I Was the Fat Girl by Kristen Houghton

Dating back in college was a horror for an overweight girl. Guys chose the skinny girls over the fuller-figured ones any day, and getting a date for an event became a nightmare. Never mind that I was on the Dean's List, never mind that I was the editor of my college newspaper or that I was a published poet, never mind that people complimented my taste in clothes or that I always had a smile on my face. Forget that I made sure I was always up-to-date on the news so that I could converse on just about any topic. None of that mattered on date night.

The same young men who asked for my help in Composition and Rhetoric or Advanced Statistics didn't know I existed when they were looking for someone to ask out for Friday night. They gave me a casual "Hi" as they passed me by on campus or in town on a weekend evening. They were looking for a hot date and I didn't qualify.

To make matters worse, my female friends were all thin girls. One girl in my dorm who was slender and gorgeous had allergies to many different foods, so she had very little choice in what she could eat. I started wishing I had allergies. This poor girl literally couldn't eat, and I envied her.