With the advent of summer looming in the distance...very far in the distance, EHarmony are now advertising their services with smiley women who have shiny hair and perfect teeth, chatting away about how EHarmony is their spiritual twin. It just knows the perfect match for them and emails over the details of each potential partner picked to perfection, 'Who would want to be alone during the summer eh., not much fun walking along the beach looking at a beautiful sunset on your own is it?' is what they're saying if you read between the lines.
A friend asked me the other night if I'd tried EHarmony (I am currently single and have been for a while)...
Me: 'I can't afford to date. If EHarmony were a supermarket it would be Waitrose, all ambient lighting and bespoke bread buns. I am like Lidl, stack it high and sell it cheap with unflattering strip lighting.'
But wait, maybe Samantha Brick has a point, if I were thinner I would be more successful at dating and have all the bespoke bread buns I could fit into my basket. No. If I were to believe Samantha Brick's claims that being fat is actually a failure of life then I'd never leave the house.
I am fat. You can call it curvy, voluptuous, womanly or whatever, the truth of it is, I am overweight. I have a plentiful rump which is all bought and paid for courtesy of Cadbury's and I have a stomach which has never been flat nor never will be flat...apart from when I lie on my back and then my boobs drop under my armpits and I look like a partly deflated blow up doll with cellulite, only without the permanently shocked face.
I digress.
I read with interest Samantha Bricks' article in the Daily Mail the other day when she was waxing lyrical about how she sticks to 1000 calories a day and woe betide her if her husband sees the waistband of her skinny fit jeans digging in and the beginnings of a muffin top, all because she ate too many spuds with her Sunday dinner. I'm sorry, but isn't that a) a bit sad; b) just wrong; and, c) sending women and the feminist movement hurtling back decades? Maybe it's because I'm a feminist that I find this abhorrent rubbish. I like being a woman and having the choice and freedom to eat what I like, when I like. When I say I'm a feminist it doesn't mean I'm going to chain myself to the front of the town hall or stand in front of the PCSO's bike (in the absence of a kings horse) for my right to eat slabs of battenberg. No, I am a feminist because I believe in women and the right for women to have the freedom of choice on how to live their lives and not have it dictated to them by a french man with a fear of muffin tops.
I don't class myself as a failure because I'm overweight, anything but. I am a success at what I do (and not just eating before you say anything!). I use my brain and in my book that makes me a damn sight more successful than whether I can squeeze myself into a 'bodycon' dress without looking like an over stuffed condom.
So I say, if you want to eat a box of chocolates watching Britain's Got Talent on a Saturday night after a hard week being you, then bloody do it. That makes you a success story right there, not a failure. Honestly, Samantha you're missing out here.
And as for dating, well what can I say. I may not be the EHarmony equivalent of a celebrity chef ready meal, I like to think I'm more successful as a Lidl tin of budget beans. Men, please form an orderly queue.
