was having a slightly-less-than-intelligent conversation with your chest. (Alli nods in agreement). The other intense feeling is that he thinks his business contacts and other so-called “friends” would not consider a shapely woman to be good enough as “arm-candy” which means that he thinks more of his image and position than you.

Or, it could be latent hostility towards a decidedly fit and sensuous female highlighting some obvious deficiencies in his maleness. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.

Kidding.

Actually, I took a shower and composed (in my head, of course) a long blog post about a bunch of my own hangups. I was a long, wandering rant, and I was going to title it “Making Sausage,” because it wasn’t pretty.

I got out of the shower to find my mom at the top of the steps as I ran to get Maya up from her nap. That’s always fun when you’re carrying, but not wearing a towel. I explained to her that we were *not* going shopping this afternoon, because I did *not* feel like it — but left it at that. (One of my rants was directed at her…what was that about unexpressed anger?)

By the time she left, the fight had pretty well burned out of me, and I’m just tired. At least I’m calmer.

I also discovered a few remaining issues — tendencies toward lie-based thinking, if you will — of my own to muddle through.

He gets .0000094 point for being honest so you don’t waste your time with a complete fuckwit.

As someone who’s fat, I know it’s hard to negotiate living as a woman in our society for these reasons. It’s taken a long time for me to be fat and proud it takes work to get over the cultural expectations and standards.

Of course, at a 12/14 you’re not fat (I say this not to remove the possibility of insult, because in my vocabulary “fat” is not an offensive term).

Anyway, I’m just another voice (adding to the previous commenters’ and your own) saying that you deserve ONLY the best in mates. I hope your next date goes well!