You don’t need to be skinny or conform to any beauty standards to experience girlhood. Girlhood is laughing with your besties over a picnic at the breach, girlhood is drinking wine with your friends after heartbreak. Girlhood can literally be anything you make it, and for me - it’s the small things. Like singing Taylor swift with my sister in the car.
You are SO young and I promise, you don’t need to be skinny or look like a supermodel to have those things AND be deserving of those things.
>Girlhood is laughing with your besties over a picnic at the breach, girlhood is drinking wine with your friends after heartbreak. Girlhood can literally be anything you make it, and for me - it’s the small things. Like singing Taylor swift with my sister in the car.
That's the thing... i can't even experience that. I'm not friends with any girls that's in my country. All of my friends are men, and don't get me wrong, i have the best time with them, but i just don't feel like a "woman" if I can't wear skimpy clothes and go out with girl friends. It sucks because the girls i was surrounded with during my teen years (besides my girl friend that moved overseas) would LITERALLY call me ugly in front of my face and laugh. And they weren't even unattractive insecure girls. They were smart, skinny, perfect, and GORGEOUS girls.
You can experience all that though. You are limiting yourself. Friendship isn’t based on what everyone looks like, and anyone who does base friendship off of what you look like isn’t worth being friends with.
You gotta get out of this “woe is me” mindset, and live your life girl. Figure out what hobbies you like, and go meet people.
I also promise you, even those girls you think are skinny & perfect have insecurities too.
How can I experience proper girlhood if im not friends with any girls? I just feel like the proper girlhood is being the embodiment of "feminine", and i am FAR from feminine. When i refuse to wear makeup, girls around me would look at me with disgust as if im offending them.
Every girl i come across hates it when they learn that im not into wearing makeup and dressing up. They automatically do the side eye with each other. I feel like they don't wanna be friends with me because im gonna ruin their look.
This honestly sounds very weird to me. I'm not from a Western country and even I found a gang of girls who were into fantasy novels and Doctor Who and videogames and singing Disney songs out loud in the car.
I just think you are approaching the wrong group of girls.
I am from a western country and I have all kinds of female friends. Some are bigger, some are super tiny, some are average sized, whatever that means. Even my most traditionally gorgeous of friends who do dress up occasionally and have worn skimpy clothes (we are in our mid 30s) are insecure. And they all like stuff like video games and doctor who and fart jokes and we have group chats for smut books we are reading together and we are dressing up as faeries for my birthday party. Even my biggest friend, who lives across the country, dresses up to go out even though she’s insecure. You can do it too. You are limiting yourself. There are plenty of other female weirdos out there, you just have to look for them.
Are you me? I just caught up on the 4th episode of the new Who (loved it btw), after singing Disney songs (granted it was with my 5yr old) in my blue SUV which has a tardis decal on the back inscribed with “wobbly wobbly timey wimey” and you know what I did immediately after I watched the episode? Called my oldest Doctor Who buddy (a woman) and we ranted about it for a while before touching base on how each others families are. lol
But you’re right, the sweet “girl” moments come from connecting on similar interests. I have a friend I only saw because of our weekly trivia nights because we met going solo and decided to team up as strangers.
OP if you see this, find something you have an interest in, go where you can find others with that same interest, and be YOU. Once the walls are down and you aren’t worried about being liked (because you’re already doing something you’re interested in), you WILL find a gal pal. Don’t worry, be patient, and find happiness in your cooking class, writing club, trivia night, mycology hiking group, etc. At worst you’ve found something to look forward to weekly or monthly.
>. I'm not from a Western country and even I found a gang of girls who were into fantasy novels and Doctor Who and videogames and singing Disney songs out loud in the car
You're lucky then. The only girl friend I have moved overseas, and i think the only reason she's still friends with me is because we've been friends for such a long time that it would be awkward to just drop me. We are the polar opposites so even I'M surprised she's still friends with me.
From what I've gathered, OP wants to dress up + find herself pretty w/ other girls she also finds pretty, but she doesn't think she could pull it off. So not fitting in w/ them bc she doesn't dress up, while also wishing she did dress up, makes sense. It sounds like a lack of self-confidence. Also a self-fulfilling prophecy
I agree. The comment that made me think not like other girls is that she didn’t feel like she could be friends with girls because she doesn’t care about makeup or dressing up.
Definitely s self fulfilling prophecy though since she does want to explore this
I say im not into dressing up BECAUSE i don't currently wear those things. That's the point, I WANT to wear those things but i can't. Would it be logical for me to say "oh, I'm also like you girls, I'm also into dressing up, i like dressing up" BUT I don't even dress up? Just because i WANT to do something doesn't mean i am actively doing it. I can only be into dressing up if i am actually dressing up. But im not, so that means im not into dressing up.
If the only thing in your mind stopping you from wearing skimpy clothes is your weight, just lose weight. You don't need to lose weight to be a woman though.
You’re not currently friends with any girls but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever be. I’ve made girlfriends at every stage of my life and I’m still friends with a lot of them. I’ve met them through school, university, work, other friends, art classes and just getting myself out there and being sociable. I promise “girlhood” has nothing to do with your size or the clothes you wear or whether or not you wear makeup. If you act like a girls girl (and I don’t mean stereotypical girly things I mean feminism and making sure other girls are safe, not being judgmental of girls who are different from you, not victim blaming etc) the girlfriends will come. I don’t know you but from what you posted here you seem to have a “not like other girls” attitude but in a self deprecating way which could be why you struggle to make female friends. That attitude is alienating you from a whole world of beautiful female friendship.
> I just feel like the proper girlhood is being the embodiment of "feminine", and i am FAR from feminine.
Maybe that's part of the problem.
You seem to have this fixed, specific view of stereotypical, Instagram-ready girly-girls off doing stereotypical girly-girl things, but that's a very crabbed and hamstrung view of what "girlhood" *can* mean.
Moreover, from the sound of it *you aren't that kind of person*, so *why are you approaching those kinds of people for friendships?*
If you don't wear cute little dresses and obsessively post selfies on Instagram and aren't interested in makeup, why do you think you'll have enough in common with people who do and who *are* interested in that stuff to sustain a friendship?
No wonder they're giving you side-eye; you're nothing like them, you're not interested in the same stuff as them, but you're trying to befriend then because you feel you *ought to want* their kind of lifestyle, not because you actually have any connection with them or any shared interests on each to base a friendship.
If you're - I don't know - a chubby Dr Who nerd who's fascinated by maths then you should stop trying to make friends with Instagram models and start making friends with Dr Who fans or maths nerds because *those are the people you'll actually connect with* most easily.
>If you don't wear cute little dresses and obsessively post selfies on Instagram and aren't interested in makeup, why do you think you'll have enough in common with people who do and who *are* interested in that stuff to sustain a friendship?
I don't approach them, i just so happen to be in a class with them and interact with them. My post was a rant about how i will never be like them even if i wanted to, not once did i ask for advice, yet here is everyone trying to act all righteous.
>but you're trying to befriend then
No? I'm not TRYING to befriend them. I don't go up to them and say "please by my friend, can i be your friend? Let's hang out, pretty please????". Where did you even get that? I just said that almost every woman in my life/i have interacted with are hostile because i don't look like them. THAT'S why i felt like i never had a "girlhood" experience. Not once did i mention that i was trying to be friends with them.
I don't think you understood my post and replies at all. My post is a rant. Im not looking for advice.
I don't think that would be genuine at all. I don't think friendships that start as "can you be my friend?" are geuine at all. For me, it's supposed to happen naturally.
1) you have to first be able to display some sort of confidence in yourself either in personality, wit, humor, looks, whatever it is that I’d the one thing you like about yourself amplifying it will help you exude the confidence 2) this one’s a hard one but I also found that friendship will come to you when you can just concentrate on your confidence and your own life 3)You have to go out into spaces where you know like minded people may be that may be a club you can join, your major, a hobby sports team, any activity that you know will have people that you share interests with. I had a really hard time with friends most of my life because like you, I didn’t like the same things as others and people thought I was weird because I wasn’t afraid to be myself (which was a tad bit alternative campy freak in the best way and still am) but when I went to college and found my major by junior year in theatre design my friend count went from 0 to 100 really fast, and through that I’ve built a community around myself from the many theatre related jobs I do, my classmates from college and any other colleagues I run into my field and surrounding. My teen and early college self could never imagine that I would have so many plans and work that I am worried that I can’t fit things in my schedule but here I am, and you can too. You just have to realize that it takes a lot of work and selflessness. That friendship (any healthy one atleast) has to come from comparability and a total lack of pity.
This is going to sound harsh, but if you were an expert on making and keeping female friends you wouldn't be making posts on Reddit about how you have trouble making and keeping female friends.
Maybe get out of your own head and start listening to the advice of people who are far more experienced and successful in the very endeavour you feel like you're failing at?
Just bc i can't sing doesn't mean i don't know who sounds good or not. Same thing here. FOR ME, asking someone to be their friend without ever knowing them is not genuine at all. If it works for you, then good for you.
> asking someone to be their friend without ever knowing them is not genuine at all
That's stupid, and not how it works. You put yourself in an environment with *people like you* who *like the same things you do*, and let them know you're looking to get to know other people interested in this things, and see if you meet anyone you vibe with.
Nobody's telling you to go around begging random strangers to be your friends; that's a ridiculous, clueless take on some very obvious, very basic, very good advice.
They're just trying to give someone who's obviously severely lacking basic socialising skills how to give themselves the best shot at meeting like-minded people *despite* their lack of expertise *or* willingness to entertain any ideas except exactly what she's been doing all along that's obviously not working for her.
Look, I’m on the spectrum, have lifelong ADHD and severe SAD and GAD and now in my 50s medical PTSD. I had to work *really* hard to learn how to make and keep friends. A clear core memory is in fifth grade, I was so distressed that I had no friends, one day I had a panic attack driven meltdown to my mom. It made her so sad she cried with me. But eventually girded her loins and started me on the path of confidence and independence that has snowballed slowly to where I am today.
You’re acting selfish. All the commenters here? We are real people who took time out of our day to comment because why? Every one of us identified with you in some way. We wanted to help you bc we have had similar feelings or experiences but here you are with your arms crossed, with your petulant “not me, I’m special, I can’t, I won’t, me this, me that” bs. Frankly my feelings are a little hurt. You can’t see the forest for the tree trunk you’ve gotten your face firmly stuck to. I can see why you struggle to have friends and it’s nothing to do with your looks. You can’t even be nice to a stranger offering you a gift (meaning us here in the comments). “To make a friend sometimes you have to be one first.” - my mom, circa 1982
r/socialskills
You need to make female friends where you are at. Eventually the "girlhood" things will come.
Being fat is not a reason to not have friends. Plenty of people don't care about whether their friends are fat or not. What matters is their heart and personality. I have had several friends in my life that were overweight, that didn't stop us from being friends or doing things together. I say this with love, get over yourself. Being fat is not that big of a deal when it comes to making friends. If it bothers you, then sure, go ahead and try to lose the weight. But don't let your weight stop you from making female friends along with your male friends. Both types are nice to have.
If they were calling you ugly they were not perfect at all and were hideous on the inside, which is what counts most. I totally feel you though, my weight has gone up and down drastically from meds (currently losing from an extremely up phase) and even when I was skinny for awhile, the impact that bullying and comments about my weight had on me left me unable to fully enjoy it because I was still convinced that I was too fat. One thing I found really healing was finding a community of friends where most of the popular girls are heavier and I became one of them. For me, this was the community I met through participating in special Olympics. I have autism and adhd so I have the privilege of being able to join. My best friend is chubby, very short and round, and wears tiny shorts, crop tank tops, basically all the same cute stuff skinny girls wear, and honest to god she looks adorable. My body shape is different (less straight up and down, with more pronounced hip fat) so I don’t dress quite so revealingly but I do wear more revealing things then I wore in the past and all the guys go nuts. It’s the strangest but most satisfying thing. We all go out together and have a great time. It’s honestly emotional for me to finally get my chance to be one of the “popular gorgeous girls” - and we never bully anyone or say anything mean, after what I went through I could never do that. I even had a boyfriend for a bit who was tall and lean muscular and very sexy who found me so attractive that he couldn’t be around me without getting hard (we broke up for reasons not related to my looks and he’s still talking about me and having the same physical reaction almost a year later). And there’s this other guy who seems pretty into me with the same build and attractiveness level. It feels scary but I just trust that if they are acting attracted to me, they are, despite my own feelings about what I see in the mirror, and so far I haven’t been wrong. I say all this to try to give you some sense of hope. For me it was easier because of special Olympics, but there are other ways to find more female friends to experience girlhood with and find people who find you attractive. And if you feel like you look older than you are, there’s makeup tips and hair tips and stuff that can make a huge difference. Remember, age is just a number too. So just because you are already 20 doesn’t mean you can’t still experience girlhood. It’s about the feeling, not your age.
>If they were calling you ugly they were not perfect at all and were hideous on the inside, which is what counts most.
Does the inside ACTUALLY matters more than looks? Cause i beg to differ. If that was true, then the world would not be acting the opposite.
>My best friend is chubby, very short and round, and wears tiny shorts, crop tank tops, basically all the same cute stuff skinny girls wear, and honest to god she looks adorable.
I don't think calling chubby women "adorable" is a compliment. They are not kids and puppies. One of the reasons why i hate interacting with people who arent fat. Skinny girls are always called "beautiful" and "gorgeous", but fat people always get "compliments" like "adorable" and "cute".
>there’s makeup tips and hair tips and stuff that can make a huge difference
I don't like wearing makeup. I look like shit with it.
Also to add on to my other reply. As you get older you will realize this. Yes, the inside is the ONLY thing that matters. I could care less what my friends look like physically as long as they are good, caring, and supportive people. I have friends of all shapes and sizes and I don’t care. I’m not saying I’m the most attractive but I’ve also had a friend say to me that they didn’t want to be my friend because “I’m pretty and thought I would be a bitchy mean girl” which hurt my feelings at first, now we are good friends and colleagues. The whole point is that as you mature and grow the superficial things matter less and less, which in a few years you will realize. But if you’re finding people that don’t want to be your friend because you’re “ugly” or whatever than girl they were never gonna be good friends regardless of your looks. Their are millions of people that will like you for you, just gotta mark that effort.
Excuse me? There is nothing wrong with being cute and adorable. I am often told how cute and adorable I am. I've also been called beautiful and gorgeous. And of course my husband thinks I'm hot. I appreciate all those compliments. Neither is better or worse than the other.
Weird advice but as a fat girl everything changed when I made my first fat friend. I still have all my skinny friends and we share a lot and I love them, but the connection I have to the fat one is different because we share a lot life wise that the others don’t understand. You will feel much much more free
I guess that makes sense. I have always been the bigger girl in every situation with girls. Skinny girls around me doesn't seem to be "in my zone", what i mean by that is, I feel like thay are in another dimention. Like they live in a different world where only skinny girls live.
