Hello fellow searchers!
I have special difficulties because I am nearly 60, morbidly obese with lipoedema, a feminist. And yet I still have this ridiculous fantasy that I will meet a lovely man online and settle down into a happy and content retirement together.
I put up my profile, tried to sound interesting and approachable, and used some recent pics that are honest about my size, but flattering. I got very little interest. A few men contacted me but they are 300+ miles away, some even in other countries (!) often 20 even 30 years younger and want to use me as some kind of fantasy dominatrix (I'm not a dominatrix!)
I then decided to carpet-bomb everyone within travel distance with a friendly opening message. 90% did not respond. Those that did all turned me down on the grounds of my size. And some were downright insulting about it, too, reducing me to tears.
There is so much more to me than my size. I am a graduate, a businesswoman, very witty and a great conversationalist. I have a huge capacity to love, I am reasonable, friendly, personable and loyal. I am a homeowner, solvent and independent. Unfortunately men when browsing the dating sites see a long line of photos and only message those women they are sexually attracted to. The tackle the personality and compatibility side of it afterwards.
I used to be slim and very attractive, and had hordes of handsome and personable men chasing after me, so it's been really hard having to face the fact that those kinds of men are not interested in being saddled with someone so fat that it amounts to a disability (I cannot walk, I only waddle and struggle to waddle half a mile).
I've adjusted my own requirements so that I will give just about any man a chance so long as he isn't actually dirty or obnoxious, but even men who are fat and bald and ugly are responding to my introductory messages with "sorry, love, you are too fat". It's so depressing.
I've ended up with just four possible prospects, two of which I find physically repulsive but as beggars cannot be choosers I began to exchange messages. One of them turns out to be a foot fetishist and just wants to correspond on that subject and isn't interested in getting to know me. The second one is toothless, covered in tattoos, unemployed, and can barely string a sentence together. The third one was going OK but he started talking about me wetting my knickers and how the idea turned him on and could we do that when we meet. The last one is Too Good To Be True (a stockbroker with an office in Mayfair, a house in Kensington, flash car, stunning good looks and 15 years my junior) and so I have been on the alert for Red Flags. Sure enough he has shown me one: all he wants to talk about is my body. He hasn't asked me a single thing about my personality or likes/dislikes etc. He clearly has a fetish about extra-large women and keeps asking if I have saddlebags and how big my belly is and how many inches my hips measure and quite frankly its creeping me out. I don't want a man to only want me because he has a fetish about my body shape. Besides anything else, such a man would not support my ongoing weigh-loss efforts. He messaged me tonight saying that when we meet for our first date he wants to get me naked and give me an all over massage. I told him I only meet for a coffee and a brief chat, so he's probably going to disappear now.
I'm finding the process a terrible grind, very depressing and upsetting at times.
Also, I am getting a bit irritable with men who write on their profiles that they want a woman who shares their love of good food and wine, wants to indulge in lots of eating out, etc etc and yet they want her to be thin. Grr.