chapter 1

I first met her at a party, as a friend of a friend. We happened to sit across each other at the table, and I don't even remember my first impressions from the first hour or so, maybe I didn't even form any. We both had our groups of friends around us, we all had stories to share since we've last seen each other, so it took some time until we started paying attention to others than the ones sitting beside us.

Average looking if you gave her only a superficial glance, but stunningly beautiful if you observed her for some time. You know the stereotypical center-of-attention, fashion-model girls: they steal all the show, but if you look at them for ten minutes and talk with them for ten minutes, you've seen everything and learned everything about them. She was the polar opposite: almost invisible in a group, so if you didn't happen to pay attention to her, you might forget in a few days that she even existed. However, if you spent some time with her, the more and more visible she became to you, and you'll remember her for a lifetime.

Everything contributed to this effect. Her looks, her style, her personality. Her face was the cleanest, prettiest I've ever seen, but as she didn't have that either strict or seductive-looking face fashion models have to choose from, one has to actually spend some time with her to realize this and not find it boring based on a superficial look. Her hair was that color you couldn't decide what shade of medium to very light brown it is, most people would call it mousy and uninteresting. It was, however, a perfect fit for her. Long enough that the ends of her tresses disappeared under the table she was leaning on with her elbows, soft and silky but with an amazing volume, almost straight but not quite, almost unkempt-looking. She was slightly on the chubby side, as far as I could tell from the other side of the table, some people would call girls her size a "Hollywood pudgy", as female leads in movies must be extremely thin and she would be called overweight or even fat in such a movie, and obsessed with trying to lose weight. In the real world, however, she looked only a little above normal weight, and judging from her stature, confidence, and her constant munching from the bowls of chips and peanuts, she didn't really care.

After some time the two of us found ourselves getting involved in each other's conversations, until we ended up talking only exclusively with each other. We found out we had a lot in common, she had both the curiosity, culture and enthusiasm to be able to make any topic interesting, we could delve into the deepest philosophical questions, and as time passed, we found ourselves even completing each other's sentences.

Time seemed to fly by very fast, and the crowd thinned around our table, as most went dancing, or to the bar, and soon only the two of us remained at the table, forgetting ourselves completely in our conversation. Suddenly and unexpectedly, she asked me to sit beside her, on the other side of the table.

"Why? We can talk much better from across the table."

"I want to show you something."

I stood up, maneuvered around the table, sat beside her, and followed her gaze downwards. It turned out that her weight was no exception from her attributes one can get wrong on first sight. I was surprised to see a large belly, it looked like she was pregnant. Of course I didn't ask her this, I guess I wouldn't have been the first. Her thighs were also not insignificant, this hinted in some way that she's just fat, not carrying a baby. It seems I misjudged her weight by at least 30 pounds while seeing her only from the front, from across the table.

"I just wanted for you to see this," she pointed to her belly, "it already happened to me that a guy sitting across me was visibly getting more and more interested in me, actually, unlike you, he wanted to court me after a very short conversation and asked me for a dance. When I stood up and he noticed I'm larger than he thought I was, he made up some excuse and ran away.

"So, it seems being a bigger girl does have some advantages. It filters the jerks out," We both chuckled a little. "About me, I think you already know you shouldn't worry. I enjoyed our conversation very much, and why should your weight influence that? I'm curious about your thoughts, your personality. Weight is just one parameter among the many."

"It's very considerate of you to say this, but it still might affect how attractive one can be found by others," She blushed a little as she realized what she just mentioned. "I mean, even if one doesn't want to go further, attraction still plays a role in everyday life."

"Yes, but many other things can affect it. If you are curious about how I see it, I was able to feel very attracted to an extremely thin girl, but it also happened that I was extremely attracted to a girl bigger than you. Actually, my preferred ideal woman is someone with a little pudge, actually , just to give a rough idea, somewhere between the weight what I thought you had and what you really have. But I met women who are larger and found them attractive, I guess it matters a lot how comfortable they feel in their skin. I guess I can find a less overweight woman to be too fat because a first glance on her tells how insecure she feels."

"You know, a lot of women of my size make up excuses like 'I have such a slow metabolism' maybe some of them are right, but if I had a slow metabolism, or hey, even a normal metabolism, I probably couldn't fit through that door over there! I always ate a lot, actually I eat almost all the time. I always was a little chubby, but didn't gain any more weight no matter how much I ate, so I got used to eat whatever I wanted. Only recently, almost a year ago I had to take some medication... I'll talk about it later... so, this medication made me gain more than 20 pounds since then. After I started my medication, the first few pounds appeared very fast. For the first time since, like, forever, I tried cutting back my eating habits a bit, but it didn't help much. So, if I gain if I eat little, and gain if I eat a lot, then why bother? After I could stop taking my medication, I gained another few pounds, it was much slower, but it was still continuing. Of course, I'm afraid that soon the time will come when I have to make serious effort to stop gaining weight, I already weigh 190 pounds, and I'm determined enough to do it, but... I don't feel the pressure to do it yet. But I think after another outgrown pair of trousers I'll really start taking it seriously."

She tugged her buttons a little, they were not too firm but also not exactly loose. "But even in that case, I'm sure this gut will not go away, or at least not in a short time. So, if it's already here, I have the choice of either obsessing about it, or getting to accept or maybe even like it. You guess what I've chosen," she told me while gently caressing it, "but this does not define who I am, and I'm sure you know. It's not a coincidence I opened this topic only after so much time... But it is an important part of me, part of my life, part of my concerns, so ..."

"Yes," I interrupted, "I know most girls don't talk about their weight in front of boys."

"Yes, but I wanted to make sure you get to know this side of me."

"And also to make sure to get to know how I think about it and whether it bothers me, right? Don't worry. If it made your life so much more uncomfortable to lose those 20 pounds, just don't do it. It's better to be fat and happy than thin and unhappy."

"Hey, don't steal my lines! Better to be fat and happy than thin and unhappy. I wanted to say it first! I'm sure I used it more often then you. Especially when I still had some self-confidence problems, it was useful to motivate myself."

"It's interesting how we can turn a shallow topic such as weight into philosophy."

We both smiled. After a short silence, which made us look around and see how everyone was preparing to leave, she quickly wrapped up the topic:
"A little bit of superficiality can be tolerated. Maybe it can also be useful, to bound us back to reality if we get too dreamy. Only too much of it is what's really horrible. I even had a guy who tried to date me some time ago, he liked me as a new experience, he said he was attracted to my curves, but he was ashamed to introduce me to his friends. And I was even a few pounds lighter than I am now. I guess he wanted someone soft to cuddle with, and thin fashion-girl to show to others, so I rejected him outright."

"So, let me prove you I'm not like that. Let's go somewhere public, you chose the time and place, and you should wear the tightest pants you can possibly squeeze yourself into, a shirt too short to hide your tummy, and do it after a meal or after you drank a lot of water, so you'll look much fatter than you really are. And you'll see I'll not be ashamed to be there with you."

"Would you only do it for a dare?"

"No, I would love to also use the occasion to get to know you better."