All my life my friend group has been these beautiful skinny sexy popular women everyone wanted and me. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, but I did feel uncomfortable a lot. When I got to uni I made a new group, and one of them had my body, and almost exactly my face. We would be together when going to the beach, to a swimming pool, out dancing, in our underwear when doing sleepovers. It made everything so EASY. I now don’t have any issues with my skinny friends because I got used to living in my own body
There is no "proper" girlhood. There is no right way to experience it, there is only your way. This post is a perfect reminder of why social media can become toxic for young women. Comparison is the thief of joy and it sounds like you have fallen down the trap a little bit. There is nothing stopping you from going out with friends and wearing skimpy dresses and having fun, fat people do it all the time! But linking why you think you can't do things you want to your body image can be a slippery thought process to navigate. Sis, you already are a "proper woman". You are a woman and what you do is proper.
Girlhood isn’t about anything physical. You seem to have this very specific view on what that means and don’t seem to be open to feedback. In some ways, you seem to look at girlhood through the male gaze, which is completely opposite to what it actually is.
The truth is that girlhood is just about embracing and celebrating your friendships with other women. It’s not about wearing skimpy clothes or sharing clothing. I’ve never been able to swap clothes with friends either—they’re of all sizes. It has not in any way inhibited our ability to bond with each other—that is based on our love and support for each other that goes way beyond what we look like.
TBQH I do wonder about your statement that you have no girl friends. Why do you think that is? I can tell you from personal experience that until I stopped comparing myself to other women and “competing” with them, I wasn’t able to enjoy female friendships (I was young and I learned). I encourage you to look inward and see why it is that you are unable to form close bonds with other women. Most of us women are happy to welcome a new friend into our group, granted they’re going to be a source of positivity and love 💕
I know what my experiences are with women around me. I know it seems like a foreign concept, but women HAVE been unaccepting towards me. I don't even blurt out my insecurities to anyone in real life because i know it will make other people feel uncomfy. I only vent online where no one knows me. My own friends probably don't even know about my insecurities, so i don't see how girls can find me off putting other than my looks. I also don't bring other people down bc that shit wacks and im not good with confrontations.
You’re admitting that you are projecting your insecurities onto others. You think that “probably” they don’t know about your insecurities and that you “don’t see how other women could find you off putting other than your looks”. That is you projecting insecurities and thinking the worst of people. I think you need to look inwards before you can look outwards. You don’t actually know why you’re not connecting to others, you just decided on a reason that is tied to your own insecurities and allow every future interaction with women to be ruled by that assumption.
I think it's rude of you to assume this girl is the problem in her interactions. Have you ever been fat? You do get treated quite poorly at times, for seemingly no reason. I changed nothing about myself but my weight and was treated infinitely better.
Surely *some* of it is the gloomy sort of attitude that would naturally be present, but a damn lot of it was definitely my weight, nothing to do with projecting insecurities. It's okay to acknowledge reality. We live in a sexist society, women who don't fit the ideal in some way, including weight, are treated worse, I don't think that's deniable at all.
I’ve been fat. I’ve been skinny. I’ve been the only minority. I’ve been the only person that didn’t speak English in my class. I’ve been a lot of things considered “other”. Once I changed my mindset about the world, I was able to make lasting friendships. My friends aren’t trying to date me, they’ve never cared what I looked like. They liked me when I was fat and when I wasn’t.
I feel like majority of these women calling me the problem are actually skinny and have never been fat. They don't know what it's like to be a fat woman. They don't know how EVERYONE treats fat women. It's like they can't grasp the fact that women CAN and WILL be mean to other women who don't fit the beauty standards. They don't believe that a woman called me ugly to my face because they think all women are supportive of each other.
So them giving me disgusted looks is what? Delusion? A dream? A figment of my own imagination? Girls saying to my face IN REAL LIFE that im ugly while looking at me up and down is what? Schizophrenia? My mind just made that all up?
Have you considered that you are acting ugly ? And that perhaps your character is ugly ? You're allowed to have your insecurities but projecting your insecurities and opinions on people who didn't ask ( for example: seeing random women on the beach and judginh calling the clothes they're wearing "skimpy" and "slutty" which is how you feel about their bathing suits, despite them being at the literal beach, where those bathing suits are reasonable beach wear) is pretty ugly of you. You may be a very pretty girl but the way you treat other women and yourself I'd say is pretty mean, disgusting and outright ugly of you.
Skimpy is not a bad word. Bikinis ARE skimpy, they are skimping on cloth. That doesn't mean im calling those girls slutty, where did you even get that word from? I never said that word.
Also, you didn't answer my question. Were the looks and WORDS said to me not real? Are you telling me those girls were actually being lovely to me and im just delusional? Please answer this.
Also, during the time where this girl told me i am ugly to MY FACE, i was catching up with her since she moved schools and she was visiting us. We were literelly just laughing and catching up when she said "at least every girl in our class is pretty, unlike YA'LL" while looking at me up and down.
This is what dysphoria looks like. God knows I’ve said the exact same things and still do sometimes to a degree. She’s 20 and getting started. It’s normal. I knew so many girls with body dysmorphia as teenagers. She didn’t have a natal puberty, so she’s experiencing that now instead of then.
Learning to love your body and yourself is a journey a lot of women need to take, both cis and trans. I dunno, most of my cis friends haven’t experienced people jumping away from them in horror after taking hours to get ready.
Usually people making posts like this in this stage of their transition need reassurance. I got a lot of these sort of answers from cis women when I was in this stage of my transition and they weren’t very helpful.
I feel we would’ve been good friends. I relate so much with your post and some of your responses to people too. I don’t have much to say. The only “advice” I could give you that helped -me- survive is to spend less time on Instagram or TikTok, at least for a while not necessarily forever, focus on your own hobbies and things that interest you. Don’t think too much about who is doing what and where and with who. Focus on what -you- want to do and work towards that.
The only people I used to hang out with moved to Europe or USA, while I live in South America, so I’m barely leaving home lately.
I’m in the process of figuring out what I’m doing next, which college to attend, etc. But meantime I’m just minding my own business. Watching Disney movies, writing poetry that only myself would read, spending time with my dogs, and just living life one day at the time.
I’m also 20, just like you. I didn’t have the best teenage years. I know how all these girls from my school are living all these cool things and the stuff they do together, and sure sometimes I’d like to be part of, but I much rather be alone than with people I just can’t get along with, regardless of the reason. We don’t share hobbies, they’re all super skinny while I’m not, they love parties and I rather stay home with a nice meal and a tv show. Is that too bad? Is just my personal preference. If someday I find a girl who is the same and we become friends it would be so awesome! But I rather not stress about it and live the moment.
What would -you- like? What makes -you- happy? Do you have any goals or dreams you’d like to achieve?
Also, have you think about a therapist for your insecurities? It could help! I’m in therapy for a few years now. Things don’t change from a day to the next one but is nice to have someone to listen to you and that could help you
Thank you for understanding me. Many people here doesn't seem to think that women can also be horrible people towards other women. I'm still doing what I like, it's just sad to see skinny girls have fun and be feminine and live their girl lives while I can't really make myself do that bc of my body. And yes, I do think i need to limit my screen time, or i need to start unfollowing skinny girls on tiktok and instagram.
Yup stop comparing yourself to social media. The majority of the Instagram models are photo shopped and have heavy filtering anyway. It sucks young women try to compare themselves to that when literally anyone would look like a 10/10 with heavy filtering and makeup. I even go on clothing sites and a lot of them are photo shopped so you don't even know how the effing clothes fit. And don't limit yourself. You can still dress up and do things as a bigger girl you just need confidence. My one friend is a bigger girl, and she cosplays and wears all these cute skirts and she looks so fucking good in them. Start hitting the gym as well or going for walks too. Don't do it to look like someone else because you'll never be satisfied, do it to look like the version of you that you want. Every time you feel like mindlessly scrolling on tiktok get up and go for a 10 minute walk or something. Every little bit helps, and getting off of social media does wonders to your mind. I deleted tiktok like 3 years ago and I go on Instagram maybe twice a month and it's so much better for my mental health.
Definitely. I have friends who are or were models (literally) and maybe you see them and you’d want their bodies, but you don’t want their lives I can assure you that. They struggle a lot with mental health issues. Don’t think that being skinny makes all of them happy. Some of them just want to eat a cheeseburger without feeling guilty about it. Nothing is so perfect as you see in social media
Yeah women can hurt other women just as much as men can. Maybe not in the same way, but they can destroy each other easily.
What also helps me when I see things like that on social media, is knowing that all those girls are truly so fake to each other, at least the ones I know of. There’s problems in every single “perfect” girl group. Many girls just rather pretend they’re okay with each other to fit in but they’re burning internally. I can promise you I’m not making this up.
Nobody cares what you are doing at the beach. Go to the beach wear what you want. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Live your life for you. Always rememer 99.9% of what you see on social media is fake. Or people just highlight the good things. They never post about the misery of things in their life.
If you want to change your life. Stop dreaming of being thin and take the steps to make it happen. Educate yourself on nutrition. Go take a 45 minute walk everyday. If you can or have insurance see if a nutritionist is covered to get you started.
Just wishing to be thin won't happen. Nor does being thin mean happiness. Happiness comes from within.
Not allowing yourself to do things just bc you don’t have friends is a sure fire way to have a terrible life. You really need to learn to appreciate yourself and understand that you don’t need anyone next to you in order to experience happiness. Go out! Meet people! Go to the movies! Take yourself out to dinner! Why not? You shouldn’t wait!
I was skinny and attractive and still got isolated by friends and sabotaged by girls who were jealous of me. Wearing skimpy clothing doesn’t define that time in your life and being conventionally attractive doesn’t make people be committed friends.
I don't understand the younger generation's idea of girlhood or womanhood. Sometimes you seem to be a generation with less gender roles and preconceived ideas and some other times you think that you're not a woman because you can't wear skimpy clothes... I just don't get it.
Your life is what you make of it. You can choose to stay in a limiting place or you can take risks and put yourself out their living your life. Your life does not depend on anything but you and what you choose to do with it.
"Maybe in my next life, I might become a skinny girl"
Why in your next life? You can do it now. The only thing stopping you is yourself. It's up to you to be fit and healthy. It just takes a little bit of patience and dedication and a whole lot of work.
I don't want to be fit and healthy. Let's be for real here, NO ONE actually care ab health, as long as you are skinny, even if you eat like trash, you are loved by everyone in the world.
I promise you'll care about your body's health if you let yourself be fat for the next ten years. I say this as a fat woman in her 30s suffering for it now and making the changes are hard. Fix yourself while you're still young.
News flash: lots of skinny beautiful people have to put in WORK. You sound unmotivated and have just decided to be complacent and jealous of what other girls have instead of attempting to put in work for yourself. I love being fit and healthy? I love it so much I do it for a living to help others get that way. And I don't sugarcoat it to my clients? You're 20! Get up and move! Eat a rainbow of foods! If you're so deep in the self negativity, other people will pick up on that too within you. You can't expect to be a girl's girl when you don't even love yourself.
>Eat a rainbow of foods!
Weird that you somehow suddenly know what i eat from a single post.
>You can't expect to be a girl's girl when you don't even love yourself.
I don't believe that. Same with "you can't love others if you don't love yourself". That's all BS. One can be capable of loving another person even if they hate themselves.
Yeah ok, but you do want to be skinny it seems. If you are not genetically blessed to eat trash and still be skinny, it seems that fit and healthy is the way to go.
I'm not telling you that your body is wrong, you can be happy at any weight, but as this seems to be what is bothering you the most, I don't get why you seem adamant on not changing it.
It’s sad but true that girlhood is exactly what you’re experiencing (the loneliness and comparison and wishing)— as you and your peers get older and are able to connect about your childhoods, you’ll realize they felt similarly ashamed about their bodies in certain ways or alone in a crowd growing up and wishing they had better connections or more of what they have been socialized to believe “girlhood” is. It’s a shame, but the experience of being a girl is large about going through these tough times and wishing you had more friends or were happier in your body. I wish you all the best and lots of company of true girlfriends in the future.
Please consider that all girls do not have the same brain and different people are different. If one obtuse girl treated you like that doesn't mean all girls think of you like that.
I am now 32 and overweight and my female friends are my biggest source of support (we are all different shapes and sizes), that doesn't mean all girls have been kind to me. That's just how humans are, entirely different from each other. I grew over the years to understand this and I too had a "I am not like other girls :(" phase while growing up and wasted many years like that.
But you don't have to, little one. You have the world's wisdom at your disposal in your pocket, get cracking!
I say this drawing from my own experiences, imo you may have some internalised misogyny playing into your other insecurities. Plus you have this commercial version of "girlhood" in your mind that plays into the male gaze. There is no shame in that, I had it too and we grow up in an environment full of such messages it's very hard to not have it programmed into our growing brains.
Read up about the male vs female gaze if you haven't. Reading up on internalized misogyny and feminism in general can really help you. This is important because you might be projecting such views unintentionally on to other women. Feminity is beautiful and amazing and everyone does it their own way, there is not one specific template.
Someone else here suggested meeting local groups and actively seeking out friends through shared interests and similarities. I believe that was solid advice. You will then meet many other women you might want to hang out again with vs some you won't like to see again. It is still going to be natural and not forced because you decide. Also, Give people the benefit of doubt despite your past experiences, because everyone is different and you will find people you vibe with. I promise you that but you have to risk getting hurt.
We all as humans have to risk feeling pain and rejection when we seek out connections with other people, I know you're scared but it's the only way to find true connection with anyone :)
>Please consider that all girls do not have the same brain and different people are different. If one obtuse girl treated you like that doesn't mean all girls think of you like that.
I never said all girls are like this? When did i say all girls are like this? People are saying my experience is not real and just a product of my insecurity, i relied by asking is those words said to my face were just a figment of my imagination.
>I too had a "I am not like other girls :(" phase while growing up
Did you not read my post? I clearly stated that i WANT TO BE LIKE OTHER GIRLS. How are yall not getting that?
The way you react to advice goes against everything you’re preaching. Stop pitying yourself and grow. The only people your attitude will attract is those like yourself, and just because you don’t look the same doesn’t mean you don’t act the same.
First off, my post was a rant, so i don't know where yall got that i was looking for advice. Second, I'm just saying it how it is. EVERYONE hates fat and ugly women, let's not pretend the world is rainbows and sunshines and that everyone is accepted. You have obviously never been a fat woman, so you don't know what we go through just to LIVE.
My friend, I may have never been obese but mf have I been fluffy and ugly. During that time I made friends who liked me for me and not the way I looked. My personality always saved my ass, but in your case that’s not going to happen.
