Dear NeedMeSomeBuddha:

Thank you for your empathy (first paragraph)!

Regarding body weight. Culture (Indian, Western, every current culture perhaps) and specifically your mother sees thinness as attractive, a plus, and being overweight as unattractive, a minus. She herself restricts her  eating  so  to remain thin and in frustration she  told you, referring to your weight (and maybe age): “you’re no super model”, and “you should take what  you can get”.

I think that for as long as your weight is healthy, for as long as you are not at a higher risk for diabetes 2, for as long as your joints are not under too much pressure and so forth, you shouldn’t bother losing weight. Don’t give  in to that pressure, your mother’s or the cultural pressure.

In the Relationship Resume (let’s refer it as RR), from which you may decide to transfer items to a profile in a dating site, I suggest to  write something about your weight, indicating you are somewhat overweight, maybe submit a photo where you look overweight, and write something about your feelings on the matter.

That way it will not be a source of anxiety (what will he think when he  meets me…) and you definitely don’t want  a man who will marry you and then give  you a hard time  about losing weight, so it  needs  to be a non issue from the beginning, starting with that profile.

Regarding what your mother said in the context of rejecting rishtas, my input: physical looks is just one item in a person’s desirability or lack of as a partner in life. Let’s say a man is thin and fit and you are  not thin, this is just one item. There are so many others items, such as employment/ the ability to produce income (very important if planning to have children), patience or lack of, dealing with anger (passive aggressive, or aggressive is a real problem, unlike being somewhat overweight!), kindness or lack of (how important is this?!!).

An  overweight woman should not marry an unkind, aggressive man who will mistreat her children because she is overweight and therefore “should  take what (she) can get”, for crying out loud!

Another topic: Pace Yourself. Because you “get so involved with the person fast” (“a lot  can happen in 13 days”) and that  didn’t work well for you, you can set some timing  rules  for your next relationship, determine to date for a certain amount  of time before any physical touch. Determine a certain amount of  time  where you meet and  talk and nothing else, just get to know each other, a series of mutual interviews, like job interviews only not as  formal, of course, and more thorough on certain issues. Then later, after time, meet the man in the context  of other people, see how he interacts with his friends, your friends, his family, yours and so on. Learn about him in a social context.

There is more that you wrote in your recent  post that I didn’t attend to yet, more to our communication here regarding  the RR, so it will take some back and forth, if you are willing, I am.

I have a question so to understand better, as it may be very relevant  to the preparation of the RR and the dating policy to follow it: you wrote, “People perceive me to be a very confident person because  of how I present  my self. I’m very out going and a leader, even at work”- can you elaborate on how you present yourself and how you lead in the  context  of past relationships?

anita