# Maintaining friendships



## Flutterby68 (Nov 5, 2009)

Do you ladies find that as you became larger, maintaining friendships got to be more difficult? if so, do you think it was because YOU were embarrassed/uncomfortable about your weight so you avoided the friends, or do you think the friends were embarrassed/uncomfortable being around you? Or another reason?

Also... your close friends. Do they tend to be male or female, and why?


I know I got very embarrassed about my size and simply didn't want to be seen in public. But, my friends wouldn't let me get away with that.

My best friend was a man who is not my husband. When I first met him, he was married to someone else. That ended when she cheated on him... and he and I became lovers and remained that way for a couple of years. DH and I have been married almost 2 years, and he knew from very early on that the the history with the best friend and it doesn't bother him. 

The thing that upset me was his keeping our relationship secret, and even denying it when asked. No matter what he says, I'm sure that the reason we didn't date wasn't because he didn't want to risk the friendship, but because he didn't want to publicly be involved with me. His secretiveness about our status made me think he was ashamed of me, and he can deny it all he wants but actions speak louder than words. It has affected our friendship, but he is oblivious to that. 

At this point, my DH is my best friend.

I find it easier to be friends with men, but I really miss having a close female friend.


----------



## Tania (Nov 5, 2009)

I'm sorry that you were made to feel as if your friend were hiding you. That absolutely sucks. 

I avoided friends (and others) from my past for YEARS because I didn't want them to go, "Damn, Kali was so hot, now look at her!" I know that sounds narcissistic, but for a time I was considered the prettiest girl in a large circle of friends. And in college, I'd made myself into the typical thin, well-dressed sorority girl. 

I'm sure my real friends wouldn't have cared (when discussing this very issue, my friend Stephanie told me, "Listen, you look way better than most people even when you think you're too fat!"), but there are people who will talk shit, even if the weight itself isn't their main issue. 

I remember one incident vividly; my ex husband and I went out to dinner with a two friends, a couple. The male friend got really fucking wasted and proceeded to tell his wife that hockey meant more to him than she did. Then, after my husband mentioned that I'd been chosen Gothic Babe of the Week based on my pretty corset photos from three years earlier, the drunk friend replied, "They know those are old pictures, right? Have they seen what you look like now?" 

I know it was the alcohol talking - the friend apologized profusely, in tears, later on that night, trying to explain that he had been aiming to wound and was sorry - but the damage was done. 

It's only been the past year or so I've been confident enough to post pictures of myself online or get together with old friends. Nobody seems to notice a negative difference between me now and me back at my mythical best. Some even claim I'm prettier now, which makes me happy. That said, I've lost a LOT of weight, but I'm still not my size 6/8 college self, nor am I the size 10/12 top and 14/16 bottom I was in Lani's shawl-and-corset photos. 

My new friends and the guys I've been dating this year don't have any old memories, good or bad, with which to compare me. Nobody's made any derisive weight comments. In fact, I get a lot of positive attention. But I can't say that I don't occasionally wonder what people are thinking of my midriff blob or the size of my ass, or how it might change their opinion of me if they knew how hard I have worked to get back down to the size that I am today.


----------



## Neen (Nov 5, 2009)

I have no problem maintaing friendships..Tooz and i have been best friends for over 15 years now!
My weight has never really had relevance with my friendships. Most of the time if my friendships end, it's becuase my friends get married, have kids and 'drift' off.. 
Or, they move and we lose touch. I actually did have one friend who lost around 80lbs in highschool, graduated, moved to california and suddenly was better then me becuase she was now thin, and accused me of being jealous of her new 'hot body'. Lame. I wish her well... i guess since i'm not a size 6 or smaller, i'm not 'worthy' of her friendship. She's all food /weight/exercise obsessed. Sigh.. life.