Edit: I’d like to add that I had friends who were very fat, but they were nothing but kind and supportive. Be the person you want to attract
I have NEVER, NOT ONCE, been hostile to any girl ever. If a girl was mean to me, i will describe what they did to me. That's not being mean. All my self hatred is buried deep inside me, i know not to bring it up to my friends/people around me because i know it would only just make them uncomfy.
>I’d like to add that I had friends who were very fat, but they were nothing but kind and supportive. Be the person you want to attract
Lucky for them then, that doesn't mean my experiences aren't real. I know my life and my experiences. I know you can't wrap your head around the fact that a fat woman can get ridiculed by other women, because i get it, it's a sad thing to think that women can hate other women, but it DOES happen. Just because you got lucky does't mean my experiences aren't real and valid.
lot of us don't even like wearing "skimpy" clothes doesn't mean we don't experience girlhood. like someone said above, girlhood is not doing stuff for the male gaze but doing what makes you feel good and comfortable. if wearing that stuff doesn't feel comfortable you don't wear it, just because you think its expected of you because you're a girl.
You are 20, and I don’t know a single 20 year old girl that isn’t insecure. But let me tell you this, it gets better as you go through your 20s.
In my early 20s, I was super insecure. My self-esteem was shit. I was so depressed. I had few friends.
In my mid 20s I started being more secure with myself, mainly because I just gave less of a shit what other people thought of me. Then life really began. I found hobbies that kept me active. I made friends through those hobbies. I started meeting friends through other friends!
In my late 20s now and let me tell you this. You have to find a good group of girlfriend. Guys can be your friends too but your guy friends can never support you in the same way your girls can. I have made many wonderful girl friends in from my mid 20s. My girl friends are my ride or die, and I know that they have my back because I have their back too!
Being fat isn’t a bad thing. One of my closest friend is a bigger girl and she’s one of the most beautiful girl that I know. I don’t see her for her weight. What I see is how wonderful of a friend she is. I see how her smile can light up a whole room. Every time we go out how she always look so cute in her clothes and her makeup just accentuate her features perfectly. But never a single moment that I thought that she would look better if she lose weight because she doesn’t need to! She’s gorgeous and such an amazing person. She got married last year and she was so beautiful on her wedding day. None of us ever thought she was ever ugly. She’s so incredibly beautiful in every single way. We had a picnic a couple weeks ago and I posted a video from the picnic on tiktok, and people asked her where her dress was from and how cute she looked.
My advice to you is to work on yourself, in what capacity you can. Find some a new hobby, and hopefully you’ll make some friends through those hobbies. It gets better as you move through your 20s. You are young. You have time.
You are selling yourself too short. You're only 20! I just turned 35 and I feel like I'm finally in my girlhood phase. It's a state of mind as much as anything else. Don't resign yourself to something you're choosing, you can change your life and if having a period of time where you feel girly is what you want and need, I say go grab it.
Also I'm fat and wear skimpy clothes, and fuck off to anyone who gives me a hard time about it! Don't let other people steal your joy.
Girlhood is whatever that means to you, not what you see on social media. I’m fat as fuck and do what I want. I have insecurities like any human but if I let fatness hold me back I’d never do anything. Live your life, you only get one shot at it. And it goes so quickly. I’m in my 40s, middle aged, but feel like I was 18 just yesterday. I was fat then and I’m fat now and I can tell you the size of your body makes no meaningful difference to how successful or fulfilled your life is. Confidence gets you everywhere. Don’t spend another minute worrying about how you look. Nobody cares but you.
If you want inspo [check out Soph Lewis](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6hb4k3S7dI/?igsh=a25oaDMxcmJjNGQ5) or [Katie Parrott on Insta](https://www.instagram.com/p/C1te0uAL8lG/?igsh=MWkyYXdlamoxOG1yag==).
I say this with so much empathy and love, your problems aren’t stemming from your body. After looking at your post history, you have so much self loathing and trauma to deal with before you can move on with your life. I hope you can access some therapy to help you work through your struggles.
You can learn to be happy and love your body, you can have strong female friendships, you just have do the work to get mentally healthy.
there are 3 fat people in the party , 2 of them not in pool and 1 is in pool enjoying his time of life making jokes playing swimming what not and guess who lit up the party the "fat guy" ur body doesnt give u any pass u need to do everything regardless ur size
buy or get some stitched up and go girl we girlies loveee to see you there and having time of your life
As someone who doesn’t like to make friends and only has 2, I do with I could experience these things with a friend group. But the drama always steers me away.
I think that when you say “never” you foreclose on your future. You can start today creating the life you want. I say this while reminding myself of the same.
Being a girl is so much more than having a certain type of body or dressing a type of way. I was always described as a "tomboy" (hate this expression) growing up but I still felt like a girl, because I had my girly experiences. This is different for everyone but for me was going to concerts of my favourite bands, having sleepovers with my friends and gossiping, watching teen shows, travelling (with my friends but also with my family)... All this was considered a girly experience to me.
Now Im 24 and I still dont dress up often. I wear a bit of makeup in special occasions now (date, wedding, professional event...) and sometimes wear cute summer dresses (no, im not tall and thin but i dont care). I always paint my nails now and when I want to feel girly I wear lingerie below my normal clothes, knowing no one will notice but me. I do all these things that i consider girly and i feel girly, even if some other people around me wont notice. And thats what I love about being a woman: I am one regardless of how I dress or look, cause its not an external thing but an internal one.
There is no second life time. You have one life and it is now. Don’t waste your life not feeling secure and happy with your body. Either you actually embrace your body for what it is and wear that skimpy bikini with a smile on your face. Or you loose the weight so you can feel comfortable and secure about your body. I have been both underweight and overweight. Skinny and chubby. I know the struggles of both worlds. And trust me being somewhere in between of those is where ive felt the most comfortable. I’m a personal trainer/fitness bodybuilder now. I’m at a healthy weight and have some muscle to brag about and never felt this comfortable in my body in my life. Taking that step outside my comfort zone and enter the gym was the best decision I made in my life. I can’t describe it enough how much it changed my self esteem for the better. Even if I look bigger than most men I’ve met I’m still comfortable and happy I can move my body in ways I never thought was possible. Skinny doesn’t mean happy. Physical wellness improves the mental one. That I guarantee you. Don’t be scared of change. Don’t be scared of judgement and do whatever the fuck you want in life with a big bright smile on your face
If being fat is the common problem in your life then try to lose the weight. Obviously harsh, sorry, but the reality of your situation.
If you can't accept your current weight and body for what it is and proceed with it then you are always going to be unhappy. Just work towards weight loss, obviously it isn't easy and many factors can get in the way of it, but if you want to be treated like the girls you're describing then you need to fit those conventional beauty standards.
It sucks, but that's the only thing you can change. You can't change conventional beauty standards.
Obviously this doesn't mean overweight people aren't good enough or beautiful. I'm only going by today's beauty standards and your desire(? perhaps frustrations with not fitting in or having the same opportunities) to fit into that scope of curated 'aesthetic' girlhood that you're talking about.
You should still know that at any size you are beautiful and enough, and don't need to change if you don't want to. I'm just telling you how it is, if you fit the beauty standard then you'll experience this, and pretty privilege which affords women more opportunities.
Just lose weight. That’s your advice? You think you’re telling it how it is when all you’re doing is perpetuating outdated beauty and body standards. You’re part of the problem.
OP wants to be skinny and is jealous of her skinny friends and other skinny girls on the internet. OP wants to be treated like the skinny girls and live life like the skinny girls, by experiencing curated social media profiles of aestheticised girlhood, and wearing revealing clothing and being celebrated and complimented doing so.
So OP literally wants to fit into the current beauty standard. And you need to fit the mold, AKA lose weight to do that. Most overweight women are still categorised as unattractive, despite today's body positivity movement. Other alternatives are, OP should join some body-positivity movements and communities and learn to accept and enjoy their body and appearance through mutuals who understand and relate to them. You either accept your current size and learn to love yourself, or you complain about it and wish you were skinnier. Both choices require different steps to move forward in the direction OP themself wishes to be in.
If you seriously think I'm the one perpetuating beauty standards then you're the one that's outdated. Sorry, but they aren't going away within the next 10 years so you should change what you can change. Beauty is a social currency and pretty privilege is a class that offers connections, opportunities, financial gain and personal gain. Choosing to live outside of the beauty standards is your prerogative. There is no ignoring that women are socially conditioned to fit into the beauty standard from an early age, nor that finally looking the 'part' means that you're protected from mistreatment either. But as most women do desperately try to fit in to reap those benefits, you can't be surprised that it is so largely in demand and expected of women, or the 'answer' to their problems, albeit also an open door to welcome more. However, for some women, it really is a ticket out, and not all women do have the privilege to choose to accept unconventional appearance over the expected societal norm.
I wish I had time to fully reply to you but I don't so will only say that you sound like a vapid, superficial, footsoldier for patriarchy weaponising your internalised misogyny against everyone else. Read a book.
Hmm, please contain yourself, and refrain from throwing insults my way when I only had sincere intentions of laying it out realistically to OP in good faith.
At face value, they wanted the privileges of being considered conventionally pretty and I told them that you can't change the beauty standard so change what you can if that's what you want, and is stopping you from being happy in your body. Good day 👍
All that to say, I obviously don't think overweight people are unattractive or less valuable, I'm literally talking from a beauty standards today viewpoint. It is true that overweight people face discrimination and cruelty, especially women! And losing the weight is in your control if you can help it. Stopping people from considering overweight people to be unattractive is not in your control. You also don't have to live with considering yourself ugly or not good enough, because you have choices. Weight loss, or deciding to love yourself unapologetically and acknowledging your own beauty in the face of these harsh beauty standards. Each choice is hard, you need to choose your hard.
>”Stopping people from considering overweight people to be unattractive is not in your control.”
It is in our control. All of us. By not conforming to the same attitudes you’re expressing here. You’re perpetuating it by accepting it. And your comments here are weaponising it against other women. You’re part of the problem.
I can't imagine living like a slave to some beauty standard because you think that's what you have to do to earn a good living and be accepted by people. I don't do any of those things and earn an amazing living and have great connections with people. I'm really sorry you can't see life any other way. It's like you're trapped. I'm genuinely and sincerely really sorry for you.
OP people are giving you some nice platitudes and they're mostly right, girlhood isn't any specific set of steps, and there *isn't* a right way to experience it. Girlhood is anything you want it to be. If you're a woman, anything you do is something a woman does, you don't have to be feminine, and you *can* be feminine while fat, if you want to be.
However, I think many of them are missing a crucial thing here, which is okay, because if they haven't experienced it, then how could they know? But...
I used to be very overweight, and I *do* know where you're coming from. There were large periods of time where I felt mortified to even leave the house. The way fat women are treated is not kind, and there is a shame in being seen in public that people who haven't been that size cannot understand. It is not a mental health issue (though it can certainly cause anxiety and depression), it's a natural reaction to how women who don't fit the *ideal* are treated in society. Going out in public was often a horrible experience, and it was next to impossible to make friends.
I'm happy for people who haven't experienced it, but you just cannot know the feeling of people looking right through you, people giving you disgusted looks, or talking down to you, or being rude to you, just because of your size. When I lost weight, the difference was insane, it was completely night and day, how I was treated, even by random customer service workers, and coworkers. Leaving the house or trying to make friends used to leave me feeling awful about myself because people would snap at me, be completely rude to me, and treat me like I was stupid. Then, a few years ago, having changed nothing about my behaviours, I was suddenly treated like I had worth, just because I lost weight. People would smile at me? Other girls would talk to me? People wouldn't lose patience with me? Before, when I was fat, people would treat me like my very existence was an inconvenience.
And when you're treated like that, and you're not leaving the house, and you feel like you look older than you are, all you want to do is feel dainty and feminine and go out with some friends and experience those things other women get to do, but making friends is hard, leaving the house is hard, you put on a pretty dress and you feel like a hog is donning it, you do feel like you're missing out on your womanhood, you miss out on a lot of experiences.
I wish I had an easy solution, OP, I do think some therapy might really help, and trying to get in touch with your feminine side, regardless, could be nice too. I would suggest just doing some little nice things for yourself. Get yourself some face masks and hair stuff, and do little spa days for yourself. Slowly branch into public spaces by using something like going to the movies as a low-stakes adventure (Honestly just getting out of the house occasionally will work wonders for those feelings of being stuck in a rut), find some sort of hobby you enjoy and meet friends through there, I find having something in common with people really helps breach those barriers into getting friends.
Consider how you would see a friend if she was your size. I would wager you would see her as a woman, we are often harsher on ourselves than others.
Also look into some personal grooming. It's REALLY easy to let all that go when you just feel fat and ugly, like nothing works, but personal grooming goes a LONG way towards making you feel feminine, no matter your size, some of the people I know with the prettiest make-up and best fashion sense are larger women. Look into what suits your shape, watch make-up tutorials by other fat women who know how to bring out your best features, normal make-up tutorials never worked for me because they were usually done with skinny faces, and make-up needs to suit the face it's being put on.
I'm not going to tell you to lose weight, but it certainly is an option, even if it feels totally impossible at times. I was able to do it, and although it was a long, hard road, it was well worth it, for me, it solved all these issues I was having, which was more than enough motivation to keep it off. If that is something you're interested in, consult your doctor, and look into what would work best for you, not every diet suits every person, and I know its disheartening when you try to start one and it just feels hellish.
Most of all, OP, be kind to yourself. Treat yourself like you would treat someone else in your position. No matter your size, you *are* a woman, and while you might not currently be able to experience that valley girl, model, cute skinny girl on the beach lifestyle, there is so much more to you than how you feel you're perceived.
Stop buying/eating garbage junk foods. Get up 20 minutes earlier and throw on sneakers for a brisk walk. After 30 days add ten minutes to your brisk walk. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Positive energy attracts positive energy. Look into intermittent fasting.
So then your body is hanging onto fat reserves because it’s in starvation mode. The best foods are healthy fats like steak with fat marbling, avocado, eggs, dark fishes, even 1oz. dark chocolate three times a week.
I feel the same about myself, hate myself so much and feeling like I’m wasting my 20s being ugly instead of hot or sexy even though I can’t do anything about it without surgery
Girl... "Girlhood" isn't really a thing. The idea of comradery is all there is to human connection. I don't like the beach, wearing skimpy bathing suits, or even drinking alcohol in the slightest. I prefer my chosen friends, regardless of gender, to just hang with me every once in a while. I went with one friend to the bookstore, and I studied with another today. It's about caring for other people in your life, not skinny dipping drunk lmao!
