Hello, lovely peoples! It's Valentine's Day, so I thought I would give some tips on online dating, with some specific advice for fats.

I was on OkCupid, off and on, for about 3 years before I met Josh. I dated an ex prior to Josh, and I was on it before that too. I have a lot of non-productive time on OkCupid under my belt. So, for Valentine's Day, I thought I would try to summarize what I learned and now am no longer using.

For me, online dating was really the only way to go. None of my friends seemed to know anyone they would hook me up with, and I've successfully picked up a guy in person only once.

I did not love the dating process, I have to admit. I find meeting new people to be very stressful. I've never been one for randomly hanging out in bars, trying to get picked up. I'm an introvert, mainly, so I like staying home. But I had a medical crisis that led me to re-evaluate my life, and I made the decision to quit messing around with online dating and really give it a go.

Try to use a service that has a decent amount of members in your area, and treat that shit like a 2nd job. I made a commitment to write to at least 4 or 5 people a week. I decided it was important to me to find someone, and I started treating it like was important, which meant devoting time to it. Towards the end, I was writing to 2 or 3 people a day, but writing short things. I think the first thing I wrote to Josh was only a couple of sentences in the email.

Let people know you're fat right in the profile. I wrote at the very top, before any of my other totally witty and awesome profile-- "I am a plus-size girl. If you aren't into that, it's cool. But I'm not for you." Then the chips fall where they may. If you don't act like it's something to be ashamed of, you'll do better. And a lot of people won't get back to you, but the ones that do will be worth your time.

Dress up the way that makes you feel most awesome, and have a friend take loads of photos of you. Try to use a nice camera if you have one, and don't just use mirror selfies. Take lots! Close up and full body. Don't let the bad photos bum you out. Delete the bad ones and keep going. I used feel really bad about shitty photos of me, but really, it's just a question of taking a lot and getting more comfortable. Almost everyone takes bad photos sometimes.

Include at least one full-body photo on your profile. Lots of thin women say they're fat, so I think straight guys sometimes have a filter on where they don't actually hear that. I'm not looking to surprise anyone with my body, so I want them to know-- I am an actual fat person, not a thin woman looking for compliments/validation. My body is nothing to be ashamed of. But I'm not looking to surprise anyone with it.

Go on tons of dates and don't fuck around with chatty people. Talk to someone maybe twice and then propose a date. If they don't want to go on the date, move on to someone else. There are SO many people who are just fucking around and never actually intent to meet you or anyone.

See multiple people at the same time. I never actually did this because I find that much going out to be exhausting, but it's a good idea.

Numbers, numbers, numbers. There is no one person for you. There are multiple people you could like, so the more you churn through, the more likely you are to find someone you really like.

If someone doesn't want to date you, don't take it personally. As fat people, I know this can be hard. I was told for years that no one would want me ever, and it was easy to allow dating to feed into my self-loathing. But dating is a natural winnowing process. You aren't going to want to date most people either. I'm not offended if people don't find me attractive, for whatever reason. It's not a referendum on my worth as a person, no matter what patriarchy and sexism say.

Someone totally does want to fuck you. I promise. Being fat or weird or whatever it is that you may think makes you an untouchable plague person-- someone out there wants to fuck you. Someone wants to have a relationship with you. These people are not always the same people.

If you want to fuck people, then fuck them. If you don't, then don't. If you want to treat dating like a game to see how many people you can fuck-- they sell condoms in bulk on the internet. You go, you! Have fun. If you don't want to fuck people until the 3rd date (or whatever), that's cool too. If you don't want to fuck ever, you should make sure you're honest about that, and then you go, you too! Maybe you put that in your profile tho, cause most people are looking to fuck at some point, and honesty will save you a lot of time. Example- I was not interested in dating people in poly relationships, so I appreciated when people said that up front in their profiles.

Straight guys are sometimes really terrible. Many times, I have had a guy I'm not interested in come at me with some version of- "FUCK YOU, FAT BITCH". Motherfucker, YOU came to ME. You think I should be grateful for your weird, creepy attention, cause I'm fat and no one would want me any way. *BARF* I think you can block people on OkCupid, and you should just block these assholes. Look, dudes. There is plenty of peen out there. I can find another one. It's not that difficult. And the fact that you just freaked out and screamed at me is an excellent indication that you are a scary creeper that I don't ever want to see in real life.

And finally-- Guys who say 'I'm not a creeper' are always creepers. Always. ALWAYS.