----------



## JerseyGirl07093 (Nov 5, 2009)

I think as I got older it seemed harder to make and maintain friends. Remember when you were a kid in school and you just went over to someone and said "Hey wanna be friends?" and that was it, you were friends. I was never a person that had a ton of close friends. In high school I had a bunch of 'school friends' that I just hung out with at school. Then I had my small circle of close friends and also my best friend. After high school and as I got older, and also fatter, my friends and I grew apart. Only my best friend and I stayed in touch. I think the reason that happened was that I had a child at a young age (21) and my friends were still young and single and they were able to go out places and do things that I couldn't because I had the responsibility of a baby plus no extra money. My weight really never came up in a really negative way. If my friends really didn't like it they never said anything to me. And I figure if someone really had a problem with it they wouldn't be friends with me to begin with. Through the years I still had my best friend and that, along with my kids and what little family I had was enough for me. A few years ago my best friend and I had a falling out and I haven't talked to her since. I only have one other person in my real life I'd consider a friend and we're not as close as we used to be. Although I haven't met any of them in real life there are lots of ladies on this board I consider my friends, especially my Supersisters. :happy:
I don't know if my weight holds people back from being friends with me because quite frankly I haven't had the opportunity to really get out and make friends. Where do I really go to meet people? I don't get out that much and I just can't pick up some woman in the grocery store and say "hey you, wanna hang out?" Ha! Could you imagine? If I were her I'd think I was nuts! 
I've thought about my weight and how it might impact friendships. Especially since I can't get around as well as I used to. I wonder if people I once knew would be surprised to see how fat I've gotten, even if they remember me as fat back in the day. Can my old classmates tell from my Facebook avatar that I'm fat? Will they care? An old friend sent me a message on Facebook and I haven't replied back to her yet. She is what I consider to be my '2nd' best friend. I haven't talked to her in years. I haven't written back for a number of reasons (all of them probably ridiculous on my part) but one of the reasons is my weight. I think she might be shocked although I don't know that. If I really think about it I don't think she would care. Believe me, I've thought about this a lot. If I died and she came to my funeral and someone said "Well, Lisa (that's me!) didn't contact you because she was fat" she would probably say that was a ridiculous thing to do because she wouldn't care. 
I think being this weight holds me back from pursuing friendships. I like the fact that with people here on Dims I don't have to worry about the whole 'fat' thing because they already know I'm fat and it gets it out of the way.
Looks like I rambled a bit....:doh:


----------



## Tau (Nov 6, 2009)

God has blessed me with several amazing friends, six of whom are family as far as I'm concerened. I've been fat all my life, and as I've gotten older I've just gotten fatter  The women I hang with I've known since I was about 8 years old - one of the girls I'm currently living with has known me since I was about 6. So they've known and seen me my whole life, the fat has never been a surprise. Two of my most treasured friends I met in universty. I'm kind of worried now though:Two of my girls are getting married and marriage and babies are, from what I've seen, the most effective friendship killers of all time LOL! Time will tell. I hope we make it. As for male friendships - I've never had male friends. There are plenty of aquaintances but there's never been anything deeper, nothing like what I've felt with and for my female friends. The main reason is that I don't believe a man and woman can have a completely platonic relationship - I've just never seen it work.


----------



## Tooz (Nov 6, 2009)

Neen said:


> I have no problem maintaing friendships..Tooz and i have been best friends for over 15 years now!
> My weight has never really had relevance with my friendships. Most of the time if my friendships end, it's becuase my friends get married, have kids and 'drift' off..
> Or, they move and we lose touch. I actually did have one friend who lost around 80lbs in highschool, graduated, moved to california and suddenly was better then me becuase she was now thin, and accused me of being jealous of her new 'hot body'. Lame. I wish her well... i guess since i'm not a size 6 or smaller, i'm not 'worthy' of her friendship. She's all food /weight/exercise obsessed. Sigh.. life.



Yeah, I guess I would say that I don't really have a problem keeping friends per se...I don't usually blame it on weight or changing of said weight if we part ways. I do find, however, that people can change a lot if THEY lose weight. The girl Neen is talking about was a friend of mine, too. I haven't spoken to her in some time. I don't know if it's because of her weight totally, though-- she chose to reject the town and area where she grew up, and Neen and I are a part of that.

Then again, I have another friend from the Cape who lost a veritable boatload of weight and she is still a good friend, so no, I guess I don't have too much trouble.