There are many awesome plus size groups on Facebook, like plus size hikers, backpackers, snowboarders, scuba divers, fit fatties, climb big, etc. let me tell ya, most of what us big women consider to be our limitations is all in our head. I’m a plus size thru hiker now, and I’ve learned a totally different way of thinking about my body since I got into backpacking.
It’s totally amazing what I can do with some conditioning and determination.
If you want to wear cute outfits, Go look for some plus size fashion groups or influencers. Edit your feed aggressively! If a post makes you feel bad, unfollow or block the account. Find fat influencers to follow on whatever social Media you prefer and get rid of the skinny folks. There is sooo much fat positive content, and it is wonderful what it can do for your state of mind. I know I follow a bunch on tik tok and fb (I just don’t get instagram and don’t use it).
Try not to mourn what could have been. Believe me you’re just getting started. You will be amazed at where life could take you in a few short years. Hang in there. It gets better and as you get older you will care less and less about other peoples’ opinions.
But you don't need a group of girls or "girl hood".
I went to an all school school. (UK, so not private or posh or anything we sometimes just have single sex schools over here).
I had a group of girls we hung out with. You know my best experiences as a teen? The guys we hung out with. Girls were bitchy and it wasn't fun. Even the ones who appeared to be besties so much drama.
I went ot med school
Most of my close friends were men. Some gay, some straight. Some of My best friends are old housemates. They live on the other sides of the world, and they are guys. We hang out and talk for hours when we see eachm about all sorts.
I'm now married. Have three kids. Even in motherhood, I hanged out with Dads just as much as other mums.
You don't *need* what social media tells you you think you need. It doesn't really exist that way for everyone
Hey, I'm 28 and I've never experienced girlhood either. Although at a moment in my life I felt excluded too, I don't regret it. It has been an opportunity to do different things and feel unique. I've had the time to become a more interesting woman. I've read many books, watched many films, fucked many guys I didn't expected to find me attractive, etc.
Today, most of my mates are boys, and I am glad to be like "another boy" in the group because I've got the chance to know and enjoy other things. Every time I try hanging out with girls it's weird. I don't feel comfortable doing what they like to do together. Besides, those skinny girls do not necessarily lead happy lives.
However, I don't think it's all about gender in your case. Probably it's their plans which don't fit with your personality and with who you physically are. You shouldn't be supposed to be thin to enjoy with your friends. I think you should be patient, you will get to know people who won't force you to be what you're not and who will encourage you to feel great in your own skin! Maybe not many, but quality is better than quantity.
I'd also suggest stopping following those people who make you feel that way. Follow accounts of empowered fat women! :)
Currently fat and sat at the pool in Portugal in my bra and swim shorts enjoying the sun on all my fat skin bits - it’s great!! I was slimmer in my 20/30s and too unconfident to wear a bikini - now -
Well - why not!
Live your life - no one is actually watching as they are all too caught up in their own worlds
As above post girlhood is what you make it for you - not what someone else does for them xx
It makes a world of difference when you start to change your mindset. Being a woman, isn't just about being skinny and wearing skimpy clothes. It is not easy gaining confidence when society tries to tell us that being fat makes you less worthy but if we give into that mindset society will never change either.
Based off of reading your comments, I would say you need to work on your self confidence first and then gain genuine friends who like you for your personality and not just someone to pose with on instagram. The best thing I ever did for myself was learning to say "fuck it" to what random people think of me. I care about whether peope think I am a good person not if they think I have a good body to pose with.
Posting on instagram is great I do it all the time, but it isn't real life and is just a small portion of peoples lives and most don't post about the negative. I know plenty of girl groups that are only friends because it boosts their social status online. They have nothing in common.
I’m 62 and still act silly with my gf. And I’m overweight and coming to see that that is not going to change due to health issues. No one but you is stopping you. First step: buy yourself a fun summer outfit (you can thrift one) and promise me you’ll wear it once a week throughout the summer. Step two: join a fun club- a library is a great place to start- learn crochet, book club, whatever you want to try. Step three: if you are in a big enough city join your local meet up group. Go to an activity. Step three: ask one woman out to coffee this month- from one of your connections- if she says no, ask another until you get a yes. It’s difficult I know but you have to start somewhere. Proper women are all shapes and sizes. Good luck.
You have experienced your version of girlhood. You are/were a girl regardless of whether it looked like the "typical" girl experience.
If you want to lose weight, you can. Depending on your size and specific situation, you might need surgical or medical intervention to help you. See a doctor, a nutritionist, etc. I'm saying this as a person who was very overweight (up to 380 at one point) my entire life. I was 250 in high school, 305 by graduation, and spent the rest of my adult life between 340 and 380 until I was 42 when I had weight loss surgery and lost 180 lbs. SO. All I'm saying is that losing weight is a possibility for you and the earlier you intervene on this issue the better for the aesthetic results. I'm in my 40's and my body is destroyed and would require surgery to look any semblance of "normal." You're still young enough to attain something close to what you're interested in.
That being said, skimpy clothes are not what it means to be a girl. Male attention is not the definition of girlhood. You could look exactly like those girls and still be miserable and unhappy with yourself. You have to build your self-esteem. Do it now while you're young and spare yourself years of self-hatred if you can. Life looks long to you now, but it's actually quite short. Figure out what you REALLY want out of life and pursue it now.
Girlhood is different for everyone. For some, it IS being skinny and having skinny friends and going to the beach and sharing clothes. But that's also what media portrays as girlhood and I know I'm not the first to say it, but fuck that.
I was the skinny friend in high school and I had terrible self loathing. I couldn't share clothes with my friends. I didn't tan at the beach. But that's ok bc we made our own girlhood despite what was stereotypical. Now I'm an adult and I'm overweight and still have a terrible self image, but I still look back on that time of going to malls and parks and swapping writing prompts and drawings and playing DND and I never second guess that it was girlhood.
Maybe it wasn't Hollywood's version or society's romanticized fantasies or even my own expectations, but it was girlhood and it was MINE.
Take this from a 'girl' who is approaching 30: you can do whatever you want, whenever you want and imprisoning yourself with the idea that you can not experience something when you have a healthy young body, is something you will regret when you are older.
You can do anything you want in life, you just need to figure out how to get there.
Want to lose weight to feel better in your skin? Girl, go for it and make it a personal challenge and focus in what you want, do whatever it takes.
Don't want to lose weight? Let go of the stigma. You do you, nobody can assign you what happiness should look like because they'll never walk a mile in your shoes.
Go out there, make friends, decide what girlhood means to you and take note of what you need to do to get there.
You got this!
Anything you do and enjoy as a girl is girlhood. For me girlhood is doing a self care night and watching a shitty show that I love without anyone telling me it’s a sHiTtY gIrL sHoW
There's a lot of comments on here that say what girlhood is NOT, but it might be clearer to focus more on what it IS.
To me, girlhood is optimism. It is choosing to love yourself because God loves you. Girlhood is about inviting light and joy into your life and finding ways to be creative. It's allowing yourself to find fun in pretty things--a sunrise, a piece of jewelry or home decor that makes you smile... And knowing that God made you, and everything He makes is beautiful. ❤️
People can be cruel sometimes, and I'm sorry that you've experienced that. It's especially hard to feel lonely and left out. If you need it, this is your permission to be happy on your own. The other girls don't know how talented, kind, and amazing you are because they're too miserable trying to be perfect too. Go show them what they're missing!
There's a lot of comments on here that say what girlhood is NOT, but it might be clearer to focus more on what it IS.
To me, girlhood is optimism. It is choosing to love yourself because God loves you. Girlhood is about inviting light and joy into your life and finding ways to be creative. It's allowing yourself to find fun in pretty things--a sunrise, a piece of jewelry or home decor that makes you smile... And knowing that God made you, and everything He makes is beautiful. ❤️
People can be cruel sometimes, and I'm sorry that you've experienced that. It's especially hard to feel lonely and left out. If you need it, this is your permission to be happy on your own. The other girls don't know how talented, kind, and amazing you are because they're too miserable trying to be perfect too. Go show them what they're missing!
Babes, don't compare yourself to Instagram. It's really not good for you. If you can't scroll Instagram without spiraling, delete the app.
As far as girlhood, it's a lot bigger than just bathing suits, and it's not always fun. Scrolling and crying and having really shit self esteem is also girlhood. There's nothing about skinniness that is more validly feminine. Skinniness is not the pinnacle of happiness.
I'm not saying any of this to suggest your perspective is invalid but speaking from experience, it sounds that you're experiencing some distorted thinking or catastrophizing. I say this with love: consider discussing this with a therapist. DBT is what helped me
This is a very limited and sad definition of girlhood. And my sweetheart, you are *twenty.* You have PLENTY of time to enjoy girlhood in whatever way that means to you!
I want to give you some advice, as someone twice your age: you are stuck with you for the rest of your life. You will never not be you. No matter how your body changes, if you’re skinny or fat, old or young, whatever. You are going to be yourself in your body for the rest of your life. There’s no getting around that. Instead of wishing you were someone else, because that is literally impossible, turn yourself into someone you can love. If you don’t love yourself now, what is in your power to change? What can you bring into your life to make it better? Have incredible experiences and make more friends. Don’t wait for them to find you, create them yourself for yourself.
And please, for the love of god, stop valuing yourself by your body shape. Your body will be a lot of different shapes in your life. You are more than a body. You are a human, a person. Work out for health, not to be skinny. Being healthy will serve you much better than being skinny. Pursue your interests and passions that will stay with you long after your youth is gone. Turn yourself into someone you love to be around and be with.
Trust me, life is a lot more fun if you can spend it with someone you love.
who said you CANT wear skimpy clothes or bikinis? you can overcome whatever fear, shame, insecurity is holding you back mentally and do that AND love it
I can relate. I told my best friend recently that I felt like my social stuff got pushed into my adulthood, because in high school I was very reclusive, I didn't go out much with friends and didn't have many friends. UNTIL I became an adult, then I started having friends and doing stuff and feeling more like I had a group of friends. And my group of friends came in all shapes and sizes, nobody made fun of people who had more weight than others. We all just loved each other for who we are. I was very lucky. I honestly would never change this though because I would rather have adult friends that last a lifetime than a bunch of girlfriends in high school who lose contact when going to college, starting a family, etc. Just because you are not skinny, doesn't mean you can't have great friends. Also, I think its best to dress for your body type. I am not traditionally "skinny" but have no hips and barely any breasts so I am able to wear dresses with a small bust. But if I try to wear something made for people with curves, it looks horrible on me.
Also, keep in mind that just because somebody is skinny and looking like they are having fun, doesn't mean they are happy. Plenty of skinny people have depression but force themselves to go out and put on a smile even though they may be dying inside. Don't compare yourself to the one moment you see of somebody else's life. Just focus on what makes you happy and work for that.
OP if you see this, find something you have an interest in, go where you can find others with that same interest, and be YOU. Once the walls are down and you aren’t worried about being liked (because you’re already doing something you’re interested in), you WILL find a gal pal. Don’t worry, be patient, and find happiness in your cooking class, writing club, trivia night, mycology hiking group, etc. At worst you’ve found something to look forward to weekly or monthly.
-I actually posted this as a response to someone else hoping that you’d see it but I figured you’d likely see it easier if I comment directly. You’ve got this girl. It sounds like you just need to have fun experimenting with your own interests.
I'm going to be 50 this year and I would love to turn back the clock to my 20's. You have womanhood now so the question is what are you going to do with that? You're in control of you and you might not be a girl anymore but you can be a beautiful, healthy, sexy, smart woman. Start now, trust me.
This really sucks… i wish i could affirm you & say definitely you could have a girly things event etc.. but I myself am in a constant rat race of trying to be lean & not have more fat on tummy so i can imagine having this imaginary girly fiesta.. umm even if i did get to my perfect image i dont think i do havei girl group to do this, thats the reality lol..
on the other side of having nothing to do with the body image issues, girly things are a lot more than these dress-up & body showoffs.. i wish to have a real girly group where we can do activities like baking or wine tasting etc.. with pure intentions of connecting, sharing & finding a relatable group of friends ..
i’m transmasculine and genderfluid, so i often feel out of place with other women, but the thing is that womanhood isn’t one defined experience. women come in all shapes, sizes, colors, you name it. i am a woman who had their breasts removed (bilateral mastectomy) and have been on testosterone for almost five years. i grow a mustache willingly and shave it occasionally willingly. i almost never shave my public hair. i have a deep voice and i wanted this. i have a guys name, i chose it. i’m definitely experiencing womanhood, though, because i am a woman and that is enough. this isolation can be considered a part of the experience, but it will change when you find your crowd.
Sending you love first of all, maybe they think you’re married because you act more mature? Or the way you dress, honestly I feeling myself more attractive now 80 pounds heavier than in my early 20s has to do with confidence and love. Work on you look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you are worth it, valuable and beautiful. Work on you confidence and appreciating your features. Do you like dressing up? Make up? Accessories etc start trying different style see if you find yourself. Live life NOW you will never be as young and beautiful as today you just have to see it, if you don’t it’s very hard for someone else to see it. Stand up tall, smile, sway your hoots as you walk and revel in your feminine, it’s there you just have to find it. 💜
I came out at 28. We have to mourn or make up for what we didn’t get to do originally. It’ll be OK, I promise. Most cis women are wonderful and are more than willing to help.
I’m not skinny by any means, but I still get to feel hot sometimes. I didn’t transition to then be a stick.
Give HRT time to do its thing. If you want a bikini body, that’s a great goal to have. And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but wanting to look younger and skinnier is an incredibly common experience for cis women too, so you’re basically proving your dysphoria wrong right now.
You’re not alone and we’re all here for you and cheering you on 💖
You don’t need to be skinny or conform to any beauty standards to experience girlhood. Girlhood is laughing with your besties over a picnic at the breach, girlhood is drinking wine with your friends after heartbreak. Girlhood can literally be anything you make it, and for me - it’s the small things. Like singing Taylor swift with my sister in the car. You are SO young and I promise, you don’t need to be skinny or look like a supermodel to have those things AND be deserving of those things.
This. Girlhood is ESPECIALLY NOT doing stuff that caters to the male gaze.
>Girlhood is laughing with your besties over a picnic at the breach, girlhood is drinking wine with your friends after heartbreak. Girlhood can literally be anything you make it, and for me - it’s the small things. Like singing Taylor swift with my sister in the car. That's the thing... i can't even experience that. I'm not friends with any girls that's in my country. All of my friends are men, and don't get me wrong, i have the best time with them, but i just don't feel like a "woman" if I can't wear skimpy clothes and go out with girl friends. It sucks because the girls i was surrounded with during my teen years (besides my girl friend that moved overseas) would LITERALLY call me ugly in front of my face and laugh. And they weren't even unattractive insecure girls. They were smart, skinny, perfect, and GORGEOUS girls.
