One day I woke up and realized I was a girl.

Now that you've stopped laughing, let me explain. I always knew I was a girl, but one day I looked in the mirror and saw a feminine, slender, sexy person staring back at me. This person didn't want to wear baggy sweaters; she didn't want to go out without makeup; she didn't like the short, gnawed fingernails or clunky walk.

When I realized it really was me, I ran out to buy a low-cut blouse, a curling iron, and makeup, and to get my nails done. I spent hours playing with my hair (which involved washing it three times when I messed it up with too much goo), I learned how to put on lipstick without looking like a clown, I reapplyed my mascara after sneezing, and I almost figured out how to button my blouse with the claws the manicurist had put on my hands. (I actually had to call a friend in California who's known for her long nails to get advice!)

When I went out that night, I went out as a girl, not as a non-descript, hiding-behind-a-baggy-shirt person. As you might expect, I got attention from the opposite sex.

YIKES!

I was attractive to the opposite SEX! And there was the real crux of the matter: S-E-X.

Many of us singletons, especially when we're significantly overweight, forget about sex, or worse, only get it from those who are into fat women as a fetish. Healthy sexual relationships are rare when you're fat and single: at least they were for me. So the idea of going out and having normal men see me as a normal woman, not the answer to a fetish, was at once invigorating and frightening. How would I respond to their flirtations? Would I jump into bed with the first schmoe who asked? Or would I offer some sarcastic comment and summarily dismiss them like I did when I was fat?

The truth is, I briefly became a very different person when I started going out again. I felt like an actor playing a role as a pretty woman, and I watched this new character walk differently, move her hands differently, bat her eyelashes, laugh demurely, and generally act coy. Men actually wanted to talk to her and buy her drinks.

Who WAS this woman, and what was she doing with my car keys?

The worst part of watching this character was realizing that she responded a bit more freely with my body than I'd have liked with a couple of those men. She was still operating under the assumption that she was fat and undesirable and she should take any interest to its inevitable conclusion; what if the opportunity never came around again? I did feel used: mostly by myself. But it wasn't all in vain. As I realized what I was doing (I couldn't separate myself any longer), I came to the conclusion that I was really new to this being attractive thing, and I had to give myself a bit of room to learn how to be a confident, sexy woman and know that I was NOT desparate.

And I did learn. I discovered what most women already know: how to tell the good men from the bad, how to be sexy for fun's sake, how to flirt without intent, how to say no.

I also learned how to say yes to the good ones: in particular, The Good One-a wonderful man who respects me, wants me, and enjoys being with me, whether I'm in "girl mode" or baggy sweater mode.

Of course, there are still lessons to be learned: mostly, how to type with these claws!