The weight to date
The invisible criteria we inherit on being seen and being chosen
I felt his eyes from across the restaurant while I sat there sipping my drink. For the first time in a long time, I could sense the unmistakable heat of being seen. The thickness in the air, the awareness of your movements, knowing someone is watching, thinking about you. I’d typically try to dismiss the sensation, but something about this felt different, like I’d lived this moment in another lifetime. With a wave of seduction rushing through me, I fixed my eyes back on his to command him to come here, and he did. Stood right up, walked across the bar, and asked to join me. It felt electric and powerful. Like I’d just conjured magic.
Nine months ago, that wouldn’t have happened.
Not because I wasn’t warm, witty, or interesting, but because the world didn’t see me as someone to cross a room for. Being stopped on the street, approached at the bar, or having someone slide in my DMs felt foreign because for most of my life, I’d always been on the “wrong side” of size. Heroin chic, low-rider jeans, and baby tees were never my style because I couldn’t fit them. At 8 years old, I’d never owned clothes from Limited Too, but could work my way around a JCPenney’s petite section. The dressing room mirror, especially, was my enemy. While other girls compared colors and patterns, I was looking for what would “hide” and “smooth.” I was aware that they lived entirely different social lives. They experienced the boy asking them to be their valentine, approaching them at the dance, going on their first date. They owned their desirability without apology, while I was told it’d happen “one day.”
Adulthood brought with it a different reality. One that was harsher, more direct, more obvious. Comments like, “I didn’t know you were into big girls” to men I was dating, or family flat-out saying, “You getting a little big there, ain’t you?” every time I came home to visit. The words were etched into the back of my mind. It was devastating, but not surprising. Part of me had internalized their words as truth. I’d settled on the idea that I was “almost.” Almost pretty. Almost enough. I mastered the art of shrinking myself emotionally since shrinking physically felt impossible.
That is, until now.
Sitting across from this man whose smile lit up the entire bar, I thought about how this conversation wouldn’t have happened fifty pounds ago. Him leaning in, laughing, flirting. Suddenly, I was approachable, visible, and radiated an undeniable confidence. It was exciting, but it was also confusing. A mix of joy and validation for finally being accepted, but anger and grief in realizing how conditional it all was. There was satisfaction in the glow of being “seen,” but the ache of knowing I had been worthy long before this moment, and people refused to see it was something I couldn’t unfeel. Sitting there stirred up complex emotions. Not because it wasn’t enjoyable, but because there’d been such an internal battle on my own attractiveness that I’d honestly convinced myself that I didn’t meet the criteria for companionship.
At first, I fought hard against the belief that I had to qualify for connection. I kept looking, swiping, going on first (but never second) dates with the idealistic mindset that we are all treated the same for who we are, not what we look like. I showed up as my authentic, true self, rejecting the idea that I should adjust who I was to attain adoration, much less that of a man. But even in rejecting it, I’m still living inside it. The narrative that when you look better, you’re treated better. That worth is something you earn. Each date felt like a reminder that those things were real. Whether I chose to accept it or not, there was a privilege afforded to people who fit the mold. A mold I had to force myself into, but for them it seemed to flow so naturally.
As time went on, I struggled to assimilate into what the world expected from women like me. It felt like no matter what I did, there were measures I just couldn’t meet. My style, my interests, my mindset – there were things about me that desperately needed to change if I ever wanted to play this game and win.
When you’re taught that desirability is something you earn through beauty, success, confidence, even healing, everything about your life becomes a self-improvement project. Dating then becomes a performance review. If I fix this, then I can date. Once I earn this, then someone will want me. When I check all the boxes, then I’ll be ready. It felt like it’d never be enough. Instead, I taught myself to prioritize hobbies, lifestyle goals, and career milestones, not because they’re inherently better than companionship (though they are fulfilling), but because they’re a safe distraction from the question of why no one was choosing me. I protected myself by withholding myself. When I was asked about my love life, I pretended that dating was unimportant, that I didn’t care anyway, so no one noticed how being overlooked hurts.
But should I care? Should I want to live a life where my moves are bait to get someone to take an interest in me? Is it shameful if I do?
The desire to be wanted carries with it a subtle embarrassment. A fear that wanting to meet the mark, wanting to be chosen, looks desperate. Like the desire for companionship is a symptom of a broken sense of self-worth. You start wondering if wanting connection makes you appear needy or thirsty. Even admitting to my friends that I was tired of my singleness felt like confessing to a wanting that we agreed we were well above. Yearning was reduced to something that should’ve been outgrown. Desire became a signal of personal failure and not a human need. Wanting to be wanted not only felt isolating, it felt like self-betrayal.
It took a long time to realize that these scripts about the criteria for companionship were not my own. They were inherited from online conversations, my closest relationships, and invisible social contracts. They were metrics no one actually agreed on and requirements that felt impossible because they were designed to leave us waiting for a moment of perfection that would never arrive. Rules that were made to keep us reaching externally for worth that could only be born and nurtured from the inside out.
I’m releasing myself from the narrative that requires me to second-guess myself into a version that’s easiest to receive. I’d much rather move through the world without the need to defend my right to take up space in someone’s orbit. Removing the weight of overthinking that shaped the way I showed up for something as simple as human connection. No longer am I falling for the lie that I’m “almost”. The idea that I need something other than who I already am to be enough.
Back at the table, thirty minutes had quickly come and gone. As the conversation wound down, I felt a quiet reclamation rise up, as if something I’d long surrendered was finding its way back to me. Sitting across from him, I heard a voice of certainty whisper: You’ve always deserved this. And with that realization, I knew that companionship could have held me long before I felt ready. How many opportunities like this had passed me by while I convinced myself I needed to become more? How many connections had I missed, wondering if I was qualified? If I met the criteria?
But there is no criteria for companionship — there are only people trying to feel worthy in a world that keeps telling them they’re not enough yet.