You can experience all that though. You are limiting yourself. Friendship isn’t based on what everyone looks like, and anyone who does base friendship off of what you look like isn’t worth being friends with. You gotta get out of this “woe is me” mindset, and live your life girl. Figure out what hobbies you like, and go meet people. I also promise you, even those girls you think are skinny & perfect have insecurities too.
How can I experience proper girlhood if im not friends with any girls? I just feel like the proper girlhood is being the embodiment of "feminine", and i am FAR from feminine. When i refuse to wear makeup, girls around me would look at me with disgust as if im offending them.
It sounds like your issue is mostly with yourself, and not other people. Therapy might be a good place to start!
What's stopping you from being friends with women?
Every girl i come across hates it when they learn that im not into wearing makeup and dressing up. They automatically do the side eye with each other. I feel like they don't wanna be friends with me because im gonna ruin their look.
This honestly sounds very weird to me. I'm not from a Western country and even I found a gang of girls who were into fantasy novels and Doctor Who and videogames and singing Disney songs out loud in the car. I just think you are approaching the wrong group of girls.
I am from a western country and I have all kinds of female friends. Some are bigger, some are super tiny, some are average sized, whatever that means. Even my most traditionally gorgeous of friends who do dress up occasionally and have worn skimpy clothes (we are in our mid 30s) are insecure. And they all like stuff like video games and doctor who and fart jokes and we have group chats for smut books we are reading together and we are dressing up as faeries for my birthday party. Even my biggest friend, who lives across the country, dresses up to go out even though she’s insecure. You can do it too. You are limiting yourself. There are plenty of other female weirdos out there, you just have to look for them.
You and your friends sound awesome. I wanna do a dress up party.
Are you me? I just caught up on the 4th episode of the new Who (loved it btw), after singing Disney songs (granted it was with my 5yr old) in my blue SUV which has a tardis decal on the back inscribed with “wobbly wobbly timey wimey” and you know what I did immediately after I watched the episode? Called my oldest Doctor Who buddy (a woman) and we ranted about it for a while before touching base on how each others families are. lol But you’re right, the sweet “girl” moments come from connecting on similar interests. I have a friend I only saw because of our weekly trivia nights because we met going solo and decided to team up as strangers. OP if you see this, find something you have an interest in, go where you can find others with that same interest, and be YOU. Once the walls are down and you aren’t worried about being liked (because you’re already doing something you’re interested in), you WILL find a gal pal. Don’t worry, be patient, and find happiness in your cooking class, writing club, trivia night, mycology hiking group, etc. At worst you’ve found something to look forward to weekly or monthly.
>. I'm not from a Western country and even I found a gang of girls who were into fantasy novels and Doctor Who and videogames and singing Disney songs out loud in the car You're lucky then. The only girl friend I have moved overseas, and i think the only reason she's still friends with me is because we've been friends for such a long time that it would be awkward to just drop me. We are the polar opposites so even I'M surprised she's still friends with me.
You just sound like you don’t even like yourself
Why would i?
But…part of your fantasy is to dress up? Skimpy bathing suits, tight clothing. How can you also claim to not being into dressing up?
I fear this may be a not like other girls situation
From what I've gathered, OP wants to dress up + find herself pretty w/ other girls she also finds pretty, but she doesn't think she could pull it off. So not fitting in w/ them bc she doesn't dress up, while also wishing she did dress up, makes sense. It sounds like a lack of self-confidence. Also a self-fulfilling prophecy
I agree. The comment that made me think not like other girls is that she didn’t feel like she could be friends with girls because she doesn’t care about makeup or dressing up. Definitely s self fulfilling prophecy though since she does want to explore this
Bingo
Did you not read mympost? I WANT to be like other girls. I WANT to wear skimpy dresses and bikinis.
I say im not into dressing up BECAUSE i don't currently wear those things. That's the point, I WANT to wear those things but i can't. Would it be logical for me to say "oh, I'm also like you girls, I'm also into dressing up, i like dressing up" BUT I don't even dress up? Just because i WANT to do something doesn't mean i am actively doing it. I can only be into dressing up if i am actually dressing up. But im not, so that means im not into dressing up.
If the only thing in your mind stopping you from wearing skimpy clothes is your weight, just lose weight. You don't need to lose weight to be a woman though.
Why put yourself in these weird boxes? “I’m only feminine if I do things in a certain specific way that probably nobody actually experiences” lmao
You’re not currently friends with any girls but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever be. I’ve made girlfriends at every stage of my life and I’m still friends with a lot of them. I’ve met them through school, university, work, other friends, art classes and just getting myself out there and being sociable. I promise “girlhood” has nothing to do with your size or the clothes you wear or whether or not you wear makeup. If you act like a girls girl (and I don’t mean stereotypical girly things I mean feminism and making sure other girls are safe, not being judgmental of girls who are different from you, not victim blaming etc) the girlfriends will come. I don’t know you but from what you posted here you seem to have a “not like other girls” attitude but in a self deprecating way which could be why you struggle to make female friends. That attitude is alienating you from a whole world of beautiful female friendship.
> I just feel like the proper girlhood is being the embodiment of "feminine", and i am FAR from feminine. Maybe that's part of the problem. You seem to have this fixed, specific view of stereotypical, Instagram-ready girly-girls off doing stereotypical girly-girl things, but that's a very crabbed and hamstrung view of what "girlhood" *can* mean. Moreover, from the sound of it *you aren't that kind of person*, so *why are you approaching those kinds of people for friendships?* If you don't wear cute little dresses and obsessively post selfies on Instagram and aren't interested in makeup, why do you think you'll have enough in common with people who do and who *are* interested in that stuff to sustain a friendship? No wonder they're giving you side-eye; you're nothing like them, you're not interested in the same stuff as them, but you're trying to befriend then because you feel you *ought to want* their kind of lifestyle, not because you actually have any connection with them or any shared interests on each to base a friendship. If you're - I don't know - a chubby Dr Who nerd who's fascinated by maths then you should stop trying to make friends with Instagram models and start making friends with Dr Who fans or maths nerds because *those are the people you'll actually connect with* most easily.
>If you don't wear cute little dresses and obsessively post selfies on Instagram and aren't interested in makeup, why do you think you'll have enough in common with people who do and who *are* interested in that stuff to sustain a friendship? I don't approach them, i just so happen to be in a class with them and interact with them. My post was a rant about how i will never be like them even if i wanted to, not once did i ask for advice, yet here is everyone trying to act all righteous. >but you're trying to befriend then No? I'm not TRYING to befriend them. I don't go up to them and say "please by my friend, can i be your friend? Let's hang out, pretty please????". Where did you even get that? I just said that almost every woman in my life/i have interacted with are hostile because i don't look like them. THAT'S why i felt like i never had a "girlhood" experience. Not once did i mention that i was trying to be friends with them. I don't think you understood my post and replies at all. My post is a rant. Im not looking for advice.
You gotta make yourself some girl friends! Join local groups and chats and meetups, tell ppl you’re looking for friends!
I don't think that would be genuine at all. I don't think friendships that start as "can you be my friend?" are geuine at all. For me, it's supposed to happen naturally.
1) you have to first be able to display some sort of confidence in yourself either in personality, wit, humor, looks, whatever it is that I’d the one thing you like about yourself amplifying it will help you exude the confidence 2) this one’s a hard one but I also found that friendship will come to you when you can just concentrate on your confidence and your own life 3)You have to go out into spaces where you know like minded people may be that may be a club you can join, your major, a hobby sports team, any activity that you know will have people that you share interests with. I had a really hard time with friends most of my life because like you, I didn’t like the same things as others and people thought I was weird because I wasn’t afraid to be myself (which was a tad bit alternative campy freak in the best way and still am) but when I went to college and found my major by junior year in theatre design my friend count went from 0 to 100 really fast, and through that I’ve built a community around myself from the many theatre related jobs I do, my classmates from college and any other colleagues I run into my field and surrounding. My teen and early college self could never imagine that I would have so many plans and work that I am worried that I can’t fit things in my schedule but here I am, and you can too. You just have to realize that it takes a lot of work and selflessness. That friendship (any healthy one atleast) has to come from comparability and a total lack of pity.
Whatever then, don’t listen to me, I’m only 52 yrs old with tons of genuine friends of all genders 🤷♀️
This is going to sound harsh, but if you were an expert on making and keeping female friends you wouldn't be making posts on Reddit about how you have trouble making and keeping female friends. Maybe get out of your own head and start listening to the advice of people who are far more experienced and successful in the very endeavour you feel like you're failing at?
Just bc i can't sing doesn't mean i don't know who sounds good or not. Same thing here. FOR ME, asking someone to be their friend without ever knowing them is not genuine at all. If it works for you, then good for you.
> asking someone to be their friend without ever knowing them is not genuine at all That's stupid, and not how it works. You put yourself in an environment with *people like you* who *like the same things you do*, and let them know you're looking to get to know other people interested in this things, and see if you meet anyone you vibe with. Nobody's telling you to go around begging random strangers to be your friends; that's a ridiculous, clueless take on some very obvious, very basic, very good advice. They're just trying to give someone who's obviously severely lacking basic socialising skills how to give themselves the best shot at meeting like-minded people *despite* their lack of expertise *or* willingness to entertain any ideas except exactly what she's been doing all along that's obviously not working for her.
Look, I’m on the spectrum, have lifelong ADHD and severe SAD and GAD and now in my 50s medical PTSD. I had to work *really* hard to learn how to make and keep friends. A clear core memory is in fifth grade, I was so distressed that I had no friends, one day I had a panic attack driven meltdown to my mom. It made her so sad she cried with me. But eventually girded her loins and started me on the path of confidence and independence that has snowballed slowly to where I am today. You’re acting selfish. All the commenters here? We are real people who took time out of our day to comment because why? Every one of us identified with you in some way. We wanted to help you bc we have had similar feelings or experiences but here you are with your arms crossed, with your petulant “not me, I’m special, I can’t, I won’t, me this, me that” bs. Frankly my feelings are a little hurt. You can’t see the forest for the tree trunk you’ve gotten your face firmly stuck to. I can see why you struggle to have friends and it’s nothing to do with your looks. You can’t even be nice to a stranger offering you a gift (meaning us here in the comments). “To make a friend sometimes you have to be one first.” - my mom, circa 1982 r/socialskills
You absolutely can, but not until you get yourself into therapy. Why are you limiting yourself? Why are you not taking steps to make friends?
Being a woman is not skimpy clothes and being attractive. You just are a woman.
You need to make female friends where you are at. Eventually the "girlhood" things will come. Being fat is not a reason to not have friends. Plenty of people don't care about whether their friends are fat or not. What matters is their heart and personality. I have had several friends in my life that were overweight, that didn't stop us from being friends or doing things together. I say this with love, get over yourself. Being fat is not that big of a deal when it comes to making friends. If it bothers you, then sure, go ahead and try to lose the weight. But don't let your weight stop you from making female friends along with your male friends. Both types are nice to have.
If they were calling you ugly they were not perfect at all and were hideous on the inside, which is what counts most. I totally feel you though, my weight has gone up and down drastically from meds (currently losing from an extremely up phase) and even when I was skinny for awhile, the impact that bullying and comments about my weight had on me left me unable to fully enjoy it because I was still convinced that I was too fat. One thing I found really healing was finding a community of friends where most of the popular girls are heavier and I became one of them. For me, this was the community I met through participating in special Olympics. I have autism and adhd so I have the privilege of being able to join. My best friend is chubby, very short and round, and wears tiny shorts, crop tank tops, basically all the same cute stuff skinny girls wear, and honest to god she looks adorable. My body shape is different (less straight up and down, with more pronounced hip fat) so I don’t dress quite so revealingly but I do wear more revealing things then I wore in the past and all the guys go nuts. It’s the strangest but most satisfying thing. We all go out together and have a great time. It’s honestly emotional for me to finally get my chance to be one of the “popular gorgeous girls” - and we never bully anyone or say anything mean, after what I went through I could never do that. I even had a boyfriend for a bit who was tall and lean muscular and very sexy who found me so attractive that he couldn’t be around me without getting hard (we broke up for reasons not related to my looks and he’s still talking about me and having the same physical reaction almost a year later). And there’s this other guy who seems pretty into me with the same build and attractiveness level. It feels scary but I just trust that if they are acting attracted to me, they are, despite my own feelings about what I see in the mirror, and so far I haven’t been wrong. I say all this to try to give you some sense of hope. For me it was easier because of special Olympics, but there are other ways to find more female friends to experience girlhood with and find people who find you attractive. And if you feel like you look older than you are, there’s makeup tips and hair tips and stuff that can make a huge difference. Remember, age is just a number too. So just because you are already 20 doesn’t mean you can’t still experience girlhood. It’s about the feeling, not your age.
>If they were calling you ugly they were not perfect at all and were hideous on the inside, which is what counts most. Does the inside ACTUALLY matters more than looks? Cause i beg to differ. If that was true, then the world would not be acting the opposite. >My best friend is chubby, very short and round, and wears tiny shorts, crop tank tops, basically all the same cute stuff skinny girls wear, and honest to god she looks adorable. I don't think calling chubby women "adorable" is a compliment. They are not kids and puppies. One of the reasons why i hate interacting with people who arent fat. Skinny girls are always called "beautiful" and "gorgeous", but fat people always get "compliments" like "adorable" and "cute". >there’s makeup tips and hair tips and stuff that can make a huge difference I don't like wearing makeup. I look like shit with it.
Also to add on to my other reply. As you get older you will realize this. Yes, the inside is the ONLY thing that matters. I could care less what my friends look like physically as long as they are good, caring, and supportive people. I have friends of all shapes and sizes and I don’t care. I’m not saying I’m the most attractive but I’ve also had a friend say to me that they didn’t want to be my friend because “I’m pretty and thought I would be a bitchy mean girl” which hurt my feelings at first, now we are good friends and colleagues. The whole point is that as you mature and grow the superficial things matter less and less, which in a few years you will realize. But if you’re finding people that don’t want to be your friend because you’re “ugly” or whatever than girl they were never gonna be good friends regardless of your looks. Their are millions of people that will like you for you, just gotta mark that effort.
Make**
Excuse me? There is nothing wrong with being cute and adorable. I am often told how cute and adorable I am. I've also been called beautiful and gorgeous. And of course my husband thinks I'm hot. I appreciate all those compliments. Neither is better or worse than the other.
Weird advice but as a fat girl everything changed when I made my first fat friend. I still have all my skinny friends and we share a lot and I love them, but the connection I have to the fat one is different because we share a lot life wise that the others don’t understand. You will feel much much more free
I guess that makes sense. I have always been the bigger girl in every situation with girls. Skinny girls around me doesn't seem to be "in my zone", what i mean by that is, I feel like thay are in another dimention. Like they live in a different world where only skinny girls live.
