Now he asked me out? NOW!?

[UserNROsingle]

So I have a old, old friend - we’ve known each other over 15 years, closer to 20 years.
Never has he shown any type of interest in me, strictly platonic, no confussion ever.
Until now, spend the last weekend with him camping. All of sudden he gave a compliment - never done that before.
While packing our stuff on sunday, he asked me if I’d like to go on a date with him, totally out of nowhere.

I’ve been thinking about the whole damn thing ever since and it has made me so sad.
You know what I think the ONLY thing that made this change was?
I’ve lost weight these past year and a half. That’s all. That’s it.
Nothing else has changed, I’ve known him when he has been single/in a relationship.

We are knocking our 40’s FFS!
Are men still THAT shallow at this ripe age?

God, I wish he hadn’t said anything.
I’m so sad now.

OP, I think your feelings are very natural and justified. Your friend is basically saying the distinction between you being dateable and undateable is body size. He’s entitled to these views, of course, but it’s unrealistic of him to think they won’t cause annoyance and hurt

but exactly why is that annoying and hurtful. Genuine question?

I have been everything from a 10 to an 18. I cannot for the life of me imagine finding it annoying or hurtful someone didn’t want to ask me out at an 18 and didn’t initially fancy me. Just as I wouldn’t have felt it annoying or hurtful they didn’t fancy me at a 10 and preferred me larger. Everyone fancies what they fancy, we are not entitled to someone fancying us irrelevant of our appearance.

no man is entitled to me fancying him. If I don’t fancy him due to his large beer gut I don’t fancy him. That’s my right, he’d have no entitlement to be angry or annoyed with me because of it. Which is what you’re saying, he has a right to be angry with me. Just with the genders reversed.

.they are not entitled to me fancying them

And yet ppl have acted on here like @UserNROsingle owes him a date/relationship Does that go for every woman who is asked out or just us former fatties?!! OP your wealthy man analogy is a good one The same posters vilifying you would be lining up to call the woman in that scenario a gold digger

Just to clarify, I’m not suggesting anyone is entitled to have anyone fancy them (regardless of gender).

This is not the issue here - OP has happily been platonic friends with this man for years.

I do think a man would be equally entitled to give a woman he’d been friends with for 20-odd years short-shrift if she asked him out just because he’d started weightlifting at the gym and dramatically changed his body shape. Or the inheritance example.

There are obviously different opinions on this issue but I don’t see it as a gendered issue. I’d have the same view if OP was a man (or in a same-sex scenario).

Who has suggested the OP should go out with her friend whom she doesn’t fancy? All I’ve read is some people querying her outrage about it all.

And the analogy between someone losing weight and someone inheriting money is crackpot — if the only difference between dateable and undateable is a hefty bank balance, then the person suddenly being attracted to the newly-rich one is just being mercenary. Only the lure of money is making the same mind and body suddenly attractive.

In the case of someone losing significant weight, their body, and potentially their face, looks entirely different. It’s one of the biggest non-surgical alterations possible in terms of changing your appearance.

I can’t imagine getting cross with someone for only asking me out once I had become attractive to him, whatever the cause of that was, just as I wouldn’t ask out someone I found unattractive.

In the OP’s case, the friendship was long established. Her weight change tipped it into attraction for him. She’s never found him attractive at any weight. Neither of them is being unreasonable in their attraction/lack of attraction.

Hopefully the friendship will recover. Good friends are valuable.

The same posters vilifying you would be lining up to call the woman in that scenario a gold digger

Yeah, I think so too.

I think I can now realize why so many commeters have come at me so aggressively.
Listen, you don’t like overweight people, that’s fine, none of this was ever about you and certainly not a permission to bite my head off.

And to say it one more time: I never wanted his ’fancy’, never wanted nothing but a friendship from him.
Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. So I have never felt or believed I’m entitled to anything from him.

And I think I can understand that many of you can’t understand how it feels like when someone so close all of sudden wants more, just because outward appearances has changed.
And him to just jump to the opportunity.
His not a bad person, I never said that.
But I’m allowed to be hurt.
Childish to say anything else.

👆🏼
💯

So then you also feel he has every right to be angry with her for not finding him attractive? People have the right to be angry if someone doesn’t find them attractive. Irrelevant of gender.

I simply disagree. No one has the right to be angry with me if I do not find them attractive. And I’d be horrified if there was a male equivalent site urging a man to be angry with a woman over this.

as a pp just said, loosing weight and a signficant enough amount you’ve a lot of visibly loose skin after, changes your appearance massively. Not just your body. But also your face. We have all seen the transformations. It’s like looking at two different people facially. It is perfectly acceptable and normal to find one version initially physically attractive and not the other.

@UserNROsingle The only people who really get it are those who have been where we have. Overweight and then lost it.

But I’m that person and I don’t get it. I was an 18 at the turn of the year and have lost much of it, but not all. I’m still on my journey.