----------



## LillyBBBW (Nov 6, 2009)

That has definitely been the case for me but it is mostly my own doing. As I've gotten older I have a bit more aches and pains to deal with than I did previously. It got to the point where just plain moving was cumbersome and angst ridden. I had naturally developed an aversion toward doing anything. I didn't want to go anywhere, walk for long, claw my way up stair flights, twist around on a bar stool. When I did go I was always the slow one. It certainly doesn't help that I live here in Boston the land of cobble stone streets and cracked uneven pavements. The wrong turn of the foot and I can go crashing to the ground or really injure my ankle. I stopped doing and people stopped asking, I'm reckoning a combination of both of our frustrations. I can't blame anyone too harshly when my feelings about it weren't all that dissimilar from theirs, it was frustrating. Some of them I haven't seen in ages. We keep saying, "We'll get together," but never do. I expect that we probably don't have all that much in common anymore now anyway.

Some subtle changes in my diet has improved my mobility tremendously, at least for now. I'm getting out more, going shopping, doing more of the things that I used to do since following a diet that has been touted to support the body's anti inflammatory properties. At least for now it's working but having this return to my old self has helped me to realize just how insular I had become. No one really abandoned or defriended me because of my weight. That would be a silly assumption anyway because I've always been fat. They didn't suddenly realize I was fat after years of oblivion and then start trailing off once the truth became clear, nor did I. I limited myself because I was limited. 

My friends have mostly been female. I've had a few platonic male friends in the past but I distanced myself once he became seriously involved or married. I just felt it was the right thing to do. Any of those friendships that remained I always went out of my way to include his spouse and be friendly towards her as well if not more so. I just feel that couples are a package deal. If she doesn't take a liking to me or some odd thing then it's time to move along.


----------



## TallFatSue (Nov 6, 2009)

Flutterby68 said:


> At this point, my DH is my best friend.


Absolutely. I married my best friend more than 27 years ago, and it only gets better with time. :smitten:

My size hasn't affected my female friendships too much as I became larger, but I've always been the fattest girl. Even though I've grown from maybe 300lb when I was 20, to 450lb now in my 50s, my friends think I haven't changed. I've always been the slow one, and sometimes I need to remind them I just plain won't fit in certain restaurant booths, but they take it in stride. The biggest problem is usually agreeing where to eat lunch, because some are verrrry particular about their food. I'm pretty flexible so I'm generally happy wherever everybody finally decides, provided I fit. 

One big exception was a formerly thin high school classmate who had gained a lot of weight and wanted to be my friend after our 25th class reunion. Maybe 5 years later had WLS, and as she lost the weight she completely lost interest in me. She was pretty shallow and no big loss. She had other issues, and methinx one was that she didn't like being so fat and it made her feel better to be around me because I was even fatter. 

I've become pretty good friends with a neighbor who is all of 4ft10 and maybe 90lb. We have some size issues in common because she and I are at opposite ends of "la belle curve" in an average world, but that doesn't define our friendship.


----------



## Ruffie (Nov 6, 2009)

Flutterby68 said:


> Do you ladies find that as you became larger, maintaining friendships got to be more difficult? if so, do you think it was because YOU were embarrassed/uncomfortable about your weight so you avoided the friends, or do you think the friends were embarrassed/uncomfortable being around you? Or another reason?
> 
> Also... your close friends. Do they tend to be male or female, and why?
> 
> ...



I haven't found it harder to maintain friendships as I got larger and older. My friends are great people and we have a great time together. I have had a couple of friends that walked from my life seemingly without reason. One when she decided to divorce her husband just stopped returning my calls or answering her door. When I worte her a letter asking why if we were as close as she had professed she no longer wanted me in her life she replied with she when going through a crisis simply starts over. Purges her life of people in it and begins again, so some closure there. The other one I suspect wanted me to become who SHE thought I should be and when I didn't fall into line and stuck to the path in life I have chosen for myself she also walked without a backward glance. To the extent that when see me won't even say hello. I did try to reach out via e-mails when it happened almost 11 years ago and she wasn't hearing what I had to say so I just let it die a natural death.

I too have very close male friends, always have. Grew up a tom boy and my guy friends tell me I think more like a man than any woman they have ever known. It can cause trouble as one guy friend and I were going through much the same problems in our marriages and no one else got what was happeneing with us. We became extremely close because of it as we leaned on each other to get through. And then of course the rumors stared that we were having an affair because after all a man and a woman cant be friends without that right? *snort* We ended up having to curtail our friendship because of it and aren't as close as we once were. 