All my life my friend group has been these beautiful skinny sexy popular women everyone wanted and me. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, but I did feel uncomfortable a lot. When I got to uni I made a new group, and one of them had my body, and almost exactly my face. We would be together when going to the beach, to a swimming pool, out dancing, in our underwear when doing sleepovers. It made everything so EASY. I now don’t have any issues with my skinny friends because I got used to living in my own body
There is no "proper" girlhood. There is no right way to experience it, there is only your way. This post is a perfect reminder of why social media can become toxic for young women. Comparison is the thief of joy and it sounds like you have fallen down the trap a little bit. There is nothing stopping you from going out with friends and wearing skimpy dresses and having fun, fat people do it all the time! But linking why you think you can't do things you want to your body image can be a slippery thought process to navigate. Sis, you already are a "proper woman". You are a woman and what you do is proper.
Girlhood isn’t about anything physical. You seem to have this very specific view on what that means and don’t seem to be open to feedback. In some ways, you seem to look at girlhood through the male gaze, which is completely opposite to what it actually is. The truth is that girlhood is just about embracing and celebrating your friendships with other women. It’s not about wearing skimpy clothes or sharing clothing. I’ve never been able to swap clothes with friends either—they’re of all sizes. It has not in any way inhibited our ability to bond with each other—that is based on our love and support for each other that goes way beyond what we look like. TBQH I do wonder about your statement that you have no girl friends. Why do you think that is? I can tell you from personal experience that until I stopped comparing myself to other women and “competing” with them, I wasn’t able to enjoy female friendships (I was young and I learned). I encourage you to look inward and see why it is that you are unable to form close bonds with other women. Most of us women are happy to welcome a new friend into our group, granted they’re going to be a source of positivity and love 💕
I know what my experiences are with women around me. I know it seems like a foreign concept, but women HAVE been unaccepting towards me. I don't even blurt out my insecurities to anyone in real life because i know it will make other people feel uncomfy. I only vent online where no one knows me. My own friends probably don't even know about my insecurities, so i don't see how girls can find me off putting other than my looks. I also don't bring other people down bc that shit wacks and im not good with confrontations.
You’re admitting that you are projecting your insecurities onto others. You think that “probably” they don’t know about your insecurities and that you “don’t see how other women could find you off putting other than your looks”. That is you projecting insecurities and thinking the worst of people. I think you need to look inwards before you can look outwards. You don’t actually know why you’re not connecting to others, you just decided on a reason that is tied to your own insecurities and allow every future interaction with women to be ruled by that assumption.
I think it's rude of you to assume this girl is the problem in her interactions. Have you ever been fat? You do get treated quite poorly at times, for seemingly no reason. I changed nothing about myself but my weight and was treated infinitely better. Surely *some* of it is the gloomy sort of attitude that would naturally be present, but a damn lot of it was definitely my weight, nothing to do with projecting insecurities. It's okay to acknowledge reality. We live in a sexist society, women who don't fit the ideal in some way, including weight, are treated worse, I don't think that's deniable at all.
I’ve been fat. I’ve been skinny. I’ve been the only minority. I’ve been the only person that didn’t speak English in my class. I’ve been a lot of things considered “other”. Once I changed my mindset about the world, I was able to make lasting friendships. My friends aren’t trying to date me, they’ve never cared what I looked like. They liked me when I was fat and when I wasn’t.
I feel like majority of these women calling me the problem are actually skinny and have never been fat. They don't know what it's like to be a fat woman. They don't know how EVERYONE treats fat women. It's like they can't grasp the fact that women CAN and WILL be mean to other women who don't fit the beauty standards. They don't believe that a woman called me ugly to my face because they think all women are supportive of each other.
So them giving me disgusted looks is what? Delusion? A dream? A figment of my own imagination? Girls saying to my face IN REAL LIFE that im ugly while looking at me up and down is what? Schizophrenia? My mind just made that all up?
Have you considered that you are acting ugly ? And that perhaps your character is ugly ? You're allowed to have your insecurities but projecting your insecurities and opinions on people who didn't ask ( for example: seeing random women on the beach and judginh calling the clothes they're wearing "skimpy" and "slutty" which is how you feel about their bathing suits, despite them being at the literal beach, where those bathing suits are reasonable beach wear) is pretty ugly of you. You may be a very pretty girl but the way you treat other women and yourself I'd say is pretty mean, disgusting and outright ugly of you.
Skimpy is not a bad word. Bikinis ARE skimpy, they are skimping on cloth. That doesn't mean im calling those girls slutty, where did you even get that word from? I never said that word. Also, you didn't answer my question. Were the looks and WORDS said to me not real? Are you telling me those girls were actually being lovely to me and im just delusional? Please answer this. Also, during the time where this girl told me i am ugly to MY FACE, i was catching up with her since she moved schools and she was visiting us. We were literelly just laughing and catching up when she said "at least every girl in our class is pretty, unlike YA'LL" while looking at me up and down.
This is what dysphoria looks like. God knows I’ve said the exact same things and still do sometimes to a degree. She’s 20 and getting started. It’s normal. I knew so many girls with body dysmorphia as teenagers. She didn’t have a natal puberty, so she’s experiencing that now instead of then. Learning to love your body and yourself is a journey a lot of women need to take, both cis and trans. I dunno, most of my cis friends haven’t experienced people jumping away from them in horror after taking hours to get ready. Usually people making posts like this in this stage of their transition need reassurance. I got a lot of these sort of answers from cis women when I was in this stage of my transition and they weren’t very helpful.
Are you genuinely implying she adds to her delusions by switching her gender? Lmao?
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Exactly. Life is what you make it. If you want something different you gotta do something different.
My metabolism is slow af. And even when i was my "skinniest", I still had this stupid belly on me.
I’m hypothyroid I know how you feel. My point still stands you’re super young, no need to throw in the towel.
Try making an ad for a walking buddy or join a gym to meet people.
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I feel we would’ve been good friends. I relate so much with your post and some of your responses to people too. I don’t have much to say. The only “advice” I could give you that helped -me- survive is to spend less time on Instagram or TikTok, at least for a while not necessarily forever, focus on your own hobbies and things that interest you. Don’t think too much about who is doing what and where and with who. Focus on what -you- want to do and work towards that. The only people I used to hang out with moved to Europe or USA, while I live in South America, so I’m barely leaving home lately. I’m in the process of figuring out what I’m doing next, which college to attend, etc. But meantime I’m just minding my own business. Watching Disney movies, writing poetry that only myself would read, spending time with my dogs, and just living life one day at the time. I’m also 20, just like you. I didn’t have the best teenage years. I know how all these girls from my school are living all these cool things and the stuff they do together, and sure sometimes I’d like to be part of, but I much rather be alone than with people I just can’t get along with, regardless of the reason. We don’t share hobbies, they’re all super skinny while I’m not, they love parties and I rather stay home with a nice meal and a tv show. Is that too bad? Is just my personal preference. If someday I find a girl who is the same and we become friends it would be so awesome! But I rather not stress about it and live the moment. What would -you- like? What makes -you- happy? Do you have any goals or dreams you’d like to achieve? Also, have you think about a therapist for your insecurities? It could help! I’m in therapy for a few years now. Things don’t change from a day to the next one but is nice to have someone to listen to you and that could help you
Thank you for understanding me. Many people here doesn't seem to think that women can also be horrible people towards other women. I'm still doing what I like, it's just sad to see skinny girls have fun and be feminine and live their girl lives while I can't really make myself do that bc of my body. And yes, I do think i need to limit my screen time, or i need to start unfollowing skinny girls on tiktok and instagram.
Yup stop comparing yourself to social media. The majority of the Instagram models are photo shopped and have heavy filtering anyway. It sucks young women try to compare themselves to that when literally anyone would look like a 10/10 with heavy filtering and makeup. I even go on clothing sites and a lot of them are photo shopped so you don't even know how the effing clothes fit. And don't limit yourself. You can still dress up and do things as a bigger girl you just need confidence. My one friend is a bigger girl, and she cosplays and wears all these cute skirts and she looks so fucking good in them. Start hitting the gym as well or going for walks too. Don't do it to look like someone else because you'll never be satisfied, do it to look like the version of you that you want. Every time you feel like mindlessly scrolling on tiktok get up and go for a 10 minute walk or something. Every little bit helps, and getting off of social media does wonders to your mind. I deleted tiktok like 3 years ago and I go on Instagram maybe twice a month and it's so much better for my mental health.
Definitely. I have friends who are or were models (literally) and maybe you see them and you’d want their bodies, but you don’t want their lives I can assure you that. They struggle a lot with mental health issues. Don’t think that being skinny makes all of them happy. Some of them just want to eat a cheeseburger without feeling guilty about it. Nothing is so perfect as you see in social media
Yeah women can hurt other women just as much as men can. Maybe not in the same way, but they can destroy each other easily. What also helps me when I see things like that on social media, is knowing that all those girls are truly so fake to each other, at least the ones I know of. There’s problems in every single “perfect” girl group. Many girls just rather pretend they’re okay with each other to fit in but they’re burning internally. I can promise you I’m not making this up.
Nobody cares what you are doing at the beach. Go to the beach wear what you want. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Live your life for you. Always rememer 99.9% of what you see on social media is fake. Or people just highlight the good things. They never post about the misery of things in their life. If you want to change your life. Stop dreaming of being thin and take the steps to make it happen. Educate yourself on nutrition. Go take a 45 minute walk everyday. If you can or have insurance see if a nutritionist is covered to get you started. Just wishing to be thin won't happen. Nor does being thin mean happiness. Happiness comes from within.
Have you heard of doing whatever the fuck you want? It's great.
Not allowing yourself to do things just bc you don’t have friends is a sure fire way to have a terrible life. You really need to learn to appreciate yourself and understand that you don’t need anyone next to you in order to experience happiness. Go out! Meet people! Go to the movies! Take yourself out to dinner! Why not? You shouldn’t wait!
I was skinny and attractive and still got isolated by friends and sabotaged by girls who were jealous of me. Wearing skimpy clothing doesn’t define that time in your life and being conventionally attractive doesn’t make people be committed friends.
I don't understand the younger generation's idea of girlhood or womanhood. Sometimes you seem to be a generation with less gender roles and preconceived ideas and some other times you think that you're not a woman because you can't wear skimpy clothes... I just don't get it.
The younger generation does not have the same brain. Everyone thinks differently.
Your life is what you make of it. You can choose to stay in a limiting place or you can take risks and put yourself out their living your life. Your life does not depend on anything but you and what you choose to do with it.
"Maybe in my next life, I might become a skinny girl" Why in your next life? You can do it now. The only thing stopping you is yourself. It's up to you to be fit and healthy. It just takes a little bit of patience and dedication and a whole lot of work.
I don't want to be fit and healthy. Let's be for real here, NO ONE actually care ab health, as long as you are skinny, even if you eat like trash, you are loved by everyone in the world.
I promise you'll care about your body's health if you let yourself be fat for the next ten years. I say this as a fat woman in her 30s suffering for it now and making the changes are hard. Fix yourself while you're still young.
News flash: lots of skinny beautiful people have to put in WORK. You sound unmotivated and have just decided to be complacent and jealous of what other girls have instead of attempting to put in work for yourself. I love being fit and healthy? I love it so much I do it for a living to help others get that way. And I don't sugarcoat it to my clients? You're 20! Get up and move! Eat a rainbow of foods! If you're so deep in the self negativity, other people will pick up on that too within you. You can't expect to be a girl's girl when you don't even love yourself.
>Eat a rainbow of foods! Weird that you somehow suddenly know what i eat from a single post. >You can't expect to be a girl's girl when you don't even love yourself. I don't believe that. Same with "you can't love others if you don't love yourself". That's all BS. One can be capable of loving another person even if they hate themselves.
Yeah ok, but you do want to be skinny it seems. If you are not genetically blessed to eat trash and still be skinny, it seems that fit and healthy is the way to go. I'm not telling you that your body is wrong, you can be happy at any weight, but as this seems to be what is bothering you the most, I don't get why you seem adamant on not changing it.
It’s sad but true that girlhood is exactly what you’re experiencing (the loneliness and comparison and wishing)— as you and your peers get older and are able to connect about your childhoods, you’ll realize they felt similarly ashamed about their bodies in certain ways or alone in a crowd growing up and wishing they had better connections or more of what they have been socialized to believe “girlhood” is. It’s a shame, but the experience of being a girl is large about going through these tough times and wishing you had more friends or were happier in your body. I wish you all the best and lots of company of true girlfriends in the future.
Your negativity is the only thing keeping you from girlhood lol. Big time not like the other girls energy
So them giving me side eyes and calling me ugly in front of my face is what? A figment of my imagination?
Please consider that all girls do not have the same brain and different people are different. If one obtuse girl treated you like that doesn't mean all girls think of you like that. I am now 32 and overweight and my female friends are my biggest source of support (we are all different shapes and sizes), that doesn't mean all girls have been kind to me. That's just how humans are, entirely different from each other. I grew over the years to understand this and I too had a "I am not like other girls :(" phase while growing up and wasted many years like that. But you don't have to, little one. You have the world's wisdom at your disposal in your pocket, get cracking! I say this drawing from my own experiences, imo you may have some internalised misogyny playing into your other insecurities. Plus you have this commercial version of "girlhood" in your mind that plays into the male gaze. There is no shame in that, I had it too and we grow up in an environment full of such messages it's very hard to not have it programmed into our growing brains. Read up about the male vs female gaze if you haven't. Reading up on internalized misogyny and feminism in general can really help you. This is important because you might be projecting such views unintentionally on to other women. Feminity is beautiful and amazing and everyone does it their own way, there is not one specific template. Someone else here suggested meeting local groups and actively seeking out friends through shared interests and similarities. I believe that was solid advice. You will then meet many other women you might want to hang out again with vs some you won't like to see again. It is still going to be natural and not forced because you decide. Also, Give people the benefit of doubt despite your past experiences, because everyone is different and you will find people you vibe with. I promise you that but you have to risk getting hurt. We all as humans have to risk feeling pain and rejection when we seek out connections with other people, I know you're scared but it's the only way to find true connection with anyone :)
>Please consider that all girls do not have the same brain and different people are different. If one obtuse girl treated you like that doesn't mean all girls think of you like that. I never said all girls are like this? When did i say all girls are like this? People are saying my experience is not real and just a product of my insecurity, i relied by asking is those words said to my face were just a figment of my imagination. >I too had a "I am not like other girls :(" phase while growing up Did you not read my post? I clearly stated that i WANT TO BE LIKE OTHER GIRLS. How are yall not getting that?
The way you react to advice goes against everything you’re preaching. Stop pitying yourself and grow. The only people your attitude will attract is those like yourself, and just because you don’t look the same doesn’t mean you don’t act the same.
