Member-only story
“I’m Not Your Fantasy or Your Project — Just Love Me for Who I Am”
A heartfelt confession of a woman’s struggle against societal expectations and the journey to self-acceptance.
There’s a raw honesty in the stories that land in my inbox. They reflect the struggles, triumphs, and complex realities of people navigating a world that often reduces them to categories. Recently, I received an email that stopped me in my tracks. With the writer’s permission, I’m sharing her story exactly as she told it — a poignant reminder of how society, knowingly or unknowingly, shapes our perceptions of self-worth.
“This shit is exhausting,” she began, setting the tone for her narrative.
She described herself unapologetically as a fat woman, refusing to sugarcoat or hide behind euphemisms. “It’s what I am,” she said, “and for years, this simple physical characteristic has dictated how the world sees me, treats me, and especially how men desire me.”
Her frustration was palpable as she unpacked her daily reality — a world that sees her either as a fetishized object or a “renovation project.”
The Exhaustion of Being Reduced to a Body Type
“Every Tinder match, every interested glance, every seemingly genuine conversation comes with a shadow of doubt,” she wrote…