I have friends that sky dive, rappell, run marathons and such. Those are not activities I partake in with them. They have a group of friends that do that with them. I go to movies, have drinks, go dancing and hang out with them instead. 
I have friends who have lost alot of weight and we are still friends. I have a friend with a undiagnosed debilitating illness that I am still very close to. Both male and female my friends contribute so much to my life. Those that do not have to go their own way. And while I mourn the loss of friendships that have run their course I have to remember that sometimes things are meant to serve you for a time, teach you some lessons and then they or you move on to the next phase of your life.


----------



## TallFatSue (Nov 6, 2009)

In retrospect, it was harder to maintain certain friendships when they had children, but Art & I couldn't. Naturally children bring very different priorities, so we saw less and less of some friends. Perfectly understandable.

Nowadays as they become empty-nesters, we have begun to see some long-lost friends again. It doesn't seem to bother them that I'm much fatter now than 2 or 3 decades ago. In fact, some of my old gal pals gained a lot of weight due to their pregnancies, so now they know what it's like to be fat too, even if they aren't exactly happy about it. That hasn't kept them away from dessert when we go out for lunch though! I'm still bigger, and if I need to eat extra desserts to make them feel more comfortable, well, I'll force myself to make that sacrifice. :eat2: In any case, they do relish having greater freedoms now that their kids are moving out.


----------



## BBW4Chattery (Nov 6, 2009)

Well, I should start out by saying that I'm horrible at maintaining friendships at any size. It's nothing I do or they do... I just get really intimidated if someone gets too close so I sort of just fade away. My entire life, I've had a habit of making friends in different "groups," introducing the groups so that they become friends, and then moving on to the next group. Ha.

As for the weight, I do tend to shy away from people because of my size. I always felt like dead weight with the group. Who hasn't heard the comedians joke about the bitchy fat girl cockblocking in the group? I am that girl (skinny or fat for the record) and it's just my personality to kind of mother hen people... and it's viewed as a lot less annoying when I'm the same size as the girls I'm mothering.

My girlfriends have never treated me differently as my size changed. Well, that's a lie. My few heavy girlfriends treated me VERY differently as my size changed. I even made a rare effort to end a friendship with one girl because she became downright cruel toward me as I lost weight. She called me a whore (I wasn't), called me ugly (I'm not), told me these exact words, "let's face it, you'll never be anyone's trophy wife, you'll be lucky to be a wife." Needless to say she's not in my life any more.

Did that make any sense? I'm flu-influenced tonight.

I've always been better friends with guys than girls. Girls REALLY intimidate me. I constantly worry about what they're thinking about me. Girls can be horribly judgmental and cruel... I know I went through several years where I was a gossip in my own right, and it's unlikely the girls I gossiped with and about did anything other than show me the same level of 3rd grade respect I'd shown them with my mouth.

I've been truly Blessed with some wonderful people/friends coming in and out of my life so that in times when I've really needed a pick me up, there's always been someone there for me. I make friends easily and I feel comfortable with meeting new people. I just don't have a female best friend, haven't since elementary school, and don't know that I will again... but I'm very happy with having multiple female friends and acquaintances.


----------



## Tania (Nov 6, 2009)

BBW4Chattery said:


> She called me a whore (I wasn't), called me ugly (I'm not), told me these exact words, "let's face it, you'll never be anyone's trophy wife, you'll be lucky to be a wife." Needless to say she's not in my life any more.



HOLY SHIT. What a farked up thing to say to a friend!


----------



## Keb (Nov 6, 2009)

I haven't had a best friend for a long time. I get along with people in general, and have plenty of social friends that I can talk to for hours when we happen to wind up together, but a regular best friend hasn't been a feature of my life since I was in middle school. 

