Part of my brain missed the memo that said life wasn't a Nicholas Sparks movie

Today was my weekly weigh in day for my Facebook weight loss support group and I had one friend weigh in and say that she had been having some setbacks lately. I responded that I was really proud of her for posting anyway because it is so tempting sometimes to only post during the good weeks. It takes real strength of character to post during the not-so-great weeks as well. So I decided I needed to share something on here that I have been struggling with so I would not feel like a hypocrite, even if the only one who would know I was being a hypocrite was me.

It's not relating to my weight loss, at least not directly. That, thank goodness, seems to be back on track. I've got everything well under control again and my motivation has returned. This is about my foray into Eharmony. And I feel like that area of my life very much does indirectly relate to my weight loss. For more background on me starting that little venture, see here. As you've heard before, I'm trying to get out of my comfort zone. This was definitely out of my comfort zone. And even though I knew better, I had a little fantasy all nicely lined out in my head before I started. It was like a movie, maybe one of those inspirational/corny Nicholas Sparks movies. Girl loses massive amount of weight, starts online dating, meets her soulmate who instantly falls in love with her (while gazing in her eyes preferably on a beach at sunset of course), gets married, has 2.2 (I'm not sure how the 0.2 happened) children together, and lives happily ever after. Okay, maybe I'm not quite  that much of a sap, but I couldn't help but have ideas in my head. I'm fairly certain most people probably do on those sites, whether they admit it or not.

So I went into this dating thing feeling pretty good. The confidence level was pretty high. But the truth is that it hasn't worked out quite like I had hoped. Sorry kids, it's not all roses and beaches at sunset up in here. Have I had some success? Yes, I have, but nothing has really seemed to work out so far. But it's the rejections that are leaving far more of an impression. Here's the thing: rationally, I knew that it is completely crazy to think that everyone that checks out your profile will like you. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with you. It just means it wasn't the right fit. Rationally, logically, I know that. Emotionally, it's a lot more complicated. Every time I see one of those rejections, it's like a personalized message that says You're still not good enough. It feels like one of my worst fears come true sometimes. You see, when I was at my heaviest, men were not attracted to me. It's just a fact. But I told myself that it wasn't me  they didn't like, it was just my weight. And my weight was something I could theoretically change, even though I was obviously having a hard time actually doing that. But the little fear in the back of my mind was what if I lost weight and still nobody wanted me? That would mean something was wrong with me, something that I couldn't change. So every time I get rejected, it feels like that fear is coming true. I mean, while I'm still not thin, I'm pretty average sized now so that shouldn't be an issue. So late at night when those crazy little thoughts creep in right before I go to sleep, I think that I will never be good enough and that nobody will ever want me. That I will always be alone. That who could ever love someone like me? And then I kind of hate myself for thinking things like that because thoughts like those are self-pitying and morose, and the person I have made myself into, the person I have worked my butt off (literally) to become, is not either of those things. It's just killing my confidence, and my confidence is this area was pretty much zero to start out with.

So what to do, what to do? I honestly do not know. I'm signed up for a year, so I've still got 10 months of membership left. All I know is that I do not want to give up. If this past year has taught me anything, it is that you have to face your fears and problems, not run away from them and pretend they don't exist. So I feel like I need to keep on truckin' (so to speak) with this, but find a way to deal with the rejections a bit better.

This post was very personal for me and hard to write, to be honest. It's hard to put something like this out there for the world (well, the blog world) to see and judge. But you know what? I don't think anything anyone else could say could be meaner than some of the things I say to myself, as you've seen above. It felt good to get this off my chest. Also, I think it's a good illustration of how losing weight is about far more than just the physical weight. As you can see, there is a lot of emotional weight that goes along with it too, and I am definitely still working on losing that too. It would be so nice if life worked out like a movie. If it did, I might be sitting on that beach I mentioned before with someone else. There would probably be a full orchestra in the background discreetly playing an appropriate theme song. But you know what? A perfect life like that wouldn't provide nearly as much material for this blog.