I Found the Perfect Man...But It's Not Romantic

I gave up on finding the "perfect" man years ago.  I don't have any hopes of finding a guy who'd want to date or marry me.  I've learned not to expect any kind of compliments from men, because they don't normally compliment the fat girls.  I basically gave up on men altogether, aside from my dad and my best friend.  I remember talking with a girl friend of mine last year about how "men are pigs."  We were joking, mostly, but there was a part of us that believed that was the case with the vast majority of men.  And then I decided to go back to college this spring and take a Theater Appreciation class and I met him.  A man I barely knew who actually talked to me, listened to me, joked with me, teased me, and told me more than once that I looked really nice or pretty on a particular day.  And there's absolutely nothing romantic or sexual about it, he's just genuinely nice.  I can't tell you how refreshing that is or how much it means to have someone say that to me.  I don't get a lot of compliments on my looks, rarely from girls and never from guys.

I remember being younger and sometimes fishing for compliments when I'd put extra effort into how I looked.  I wanted so badly to be noticed, to be told that I was beautiful because I didn't think I was beautiful, I needed someone else to tell me that I was.  I don't care so much about my looks these days, I don't generally put in any extra effort to look nice.  I'm not trying to impress anybody anymore.  At this point I'm pretty much like, if you don't like the way I look or who I am, you can take a hike cause I don't give a crap what you think about me.  Okay, so not entirely true but I've gotten much better about just being myself and not trying to be someone else or trying to impress others.

Men, even semi-decent men, don't compliment me, that's just a fact and it's something that I've gotten over and gotten used to.  If I dress up and got out with people I'm generally acquainted with, I don't expect to receive any compliments.  So maybe that's why I was so shocked when he told me that I looked nice the first time.  We'd known each less than 4 weeks and he was sitting next to me complimenting me on my appearance.  I hadn't put any effort into how I looked, but he told me I looked nice.  I think my first thought was that he must be joking, but the thing is, he's not the kind of guy to joke about something like that.  And then he said it again and again a week or two later.

The more I've gotten to know him, the more I've wished other men would be like him.  Not flirty or romantic, just kind and decent and considerate.  It shouldn't be that hard, but apparently it is.  It's so easy for guys to compliment the skinny girls, the girls who look like society says they should, but us big girls, nah.  The thing is, we're so much more than our looks and our weight, but it's hard for people, men especially it seems, to see past that, to see who we really are.  But you know what, we like getting compliments too, we like feeling like others think we're beautiful, we like being appreciated.  Telling a woman she's beautiful doesn't mean you're signing a contract to marry her, but you can make a difference in her life by just telling her she's beautiful.  Even if she isn't the prettiest or skinniest girl, if she's obviously put effort into how she looks, tell her she looks nice.  It's such a tiny thing, but it makes such a difference.  For me, I like to think this guy sees past the fake smiles, past the cold, hard, bitter person I've become, and he sees the real me and he thinks I'm beautiful. And that means more to me than he will ever know.