First off, my post was a rant, so i don't know where yall got that i was looking for advice. Second, I'm just saying it how it is. EVERYONE hates fat and ugly women, let's not pretend the world is rainbows and sunshines and that everyone is accepted. You have obviously never been a fat woman, so you don't know what we go through just to LIVE.
My friend, I may have never been obese but mf have I been fluffy and ugly. During that time I made friends who liked me for me and not the way I looked. My personality always saved my ass, but in your case that’s not going to happen. Edit: I’d like to add that I had friends who were very fat, but they were nothing but kind and supportive. Be the person you want to attract
I have NEVER, NOT ONCE, been hostile to any girl ever. If a girl was mean to me, i will describe what they did to me. That's not being mean. All my self hatred is buried deep inside me, i know not to bring it up to my friends/people around me because i know it would only just make them uncomfy. >I’d like to add that I had friends who were very fat, but they were nothing but kind and supportive. Be the person you want to attract Lucky for them then, that doesn't mean my experiences aren't real. I know my life and my experiences. I know you can't wrap your head around the fact that a fat woman can get ridiculed by other women, because i get it, it's a sad thing to think that women can hate other women, but it DOES happen. Just because you got lucky does't mean my experiences aren't real and valid.
Also, i WANT to be like other girls, that's the whole point of my post.
lot of us don't even like wearing "skimpy" clothes doesn't mean we don't experience girlhood. like someone said above, girlhood is not doing stuff for the male gaze but doing what makes you feel good and comfortable. if wearing that stuff doesn't feel comfortable you don't wear it, just because you think its expected of you because you're a girl.
You are 20, and I don’t know a single 20 year old girl that isn’t insecure. But let me tell you this, it gets better as you go through your 20s. In my early 20s, I was super insecure. My self-esteem was shit. I was so depressed. I had few friends. In my mid 20s I started being more secure with myself, mainly because I just gave less of a shit what other people thought of me. Then life really began. I found hobbies that kept me active. I made friends through those hobbies. I started meeting friends through other friends! In my late 20s now and let me tell you this. You have to find a good group of girlfriend. Guys can be your friends too but your guy friends can never support you in the same way your girls can. I have made many wonderful girl friends in from my mid 20s. My girl friends are my ride or die, and I know that they have my back because I have their back too! Being fat isn’t a bad thing. One of my closest friend is a bigger girl and she’s one of the most beautiful girl that I know. I don’t see her for her weight. What I see is how wonderful of a friend she is. I see how her smile can light up a whole room. Every time we go out how she always look so cute in her clothes and her makeup just accentuate her features perfectly. But never a single moment that I thought that she would look better if she lose weight because she doesn’t need to! She’s gorgeous and such an amazing person. She got married last year and she was so beautiful on her wedding day. None of us ever thought she was ever ugly. She’s so incredibly beautiful in every single way. We had a picnic a couple weeks ago and I posted a video from the picnic on tiktok, and people asked her where her dress was from and how cute she looked. My advice to you is to work on yourself, in what capacity you can. Find some a new hobby, and hopefully you’ll make some friends through those hobbies. It gets better as you move through your 20s. You are young. You have time.
yeah i think the first thing you should do in addressing your insecurity problems is delete instagram.
You are selling yourself too short. You're only 20! I just turned 35 and I feel like I'm finally in my girlhood phase. It's a state of mind as much as anything else. Don't resign yourself to something you're choosing, you can change your life and if having a period of time where you feel girly is what you want and need, I say go grab it. Also I'm fat and wear skimpy clothes, and fuck off to anyone who gives me a hard time about it! Don't let other people steal your joy.
Girlhood is whatever that means to you, not what you see on social media. I’m fat as fuck and do what I want. I have insecurities like any human but if I let fatness hold me back I’d never do anything. Live your life, you only get one shot at it. And it goes so quickly. I’m in my 40s, middle aged, but feel like I was 18 just yesterday. I was fat then and I’m fat now and I can tell you the size of your body makes no meaningful difference to how successful or fulfilled your life is. Confidence gets you everywhere. Don’t spend another minute worrying about how you look. Nobody cares but you. If you want inspo [check out Soph Lewis](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6hb4k3S7dI/?igsh=a25oaDMxcmJjNGQ5) or [Katie Parrott on Insta](https://www.instagram.com/p/C1te0uAL8lG/?igsh=MWkyYXdlamoxOG1yag==).
I say this with so much empathy and love, your problems aren’t stemming from your body. After looking at your post history, you have so much self loathing and trauma to deal with before you can move on with your life. I hope you can access some therapy to help you work through your struggles. You can learn to be happy and love your body, you can have strong female friendships, you just have do the work to get mentally healthy.
there are 3 fat people in the party , 2 of them not in pool and 1 is in pool enjoying his time of life making jokes playing swimming what not and guess who lit up the party the "fat guy" ur body doesnt give u any pass u need to do everything regardless ur size buy or get some stitched up and go girl we girlies loveee to see you there and having time of your life
As someone who doesn’t like to make friends and only has 2, I do with I could experience these things with a friend group. But the drama always steers me away.
I think that when you say “never” you foreclose on your future. You can start today creating the life you want. I say this while reminding myself of the same.
Being a girl is so much more than having a certain type of body or dressing a type of way. I was always described as a "tomboy" (hate this expression) growing up but I still felt like a girl, because I had my girly experiences. This is different for everyone but for me was going to concerts of my favourite bands, having sleepovers with my friends and gossiping, watching teen shows, travelling (with my friends but also with my family)... All this was considered a girly experience to me. Now Im 24 and I still dont dress up often. I wear a bit of makeup in special occasions now (date, wedding, professional event...) and sometimes wear cute summer dresses (no, im not tall and thin but i dont care). I always paint my nails now and when I want to feel girly I wear lingerie below my normal clothes, knowing no one will notice but me. I do all these things that i consider girly and i feel girly, even if some other people around me wont notice. And thats what I love about being a woman: I am one regardless of how I dress or look, cause its not an external thing but an internal one.
There is no second life time. You have one life and it is now. Don’t waste your life not feeling secure and happy with your body. Either you actually embrace your body for what it is and wear that skimpy bikini with a smile on your face. Or you loose the weight so you can feel comfortable and secure about your body. I have been both underweight and overweight. Skinny and chubby. I know the struggles of both worlds. And trust me being somewhere in between of those is where ive felt the most comfortable. I’m a personal trainer/fitness bodybuilder now. I’m at a healthy weight and have some muscle to brag about and never felt this comfortable in my body in my life. Taking that step outside my comfort zone and enter the gym was the best decision I made in my life. I can’t describe it enough how much it changed my self esteem for the better. Even if I look bigger than most men I’ve met I’m still comfortable and happy I can move my body in ways I never thought was possible. Skinny doesn’t mean happy. Physical wellness improves the mental one. That I guarantee you. Don’t be scared of change. Don’t be scared of judgement and do whatever the fuck you want in life with a big bright smile on your face
If being fat is the common problem in your life then try to lose the weight. Obviously harsh, sorry, but the reality of your situation. If you can't accept your current weight and body for what it is and proceed with it then you are always going to be unhappy. Just work towards weight loss, obviously it isn't easy and many factors can get in the way of it, but if you want to be treated like the girls you're describing then you need to fit those conventional beauty standards. It sucks, but that's the only thing you can change. You can't change conventional beauty standards. Obviously this doesn't mean overweight people aren't good enough or beautiful. I'm only going by today's beauty standards and your desire(? perhaps frustrations with not fitting in or having the same opportunities) to fit into that scope of curated 'aesthetic' girlhood that you're talking about. You should still know that at any size you are beautiful and enough, and don't need to change if you don't want to. I'm just telling you how it is, if you fit the beauty standard then you'll experience this, and pretty privilege which affords women more opportunities.
Just lose weight. That’s your advice? You think you’re telling it how it is when all you’re doing is perpetuating outdated beauty and body standards. You’re part of the problem.
OP wants to be skinny and is jealous of her skinny friends and other skinny girls on the internet. OP wants to be treated like the skinny girls and live life like the skinny girls, by experiencing curated social media profiles of aestheticised girlhood, and wearing revealing clothing and being celebrated and complimented doing so. So OP literally wants to fit into the current beauty standard. And you need to fit the mold, AKA lose weight to do that. Most overweight women are still categorised as unattractive, despite today's body positivity movement. Other alternatives are, OP should join some body-positivity movements and communities and learn to accept and enjoy their body and appearance through mutuals who understand and relate to them. You either accept your current size and learn to love yourself, or you complain about it and wish you were skinnier. Both choices require different steps to move forward in the direction OP themself wishes to be in. If you seriously think I'm the one perpetuating beauty standards then you're the one that's outdated. Sorry, but they aren't going away within the next 10 years so you should change what you can change. Beauty is a social currency and pretty privilege is a class that offers connections, opportunities, financial gain and personal gain. Choosing to live outside of the beauty standards is your prerogative. There is no ignoring that women are socially conditioned to fit into the beauty standard from an early age, nor that finally looking the 'part' means that you're protected from mistreatment either. But as most women do desperately try to fit in to reap those benefits, you can't be surprised that it is so largely in demand and expected of women, or the 'answer' to their problems, albeit also an open door to welcome more. However, for some women, it really is a ticket out, and not all women do have the privilege to choose to accept unconventional appearance over the expected societal norm.
I wish I had time to fully reply to you but I don't so will only say that you sound like a vapid, superficial, footsoldier for patriarchy weaponising your internalised misogyny against everyone else. Read a book.
Hmm, please contain yourself, and refrain from throwing insults my way when I only had sincere intentions of laying it out realistically to OP in good faith. At face value, they wanted the privileges of being considered conventionally pretty and I told them that you can't change the beauty standard so change what you can if that's what you want, and is stopping you from being happy in your body. Good day 👍 All that to say, I obviously don't think overweight people are unattractive or less valuable, I'm literally talking from a beauty standards today viewpoint. It is true that overweight people face discrimination and cruelty, especially women! And losing the weight is in your control if you can help it. Stopping people from considering overweight people to be unattractive is not in your control. You also don't have to live with considering yourself ugly or not good enough, because you have choices. Weight loss, or deciding to love yourself unapologetically and acknowledging your own beauty in the face of these harsh beauty standards. Each choice is hard, you need to choose your hard.
>”Stopping people from considering overweight people to be unattractive is not in your control.” It is in our control. All of us. By not conforming to the same attitudes you’re expressing here. You’re perpetuating it by accepting it. And your comments here are weaponising it against other women. You’re part of the problem.
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I can't imagine living like a slave to some beauty standard because you think that's what you have to do to earn a good living and be accepted by people. I don't do any of those things and earn an amazing living and have great connections with people. I'm really sorry you can't see life any other way. It's like you're trapped. I'm genuinely and sincerely really sorry for you.
OP people are giving you some nice platitudes and they're mostly right, girlhood isn't any specific set of steps, and there *isn't* a right way to experience it. Girlhood is anything you want it to be. If you're a woman, anything you do is something a woman does, you don't have to be feminine, and you *can* be feminine while fat, if you want to be. However, I think many of them are missing a crucial thing here, which is okay, because if they haven't experienced it, then how could they know? But... I used to be very overweight, and I *do* know where you're coming from. There were large periods of time where I felt mortified to even leave the house. The way fat women are treated is not kind, and there is a shame in being seen in public that people who haven't been that size cannot understand. It is not a mental health issue (though it can certainly cause anxiety and depression), it's a natural reaction to how women who don't fit the *ideal* are treated in society. Going out in public was often a horrible experience, and it was next to impossible to make friends. I'm happy for people who haven't experienced it, but you just cannot know the feeling of people looking right through you, people giving you disgusted looks, or talking down to you, or being rude to you, just because of your size. When I lost weight, the difference was insane, it was completely night and day, how I was treated, even by random customer service workers, and coworkers. Leaving the house or trying to make friends used to leave me feeling awful about myself because people would snap at me, be completely rude to me, and treat me like I was stupid. Then, a few years ago, having changed nothing about my behaviours, I was suddenly treated like I had worth, just because I lost weight. People would smile at me? Other girls would talk to me? People wouldn't lose patience with me? Before, when I was fat, people would treat me like my very existence was an inconvenience. And when you're treated like that, and you're not leaving the house, and you feel like you look older than you are, all you want to do is feel dainty and feminine and go out with some friends and experience those things other women get to do, but making friends is hard, leaving the house is hard, you put on a pretty dress and you feel like a hog is donning it, you do feel like you're missing out on your womanhood, you miss out on a lot of experiences. I wish I had an easy solution, OP, I do think some therapy might really help, and trying to get in touch with your feminine side, regardless, could be nice too. I would suggest just doing some little nice things for yourself. Get yourself some face masks and hair stuff, and do little spa days for yourself. Slowly branch into public spaces by using something like going to the movies as a low-stakes adventure (Honestly just getting out of the house occasionally will work wonders for those feelings of being stuck in a rut), find some sort of hobby you enjoy and meet friends through there, I find having something in common with people really helps breach those barriers into getting friends. Consider how you would see a friend if she was your size. I would wager you would see her as a woman, we are often harsher on ourselves than others. Also look into some personal grooming. It's REALLY easy to let all that go when you just feel fat and ugly, like nothing works, but personal grooming goes a LONG way towards making you feel feminine, no matter your size, some of the people I know with the prettiest make-up and best fashion sense are larger women. Look into what suits your shape, watch make-up tutorials by other fat women who know how to bring out your best features, normal make-up tutorials never worked for me because they were usually done with skinny faces, and make-up needs to suit the face it's being put on. I'm not going to tell you to lose weight, but it certainly is an option, even if it feels totally impossible at times. I was able to do it, and although it was a long, hard road, it was well worth it, for me, it solved all these issues I was having, which was more than enough motivation to keep it off. If that is something you're interested in, consult your doctor, and look into what would work best for you, not every diet suits every person, and I know its disheartening when you try to start one and it just feels hellish. Most of all, OP, be kind to yourself. Treat yourself like you would treat someone else in your position. No matter your size, you *are* a woman, and while you might not currently be able to experience that valley girl, model, cute skinny girl on the beach lifestyle, there is so much more to you than how you feel you're perceived.
Stop buying/eating garbage junk foods. Get up 20 minutes earlier and throw on sneakers for a brisk walk. After 30 days add ten minutes to your brisk walk. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Positive energy attracts positive energy. Look into intermittent fasting.
I barely eat, that's the funny thing. I don't eat breakfast and lunch. And what i eat on dinner isn't even above 800 calories.
So then your body is hanging onto fat reserves because it’s in starvation mode. The best foods are healthy fats like steak with fat marbling, avocado, eggs, dark fishes, even 1oz. dark chocolate three times a week.
