The answer may surprise you.
By Cassandra Rose — Written on Sep 26, 2014
Okay, I'm going to come outright and say that in this day and age, dating has become sort of like a guessing game. With so much emphasis being placed on looks (especially on weight), it's sometimes hard to tell what exactly your date is looking for in the first place. It doesn't help that the hookup culture is on the rise and people are hitting up dating websites to score more friends (cough cough) than actual relationships. Instead of just increasing the odds of finding love, online dating has pretty much become an outlet for people to reject others solely based on appearance alone.
As a curvy woman (who is totally loving it, FYI), I can't tell you the amount of times that after getting to know a guy, we'd make plans to hang out only for him to bail after adding me on social media (even though I always use recent pictures to avoid any misconceptions. What you see is what you get.) — In fact, this has actually happened to so many of my friends that we call Facebook the "kiss of death". It almost seems like it doesn't matter how long you've been talking to someone or how strongly you connect with each other because once you finally make it onto the field, all bets are off. Like if you have one wrong angle, time is up, you're done.
But this defintely isn't to say that guys are the only ones who can be a bit superficial. Simple Pickup, a site that dishes out dating tips for men, decided to figure out once and for all whether guys or girls are more likely to be more shallow when meeting their date for the first time; needless to say, my interest was piqued. In the social experiment, a woman and a man who were both naturally fit put on a "fat suit" and headed out to meet their date, hoping to gauge their reaction.
According to Simple Pickup, recent studies have shown that "The number one fear for woman dating online is that they're going to meet a serial killer. The number one fear for men is that the woman they meet is gong to be fat." The following two videos test that theory. In Sarah's experiment, out of the five men who showed up, four stormed out after either commenting on the disappointment of being "let down" or giving excuses for why they had to leave (and the one that stayed expressed his relief after finding out that she wasn't, in fact, "fat").
Conversely, Willie (the guy) had a much better reaction from his dates. Even though they expressed their confusion on how he looked in person compared to his photos on Tinder, most of the women ended up giving him a chance anyway and even seemed to be having a great time.
Now, I have to say that I completely understand that the guys felt like they were duped and were too pissed to stay. After all, it does suck that people aren't always genuine online. But the body shaming that came after was just uncalled for. It says a lot about our society today that you can basically call someone a 'waste of time and gas money' because their body didn't live up to your expectations. Even though one of the guys decided to stick it out, it actually kind of seemed like he was just placating her and "just [likes] to be nice." After watching this, it's no surprise that so many of us have issues with our body image and drive ourselves sick trying to change ourselves so we can fit into whatever box that society wants us to be in. For those of us who can't take off our "fat suits", this experiment shows that some people aren't worth your time. It doesn't matter what gender they are; if they can't accept you for who you are, they can go to the left, Beyoncé style.
h/t: 7online