u/0101101010020101

I’m almost 30 but have very minimal experience dating, I can’t really do things casually so only ever attempt to date if I see something with serious potential happening. Growing up I wasn’t really close with my mother, I also don’t have sisters so I feel like in depth conversations with other women about dating men are not something I’ve really had. When I was younger I always said I don’t care if a guy was tall, as long as they are at least my height (168cm) I’d be fine but as I’ve gotten older and really thought about things if I found the right guy and he was shorter than me I genuinely wouldn’t care, in fact in the second half of my twenties I’ve had crushes on men I’ve met who have been a lot shorter than me. Recently in conversations with other women I’ve noticed how shocked some of them are that I’m saying that. So I’m curious, has your height presented a genuine issue for you when dating? Or are the women who love tall men just the loudest in the conversation.

My whole life I’ve been unattractive. On top of this for most of my childhood/teens I was overweight. There was a brief phase in my late teenage years where I could have got one night stands if I wanted but no dating and I only tried it once and was left sad over how little respect the guy showed me. I then got really depressed over my looks then ended up giving up even caring about my health and slowly became obese. A year ago I decided to do better and started losing weight, I’m currently very close to becoming a healthy weight and I actually want to actually try and become better looking but for myself. The only thing I do really out of my basic hygiene routine is skincare but that’s it.

For reference I’m a 28 year old woman, I grew up with no siblings and raised by a single mother who my relationship isn’t great with so I think a lot of this stems from never having a woman figure in myself teach me things.

I love reading but I am not someone who annotates at all. The most I do is if a line in a book really sticks out to me I’ll highlight it, but honestly I’ve only ever done that in a few of my absolute favourite books. When I see people talking about reading the brothers karamazov, their book is full of annotations and they even make character maps. I’ve read white nights and crime and punishment. Is going into the book and not taking any sort of notes at all a mistake? Would love to hear from anyone who’s read it and isn’t a note taker.

Over the past couple of years I’ve lost 60lbs. The past few weeks I’ve really started working out and being strict with my calorie deficit to embark on the second half of my weight loss journey. My BMI is now overweight and not obese, one thing that’s happened since becoming overweight is that my weight distribution is very uneven. This was kind of expected as I’ve heard other people say the same thing but one thing I’ve noticed is that my back fat is not budging at all. Everything else is going down and because of this it’s actually making my back fat way more prominent. Obviously weight distribution is different for everyone but I’m curious at what BMI people started to notice a considerable difference with their back fat?

I went to Seoul last year and loved it. I found it quite easy to meet other girls who were also solo traveling but the majority of people I met were very early 20’s. I’m almost 30. This was fine for grabbing dinner etc and I actually made some friends but the night life I wanted to experience was different to the night life they wanted to so I feel like I missed out on some things.

In my country people who are overweight/obese definitely aren’t treated well all the time. This is speaking from personal experience (currently on a weight loss journey, used to be obese and now I’m at the lower end of overweight bmi wise) It’s not on the same level as some countries in east asia but I’d say in situations where someone was being mistreated or looked down on for their weight, if they were midsize it definitely wouldn’t happen all the time or when it happened it would be less bad. I recently seen a video of a korean women saying she is considered fat in korea and is treated horribly in Korea. In my opinion she looked to be the higher end of a healthy weight but still definitely not fat. Is there not so much a scale of what’s considered fat in Korea or is anything past a certain size considered fat?

When doing long haul flights I always fly using the one world alliance to utilise Avios. In the past 5 years I’ve flown a lot of long haul flights with Qatar, British Airways and Finn air. A lot of these flights have been booked with points and because I fly alone I’ve noticed when I fly british airways I randomly get upgrades to premium economy quite a lot. I also once got a random upgrade on Finn air too. Never once with qatar though. Is it not common for this to happen?

Every man and woman over the age of 35 in my family has an under active thyroid so in my head it’s pretty much a given I was going to end up with it also, the question was just when. The past six months my hair has gotten so thin that my scalp is very visible, my skin is extremely dry, I’m exhausted and also getting constipated a lot. I know it’s time to get my thyroid tested and maybe this is stupid of me to hold it off but my thinning hair is making me very insecure. I have some big things coming up the next couple of months starting a new university course and going on a big dream trip. I know that if I start levothyroxine and it makes the hair loss worse during those big moments I’ll be really sad it’s happening. I understand that more hair loss is not directly the medication but more the hormone levels changing to get better but if the hair loss is really a guarantee I think I’m gonna hold off getting tested and starting the medication for a couple of months.

Two years ago I met a Korean guy whilst traveling within europe. We were both solo traveling and spent a day together. We exchanged socials. Last year I visited Korea but did not tell him I was going as I wasn’t visiting his city but then he messaged me seeming kind of upset I didn’t message him saying I was coming. He told me to message him if I was ever visiting again and it looks like this year I’m going to have the opportunity to visit korea again and this time in a city close to his. I messaged him saying I might be coming and he seems like he’s down to meet if I do. I have been fully viewing this as a friendship however after talking to some friends who have traveled within east Asia a lot of them are saying it’s not often Asian men pursue friendships with woman. I didn’t think this was the case but I’m wondering if it’s true? Or is there any clear signs it’s just friendship?

Not sure if this is relevant but I am overweight, not obese but definitely not slim so because of this when I’m traveling Asia I always just assume men are not attracted to me there. I guess the thing for me also is that he does seem like a nice guy, I’m really down for a friendship but I also wouldn’t rule out the possibility of something else. I don’t want to go into the situation misreading it and immediately friend zone him or assume something else and embarrass myself.