I think part of it is that I was a military brat, so the best friends that I did make as a child were pulled away from me by moving or changing schools as often as I did. (I actually moved very little for a military brat, but the spector was always there. I changed schools much more often, because they kept switching me into schools that had gifted programs, and the process had to start over when we did move.) By the time I was in high school, it seemed like everyone had their little group of friends, and there wasn't anyone left over for me. So I stayed on the fringes of the groups I was in and was just generally social without making any true friends. I was a bit shocked when a girl I'd hung out with for most of high school wrote in my yearbook that she hadn't known me that well, but liked me. 

I don't think it was because of my weight, though. The best friends I'd made as a kid tended to get me in trouble a lot, and my mother never did like any of them. (She's told me horror stories about one of them that I wouldn't have even understood when I was friends with him.) 

On the other hand, I do think that it made it harder for me to make boyfriends. I had plenty of guy friends that I hung out with, of course, but after seeing a couple of guys ruthlessly mocked because I confessed to someone that I thought they were cute, I stopped telling anyone when I liked a guy. It seemed horribly unfair to submit someone to torture and embarrassment just because I liked him; it was kinder to just stay silent about it. And while I don't know if I was acutely conscious of it, my weight was definitely a factor in it--both in their teasing and my decision. 

I had mostly gotten over being teased myself by that age, and I'd learned to stand up for myself; I mean, I outright slapped a guy at prom for continously being a jerk to me while I was trying to dance with my date. When it was just myself, I could deal with it. But I didn't think it was right for me to be the cause of someone else's suffering--especially someone I liked.

In college it wasn't as big an issue, and I made a few good friends there--but again, there are only a couple I even still talk to, since I don't live in the area anymore. I was still shy about admitting to crushes, though; I trained myself well in high school, and part of me regrets that.

In the real world, it seems even harder to connect to people. You work, you sleep, you pay the bills, and you work some more.


----------



## Lovelyone (Nov 8, 2009)

I think that as time goes by we tend to lose touch with people as our lives cycle in and out of what we like, are interested in, where our careers take us, as our families grow, and how we grow as a person intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. I've lost friends over the years, but I never associated it with them being embarassed about my size/weight. We just grew away from one another in our interests. 

I have 2 very close friends who I would do anything for. Both are female. One has been a friend since middle high school and the other I met online about 5 years ago. We have become like sisters. I would do just about anything (legal) for them if they ever asked me to. Most of my best friends have been women, although there was one guy who I thought had great potential to be a best friend. He ended up being one of those FA's who just bounce from woman to woman...looking for a soft place to land and not caring who it was with. His friendship was empty and bland--and there came a time when I felt I had to cut him loose for my own good. It hurt cos I trusted, encouraged, and loved him as a friend and didn't feel as if he gave the same in return. I wanted him to be happy...cos that's what friends do for one another. I wanted him to remain part of my life, but sometimes you have to let someone go in order to realize that they were never with you in the first place. When friendship becomes all one-sided work...its time to re-evaluate and perhaps let go.

I have had the situation where someone wanted to keep our "friendship" a secret. I wont allow that in my life. Love me or leave me...cos I dont play that game. I am not embarassed of you so I expect the same from you in return. 

I also had one situation where a man wanted me to keep our dating a secret. I dont play THAT game either. When asked about his reasons for that, he stated, "I am friendly with some of the ladies in chat. I think they have crushes on me and I want to tell them before they hear it from someone else and their feelings get hurt." I believe that was just a way to try to keep me quiet cos he was a "playa" and had some of those women dangling with every word. IF I had mentioned that we were dating in chat, he would have been BUSTED and he didnt want that cos it would make chaos of his playing. And of course he didnt want to give up one...unless he could find someone better. That didnt go over well with me. That relationship didnt last long (thank goodness). 

I tend to gravitate to people who have the same interests, beliefs, ideals, sense of humor, character flaws. etc, as I do. For the most part I try to be as accepting of people who come into my life as possible, its not always easy to open yourself up to new friends but variety is the spice of life, as they say. 




Flutterby68 said:


> Do you ladies find that as you became larger, maintaining friendships got to be more difficult? if so, do you think it was because YOU were embarrassed/uncomfortable about your weight so you avoided the friends, or do you think the friends were embarrassed/uncomfortable being around you? Or another reason?
> 
> Also... your close friends. Do they tend to be male or female, and why?
> 
> ...