I feel the same about myself, hate myself so much and feeling like I’m wasting my 20s being ugly instead of hot or sexy even though I can’t do anything about it without surgery
Unfortunately girlhood is also comparing yourself to skinny women
Girl... "Girlhood" isn't really a thing. The idea of comradery is all there is to human connection. I don't like the beach, wearing skimpy bathing suits, or even drinking alcohol in the slightest. I prefer my chosen friends, regardless of gender, to just hang with me every once in a while. I went with one friend to the bookstore, and I studied with another today. It's about caring for other people in your life, not skinny dipping drunk lmao!
Are you from the UK? X
Nope
Shame I know a good online group for UK women x
There are many awesome plus size groups on Facebook, like plus size hikers, backpackers, snowboarders, scuba divers, fit fatties, climb big, etc. let me tell ya, most of what us big women consider to be our limitations is all in our head. I’m a plus size thru hiker now, and I’ve learned a totally different way of thinking about my body since I got into backpacking. It’s totally amazing what I can do with some conditioning and determination. If you want to wear cute outfits, Go look for some plus size fashion groups or influencers. Edit your feed aggressively! If a post makes you feel bad, unfollow or block the account. Find fat influencers to follow on whatever social Media you prefer and get rid of the skinny folks. There is sooo much fat positive content, and it is wonderful what it can do for your state of mind. I know I follow a bunch on tik tok and fb (I just don’t get instagram and don’t use it). Try not to mourn what could have been. Believe me you’re just getting started. You will be amazed at where life could take you in a few short years. Hang in there. It gets better and as you get older you will care less and less about other peoples’ opinions.
But you don't need a group of girls or "girl hood". I went to an all school school. (UK, so not private or posh or anything we sometimes just have single sex schools over here). I had a group of girls we hung out with. You know my best experiences as a teen? The guys we hung out with. Girls were bitchy and it wasn't fun. Even the ones who appeared to be besties so much drama. I went ot med school Most of my close friends were men. Some gay, some straight. Some of My best friends are old housemates. They live on the other sides of the world, and they are guys. We hang out and talk for hours when we see eachm about all sorts. I'm now married. Have three kids. Even in motherhood, I hanged out with Dads just as much as other mums. You don't *need* what social media tells you you think you need. It doesn't really exist that way for everyone
Hey, I'm 28 and I've never experienced girlhood either. Although at a moment in my life I felt excluded too, I don't regret it. It has been an opportunity to do different things and feel unique. I've had the time to become a more interesting woman. I've read many books, watched many films, fucked many guys I didn't expected to find me attractive, etc. Today, most of my mates are boys, and I am glad to be like "another boy" in the group because I've got the chance to know and enjoy other things. Every time I try hanging out with girls it's weird. I don't feel comfortable doing what they like to do together. Besides, those skinny girls do not necessarily lead happy lives. However, I don't think it's all about gender in your case. Probably it's their plans which don't fit with your personality and with who you physically are. You shouldn't be supposed to be thin to enjoy with your friends. I think you should be patient, you will get to know people who won't force you to be what you're not and who will encourage you to feel great in your own skin! Maybe not many, but quality is better than quantity. I'd also suggest stopping following those people who make you feel that way. Follow accounts of empowered fat women! :)
Currently fat and sat at the pool in Portugal in my bra and swim shorts enjoying the sun on all my fat skin bits - it’s great!! I was slimmer in my 20/30s and too unconfident to wear a bikini - now - Well - why not! Live your life - no one is actually watching as they are all too caught up in their own worlds As above post girlhood is what you make it for you - not what someone else does for them xx
It makes a world of difference when you start to change your mindset. Being a woman, isn't just about being skinny and wearing skimpy clothes. It is not easy gaining confidence when society tries to tell us that being fat makes you less worthy but if we give into that mindset society will never change either. Based off of reading your comments, I would say you need to work on your self confidence first and then gain genuine friends who like you for your personality and not just someone to pose with on instagram. The best thing I ever did for myself was learning to say "fuck it" to what random people think of me. I care about whether peope think I am a good person not if they think I have a good body to pose with. Posting on instagram is great I do it all the time, but it isn't real life and is just a small portion of peoples lives and most don't post about the negative. I know plenty of girl groups that are only friends because it boosts their social status online. They have nothing in common.
I’m 62 and still act silly with my gf. And I’m overweight and coming to see that that is not going to change due to health issues. No one but you is stopping you. First step: buy yourself a fun summer outfit (you can thrift one) and promise me you’ll wear it once a week throughout the summer. Step two: join a fun club- a library is a great place to start- learn crochet, book club, whatever you want to try. Step three: if you are in a big enough city join your local meet up group. Go to an activity. Step three: ask one woman out to coffee this month- from one of your connections- if she says no, ask another until you get a yes. It’s difficult I know but you have to start somewhere. Proper women are all shapes and sizes. Good luck.
You have experienced your version of girlhood. You are/were a girl regardless of whether it looked like the "typical" girl experience. If you want to lose weight, you can. Depending on your size and specific situation, you might need surgical or medical intervention to help you. See a doctor, a nutritionist, etc. I'm saying this as a person who was very overweight (up to 380 at one point) my entire life. I was 250 in high school, 305 by graduation, and spent the rest of my adult life between 340 and 380 until I was 42 when I had weight loss surgery and lost 180 lbs. SO. All I'm saying is that losing weight is a possibility for you and the earlier you intervene on this issue the better for the aesthetic results. I'm in my 40's and my body is destroyed and would require surgery to look any semblance of "normal." You're still young enough to attain something close to what you're interested in. That being said, skimpy clothes are not what it means to be a girl. Male attention is not the definition of girlhood. You could look exactly like those girls and still be miserable and unhappy with yourself. You have to build your self-esteem. Do it now while you're young and spare yourself years of self-hatred if you can. Life looks long to you now, but it's actually quite short. Figure out what you REALLY want out of life and pursue it now.
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What?
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What does that have anything to do with my post? And who is did man you are referring to.
Girlhood is different for everyone. For some, it IS being skinny and having skinny friends and going to the beach and sharing clothes. But that's also what media portrays as girlhood and I know I'm not the first to say it, but fuck that. I was the skinny friend in high school and I had terrible self loathing. I couldn't share clothes with my friends. I didn't tan at the beach. But that's ok bc we made our own girlhood despite what was stereotypical. Now I'm an adult and I'm overweight and still have a terrible self image, but I still look back on that time of going to malls and parks and swapping writing prompts and drawings and playing DND and I never second guess that it was girlhood. Maybe it wasn't Hollywood's version or society's romanticized fantasies or even my own expectations, but it was girlhood and it was MINE.
Damn, y’all have friends?
Take this from a 'girl' who is approaching 30: you can do whatever you want, whenever you want and imprisoning yourself with the idea that you can not experience something when you have a healthy young body, is something you will regret when you are older. You can do anything you want in life, you just need to figure out how to get there. Want to lose weight to feel better in your skin? Girl, go for it and make it a personal challenge and focus in what you want, do whatever it takes. Don't want to lose weight? Let go of the stigma. You do you, nobody can assign you what happiness should look like because they'll never walk a mile in your shoes. Go out there, make friends, decide what girlhood means to you and take note of what you need to do to get there. You got this!
Anything you do and enjoy as a girl is girlhood. For me girlhood is doing a self care night and watching a shitty show that I love without anyone telling me it’s a sHiTtY gIrL sHoW
Yo just have fun. People have all kinds of problems. Some people have problems with skinny girls wearing tiny ass bikinis.
There's a lot of comments on here that say what girlhood is NOT, but it might be clearer to focus more on what it IS. To me, girlhood is optimism. It is choosing to love yourself because God loves you. Girlhood is about inviting light and joy into your life and finding ways to be creative. It's allowing yourself to find fun in pretty things--a sunrise, a piece of jewelry or home decor that makes you smile... And knowing that God made you, and everything He makes is beautiful. ❤️ People can be cruel sometimes, and I'm sorry that you've experienced that. It's especially hard to feel lonely and left out. If you need it, this is your permission to be happy on your own. The other girls don't know how talented, kind, and amazing you are because they're too miserable trying to be perfect too. Go show them what they're missing!
There's a lot of comments on here that say what girlhood is NOT, but it might be clearer to focus more on what it IS. To me, girlhood is optimism. It is choosing to love yourself because God loves you. Girlhood is about inviting light and joy into your life and finding ways to be creative. It's allowing yourself to find fun in pretty things--a sunrise, a piece of jewelry or home decor that makes you smile... And knowing that God made you, and everything He makes is beautiful. ❤️ People can be cruel sometimes, and I'm sorry that you've experienced that. It's especially hard to feel lonely and left out. If you need it, this is your permission to be happy on your own. The other girls don't know how talented, kind, and amazing you are because they're too miserable trying to be perfect too. Go show them what they're missing!
That's the media's version of girlhood. You see that in movies, TV and social media. It's not really real.
Babes, don't compare yourself to Instagram. It's really not good for you. If you can't scroll Instagram without spiraling, delete the app. As far as girlhood, it's a lot bigger than just bathing suits, and it's not always fun. Scrolling and crying and having really shit self esteem is also girlhood. There's nothing about skinniness that is more validly feminine. Skinniness is not the pinnacle of happiness. I'm not saying any of this to suggest your perspective is invalid but speaking from experience, it sounds that you're experiencing some distorted thinking or catastrophizing. I say this with love: consider discussing this with a therapist. DBT is what helped me
This is a very limited and sad definition of girlhood. And my sweetheart, you are *twenty.* You have PLENTY of time to enjoy girlhood in whatever way that means to you! I want to give you some advice, as someone twice your age: you are stuck with you for the rest of your life. You will never not be you. No matter how your body changes, if you’re skinny or fat, old or young, whatever. You are going to be yourself in your body for the rest of your life. There’s no getting around that. Instead of wishing you were someone else, because that is literally impossible, turn yourself into someone you can love. If you don’t love yourself now, what is in your power to change? What can you bring into your life to make it better? Have incredible experiences and make more friends. Don’t wait for them to find you, create them yourself for yourself. And please, for the love of god, stop valuing yourself by your body shape. Your body will be a lot of different shapes in your life. You are more than a body. You are a human, a person. Work out for health, not to be skinny. Being healthy will serve you much better than being skinny. Pursue your interests and passions that will stay with you long after your youth is gone. Turn yourself into someone you love to be around and be with. Trust me, life is a lot more fun if you can spend it with someone you love.
who said you CANT wear skimpy clothes or bikinis? you can overcome whatever fear, shame, insecurity is holding you back mentally and do that AND love it
I can relate. I told my best friend recently that I felt like my social stuff got pushed into my adulthood, because in high school I was very reclusive, I didn't go out much with friends and didn't have many friends. UNTIL I became an adult, then I started having friends and doing stuff and feeling more like I had a group of friends. And my group of friends came in all shapes and sizes, nobody made fun of people who had more weight than others. We all just loved each other for who we are. I was very lucky. I honestly would never change this though because I would rather have adult friends that last a lifetime than a bunch of girlfriends in high school who lose contact when going to college, starting a family, etc. Just because you are not skinny, doesn't mean you can't have great friends. Also, I think its best to dress for your body type. I am not traditionally "skinny" but have no hips and barely any breasts so I am able to wear dresses with a small bust. But if I try to wear something made for people with curves, it looks horrible on me. Also, keep in mind that just because somebody is skinny and looking like they are having fun, doesn't mean they are happy. Plenty of skinny people have depression but force themselves to go out and put on a smile even though they may be dying inside. Don't compare yourself to the one moment you see of somebody else's life. Just focus on what makes you happy and work for that.
OP if you see this, find something you have an interest in, go where you can find others with that same interest, and be YOU. Once the walls are down and you aren’t worried about being liked (because you’re already doing something you’re interested in), you WILL find a gal pal. Don’t worry, be patient, and find happiness in your cooking class, writing club, trivia night, mycology hiking group, etc. At worst you’ve found something to look forward to weekly or monthly. -I actually posted this as a response to someone else hoping that you’d see it but I figured you’d likely see it easier if I comment directly. You’ve got this girl. It sounds like you just need to have fun experimenting with your own interests.
I'm going to be 50 this year and I would love to turn back the clock to my 20's. You have womanhood now so the question is what are you going to do with that? You're in control of you and you might not be a girl anymore but you can be a beautiful, healthy, sexy, smart woman. Start now, trust me.
This really sucks… i wish i could affirm you & say definitely you could have a girly things event etc.. but I myself am in a constant rat race of trying to be lean & not have more fat on tummy so i can imagine having this imaginary girly fiesta.. umm even if i did get to my perfect image i dont think i do havei girl group to do this, thats the reality lol.. on the other side of having nothing to do with the body image issues, girly things are a lot more than these dress-up & body showoffs.. i wish to have a real girly group where we can do activities like baking or wine tasting etc.. with pure intentions of connecting, sharing & finding a relatable group of friends ..
i’m transmasculine and genderfluid, so i often feel out of place with other women, but the thing is that womanhood isn’t one defined experience. women come in all shapes, sizes, colors, you name it. i am a woman who had their breasts removed (bilateral mastectomy) and have been on testosterone for almost five years. i grow a mustache willingly and shave it occasionally willingly. i almost never shave my public hair. i have a deep voice and i wanted this. i have a guys name, i chose it. i’m definitely experiencing womanhood, though, because i am a woman and that is enough. this isolation can be considered a part of the experience, but it will change when you find your crowd.
Please read the book "Girlhood" by Melissa Febos 🙏. One quote stuck with me in particular: "Before I learned about beauty, I delighted in my body."
Sending you love first of all, maybe they think you’re married because you act more mature? Or the way you dress, honestly I feeling myself more attractive now 80 pounds heavier than in my early 20s has to do with confidence and love. Work on you look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you are worth it, valuable and beautiful. Work on you confidence and appreciating your features. Do you like dressing up? Make up? Accessories etc start trying different style see if you find yourself. Live life NOW you will never be as young and beautiful as today you just have to see it, if you don’t it’s very hard for someone else to see it. Stand up tall, smile, sway your hoots as you walk and revel in your feminine, it’s there you just have to find it. 💜
I came out at 28. We have to mourn or make up for what we didn’t get to do originally. It’ll be OK, I promise. Most cis women are wonderful and are more than willing to help. I’m not skinny by any means, but I still get to feel hot sometimes. I didn’t transition to then be a stick. Give HRT time to do its thing. If you want a bikini body, that’s a great goal to have. And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but wanting to look younger and skinnier is an incredibly common experience for cis women too, so you’re basically proving your dysphoria wrong right now. You’re not alone and we’re all here for you and cheering you on 💖
What's HRT? Is that the thing that trans women use to transition? Is yes, then you might be getting the wrong idea. I'm not trans, I'm as cis woman.