How to hack Tinder as a fat girl

Or what getting 500 matches in 2 weeks taught me about online dating

Photo by Omar Lopez

When it comes to online dating, the traditional thought has always been image is everything and the swipe right world is stacked against people who don’t fall into conventional standards of beauty. That includes me: I’m fat.

I’ve noticed that a lot people, especially men, have trouble with that word. It makes some people feel better to say curvy, squishy, chubby, zaftig, large and lovely, plus size, BBW, and the list goes on.

The normal reaction to describing myself as fat is a knee-jerk “Noooo, you’re beautiful.” Sigh. It’s 2019, is fat really still synonymous with ugly? Ok, we’re not going to unpack that issue — that’s a whole other post. But it brings me to lesson number one: Don’t be afraid of owning who you are.

Embrace what you think makes you ‘less than’

So you’re short, fat, have a big nose, scrawny, freckled, taller than everyone else, live with your parents, don’t have a car, hate dogs, don’t want to go hiking, etc. Whatever it is that makes you feel like people are going reject you, bring that to the light.

Sure, having a hot bod is great for Instagram but being self aware and having confidence is what people…