----------



## katherine22 (Nov 8, 2009)

I have been lucky to have had a close group of friends for 30 years most of whom I met in college. They have seen me be thin and fat and couldn't care less. I consider myself acceptably fat in that I wear a size 14W. I wonder if they would accept me if I weighed 300 lbs. and what kind of judgments they would make such as "is she depressed" or "I thought she was more informed than that."

My best friend was an art director for a big ad agency in New York. When I was a size 4, he said to me that I seemed so small, so fragile, and that he preferred me larger since he thought I had more stature as a larger woman. My friends like me for a lot of things that have nothing to do with body size, and I like them for other reasons as well. 

I have a fantasy of being a SSBBW. I had a boyfriend that begged me to become that size, and I was afraid to go there since part of my identity is that I love to walk and move quickly. I have an appreciation for SSBBW in that I considered them extremely beautiful.


----------



## Tracyarts (Nov 8, 2009)

I have lost several friends over lifestyle clashes. But only one that I really feel I lost because I gained weight. And that was because our friendship pretty much revolved around my tagging along with her when she went shopping. We did go to movies, have lunch and supper together, and just sit around and do other things together. But usually in the course of a day of shopping. Well, once I gained so much weight that I lost a lot of my mobility and stamina, I just could not keep up with her anymore, so that was a serious blow to the friendship. And then after I moved away from the same neighborhood she lived in, it fizzled out pretty quickly. Now that I am losing weight and regaining mobility, energy, and stamina; I am considering trying to reconnect with her. I haven't done it yet though, because I am just not physically ready yet.

Tracy


----------



## ssflbelle (Nov 10, 2009)

As a child I usually made friends quickly but after developing these friendships I had to leave them. My Dad's career caused him to pick up and move every 3 to 4 years. When I was in high school and college I made friends, but was beginning to find it difficult due to my size. Once I moved here to Florida in 1987 until about 1995 I had a lot of friends as I started a club called More to Love and was also involved with NAAFA. It was the best time of my life and I had so much fun with those people and finally felt so accepted. 

However once I was hurt (by a young adult who was drunk and used my back to stop him from falling over a tent stake) and I could no longer walk I lost almost all those friends. In fact I had one friend who said it was too difficult to be my friend because I had scooter problems with her twice and she had to help get me and the scooter to the van. I don't feel losing the friends was due to my weight I feel it was due more to my inability to walk and do things with them like dancing, bowling, play volleyball etc. 

Since my divorce and as I have gotten older and my disability has gotten worse I have found it harder and harder to make friends. I hardly leave the house as there is really no where for me to go. I have tried to join several meetups in my area but I haven't been able to make new friends. I find this made it very difficult for me to make friends when I attended the Dims bash. I found it rather hard to put myself out there and introduce myself. There were several people who were nice enough to help me especially with getting the meals, but I didn't see them again after the assistance. I was asked to dance once and lasted less than 4 minutes. When the man saw how bad my disability was I was not asked to dance again by him or anyone else. It emotionally hurt me as I use to be a bellydancer and a ballroom dancer. I'd like to come back again in 2010 and be more involved and enjoy myself even more but I am afraid my difficulty in making friends will result in the same outcome. Any suggestion on how to get over this difficulty I am experiencing due to my handicap would be appreciated.


----------



## supersizebbw (Nov 10, 2009)

i find the older i've gotten, the fewer friends i've had...over the years as i added more weight, i went along severing ties with so-called friends who would enjoy my company when we were alone but in public treated me like i was non-existent. so now i only have 2 good friends who i grew up with, but happen to currently live in different continents  but we call each other and email to try to keep up. Everyone else in my life is now pretty much an acquaintance 

I recently moved 3 weeks ago to a new town. I'm living in a shared household with a couple who pretty much keep to themselves but theres another housemate, a guy who seems to be enjoying my company and has been talking to me loads every night, i was thinking how refreshing because we could end up being good friends......up untill last saturday night when we all went out for a night on the town and he barely said more than 2 words to me all night...this is the same person who follows me around the house to give me his stories....i'm guessing he's embarassed by my weight when we're in public?. 

it's blows like these (an accumulation of them) that have really knocked my self-esteem down my whole life and only recently have been trying to get back up.


----------

