People define "plus size" as sizes 10 and up but that is not plus-sized.
Size 10 is a medium, you can go to the petite section and get a size 10 but you can't go to the petite section and get a size 18 or even a size 16. There is a difference between being curvy and being plus sized. Yes, plus sized girls have curves but that does not mean that girls with curves are plus sized.
When I go in a store and I see a cute dress or shirt and it's in the "petite" section I get a little mad because I know that there is no way that, that same piece of clothing will be in the plus size section. Shopping for plus size clothes sucks altogether, not everything that is cute in the petite section is an extra-large or bigger and some clothes that are for plus size girls don't fit right. When I get to shop for new clothes I don't try things on to make sure that it's the right size I try it on because I want to make sure it looks right on me, the plus size girl that it's supposed to fit like the petite clothes that fit the non-plus size girls.
Loving yourself and your body is a different journey for plus size girls. To society, we're disgusting because we're fat and that affects how some of us think about ourselves. It takes a long time to feel comfortable in our skin and be comfortable with our weight. We have to embrace our thighs rubbing against each other when we walk, our curves and our belly rolls, because we can't leave a life unhappy that's more unhealthy than being fat. So we learn to embrace ourselves and love ourselves; it's not easy but when you spend your whole life plus sized you have to learn to love yourself no matter what people think about your weight.
Being plus sized is a little complicated. When you hear a skinny girl call herself fat you hear her friends say "No you're not, stop saying that, your beautiful" but when a girl like me calls herself fat, her friends say "Don't say that about yourself." But the difference between those two interactions isn't the response that the girl gets but the meaning of when they call themselves fat.
When skinny girls call themselves fat, it's in a serious sentence. They know they're not fat, looking in the mirror with a flat stomach and just pulling their skin. But when a fat girl calls herself fat it's not always in a serious sentence; some of us are embarrassed about our weight and some of us aren't and have embraced it.
Boys don't look at us the same because of our weight but they whine about how there are no loyal girls in the world while the girl they probably don't look twice at because she's bigger is a loyal girl. And while I could care less about having a boyfriend, I do feel less confident when I like a boy and I keep thinking about if they think I'm cute and if the don't would they if I was thinner.
It's hard to be a plus size girl in this society when no one really encourages you that your size is "perfect." I know that when this article goes live my sister is going to tell me something along the lines that I shouldn't care about my size, and that I am beautiful and that my size doesn't define who I am but no offense to her she wears a size zero and looks like the Mowery twins, she knows nothing about being plus sized.
She doesn't know that my size is holding me back from getting a boyfriend. Or that when she goes in the clothing store she can get the prettiest thing on the rack and I have to settle for this little area in the back corner of the store. She doesn't know what is feels like to be the friend people talk too just to get to another friend. Or that when I'm in public I order less food because people already see me as the fat girl that "eats too much" when in reality I eat lunch and maybe dinner on a good day.
I might call myself fat and make jokes about a guy not liking me because my weight but that does not mean I hate myself. Me telling myself the truth (because that's what it is) is me loving myself the way I am. I'm not going to go to the gym to lose half my weight for a guy or because I hate myself but because I want to lose it for myself and because I believe that I should. A plus size girl working out isn't because she doesn't love herself but because we want to be healthier. I want to be able to run up the stairs or walk across campus with running out of breath.
In all honesty, I absolutely hate and absolutely love being a plus size girl. I might not be confident when it comes to boys but I am confident in myself. Yes, I have insecurities like everyone else but I don't look in the mirror every day with disappointment and I'm happy for that. I guess I do know how I feel about being a plus sized girl.