I was a 28 and got down to a 12/14.

I'd be absolutely furious if this happened to me.

Twenty years of friendship down the plughole!

What the hell was he thinking? Did he believe you'd jump at the chance or what? After all, he hasn't changed in appearance. What made him think you'd suddenly be interested in him just because he became interested in you?

Eugh. So annoying for you OP!

Has anyone suggested she date him? Let alone multiple people?

@monsteramunch

He took a chance and you shot him down because you assumed it was all about looks

Posted at 14.26 yesterday

That doesn’t say she owed him a relationship and should date him?

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by posting this?!

No one has said that the OP should feel obliged to date this man!

@Inkpotlover

He didn't want her before because she was fat. That you can't see why that would be so hurtful to OP is baffling.

I can see how that's hurtful, but that's the OP's issue. Her friend has done nothing wrong.

Not sure what the point of OP’s post is really. Is it to vent about unfairness of this world?

Yes - it’s be nicer if relationships were formed based on people’s personality. Then her ‘awesome self’ - would have been as attractive to others at being overweight or skinny. But this is not the reality of our world.
Accepting reality for what it is is probably better than being annoyed at it.

I think what really comes across to me is anger, possibly covering sadness or other more difficult feelings. Of course it is going to hurt to hear that, in effect, you weren't found attractive enough before. I think it's understandable for the OP to be upset about that, even though I don't think the friend has done anything wrong. It sounds like there are painful feelings there about attraction, relationships, body confidence and so on which are being suppressed and shielded with this anger and "I don't care about this anyway" attitude of self-defence. I hope the pain fades OP and you can maybe explore this stuff gently, be kind to yourself, and perhaps also salvage the friendship.

The reason I'd be annoyed about this isn't because of any feelings about my so called friend not finding me physically attractive beforehand. Why would I want that?

It's that the friend was supposed to be a friend where my physical attractiveness had fuck all to do with it, just as it has fuck all to do with all my other friendships.

This friend has completely changed the dynamic by revealing he now finds her suitable dating material, when the friendship so the OP thought, was not about that.

Is it wrong for a friend to develop feelings of attraction towards a friend? Why?

I genuinely find that interesting. I know some people react to that as a betrayal. I find it hard to see as anything other than a compliment. I'm not saying either view is right, it's just interesting how differently and strongly people react to this.

This. Looking at the ops other posts I think there is more behind her angry defensive scorched earth reaction, fear, lack of self esteem, lack of confidence in a relationship etc and I think also something behind those who support her anger.

Because this man has done absolutely nothing wrong.he’s behaved very normally, and gently and politely asked her on a date. It’s not like he creeped into her tent and crudely propositioned her for sex. He simply politely asked her on a date at the end of their trip and then complimented her.

but some posters are acting like he set the world on fire and deserves wrath for this apparently heinous behaviour.

I had a long term relationship with someone initially a friend. He told me he'd always fancied me but thought I was nuts and it was only when he had professional interaction with me (I work in banking and advised him on something) he saw I was intelligent.

It didn't end well and I should have seen the red flag.

All of this.
You put it all so well, better than I’ve clearly have managed to verbalize how I’m feeling.

I do have to laugh at the angry, bitter, sad, self-esteem commenrs.
Clearly missing the whole point.
This has nothing to do with relationahips (as in dating ones). It’s the losing a friend.
And the shock of liking and valuing me and my personality (which are amazing) and second I lose some pound, he jumps to an opportunity and ruins the dynamic/trust/friendship.
Those who still can’t understand, I can’t help you. Just believe I’m hurt.

Very well put.

It's obvious that this is more than simply a friend asking another friend on a date... That happens all the time in life. People become friends and, when circumstances and hormones align, friends decide they would like more - sometimes it's reciprocated, sometimes it's not. Based on the OP and those agreeing with her, friendships should never be allowed to evolve into something else, which is frankly, bizarre.

The subtext here is: "Men who are sexually attracted to women based on their physical characteristics are bastards. A good man (if they even exist!) would fancy me for my personality alone even if I looked like Jabba the Hutt".

Some posters seem to be suggesting that because OP has lost some weight she looked like some kind of Wilderbeast before and now she looks like a Disney Princess.

All we know is she’s lost weight - in all likelihood she looked nice before and looks nice now, just in a smaller-sized body.

In her original post, all OP said was she feels very sad about what’s happened, given the length of the friendship. Supporting posters have said that they understand her feelings — maybe because they’ve experienced similar themselves or just because they can imagine the scenario.

Nobody is saying the male friend is a monstrosity who should be hung, drawn & quartered.

However, I do think it’s totally normal to hope that close friends see us differently (in a more holistic sense) than a casual acquaintance would. I don’t think OP would feel the same hurt if (for example) a friend of a friend suddenly asked her out because she’d lost weight.

I do hope OP is able to keep the friendship and get through the resultant awkwardness.