A friend once slipped an anonymous Valentine’s Day card into my desk at school. Rather than excitement, I remember feeling a rush of shock and suspicion. I wondered whether it was a joke, a dare, or a way to humiliate me.
While other girls received roses and chocolates, the card gave me a heavy knot in my stomach. I couldn’t imagine anyone genuinely being interested in me. I assumed this gesture was not admiration, but mockery… a sarcastic reminder of my undesirability. Why would a 10-year-old have such strong reactions to an innocent gesture from a friend?
Because I was the fat girl.
Yes, I was funny, smart and well liked. However, I believed this paled in comparison to the relative size of my body with other children my age. I was taught that despite my many positive attributes; I was unlovable, a belief that stayed with me well into early adulthood.
At 19 when I received a Valentine’s Day gift from my then boyfriend, I was again filled with dread. What was wrong with him that he would be attracted to me? Was this another ploy to humiliate me for thinking I could ever be loved just as I was? When he later treated me badly and put me down, I didn’t leave, I told myself I should accept it. Maybe I deserved this for not being thinner. Afterall, he’s doing me a favour by staying with me.
It’s now painfully clear how deeply poor body image shaped my sense of worth, emotional safety and what I believed I could expect in relationships.
An occasion like Valentine’s Day can quietly magnify these feelings. For some people, it’s a day for flowers and dinner plans. For others, it becomes an opportunity to spotlight every vulnerability, and can feel less about connection and more about comparison – who is chosen, who is desired, and who is enough.
If you live with body dissatisfaction, this day can feel especially loaded. Not because you don’t want love, but because you may have learned that love is conditional – and that your body is the condition.
Today, I want to gently challenge that narrative. Because the most important relationship you will ever have is not the one you post about or who you bring home to meet your family. It’s the one you have with yourself, which quietly sets the standard for how you allow others to treat you.
Below are some of the common ways body dissatisfaction can shape dating and relationships, and how you can protect your emotional safety along the way.
When ‘Good Enough’ Becomes the Goal
Research consistently shows that lower body satisfaction is linked with poorer relationship experiences and lower self-worth. People who feel negative about their bodies are more likely to tolerate criticism, controlling behaviour, emotional inconsistency – and to stay in relationships that are not meeting their needs.
This isn’t because they can’t recognise unhealthy relationship dynamics, but because they quietly doubt their right to something better.
If this is familiar, you might notice thoughts like:
- I should be grateful someone is interested in me
- I don’t really have other options
- If I leave, I won’t find anyone else who will accept my flaws
- They love me despite my body – that’s probably the best I’ll get
When body image is low, it can distort your internal boundaries. Toxic behaviours can feel like a warranted punishment for perceived bodily imperfections. You start negotiating against yourself, tolerating comments you shouldn’t, minimising red flags. You accept crumbs and call it a meal.
Not because you lack insight, but because somewhere underneath, you doubt you’re allowed to ask for more.
The Invisible ‘Warning’ Before the First Date
Another subtle sign of a strained relationship with yourself is the urge to pre-emptively apologise for your body. You might worry that you’ve somehow mislead someone online, or feel compelled to include a disclaimer before a first date – about your weight, your fitness, or how you look in your photos. As though you’re a product that needs fine print.
When this happens, you’re predicting rejection before the other person has had the chance to form their own experience of you. You’re framing your body as a problem to be managed.
But your body is not a confession. When you begin a date from a place of apology, you subtly position yourself as ‘less than’. Relationships built on imbalance rarely feel safe, respectful or secure
‘They’re Out Of My League’
This is rarely spoken about, but is very common. If you struggle with your body image, you may avoid pursuing people you’re genuinely attracted to. You may decide in advance they would never choose you, or swipe past someone you find appealing because you assume rejection is inevitable.
On the surface, this can feel protective. But it also creates a powerful self-fulfilling pattern. If you never initiate, never respond, and never allow yourself to be seen, the outcome is guaranteed. The story is reinforced that people like that are not for you – even though they were never given the opportunity to decide.
Protecting yourself from rejection can also mean removing yourself from being chosen. You deserve to be in rooms – and relationships – where you feel genuine attraction and mutual desire… not toleration.
Emotional Safety on Valentine’s Day… and Every Day
If dating feels tender, it can help to approach Valentine’s Day with a few steady anchors. These are not rigid rules or tests, but gentle reference points for protecting your emotional wellbeing.
1. Use the ‘Best Friend Test’
One helpful anchor is the best friend test. If your best friend described a date’s behaviour to you – the jokes at their expense, the inconsistency, the subtle digs or hot-and-cold energy, would you tell them to stay? If the answer is no, it can be worth pausing and reflecting on why you might be offering yourself less protection than you would naturally offer someone you love.
2. Notice where you feel you have to earn basic respect
Kindness, reliability and genuine interest are not bonuses, they’re baseline. You don’t need to shrink yourself, over-give or over-perform in order to deserve these things. If you notice yourself working hard to secure courtesy or consistency, that’s important information.
3. Pay attention to how you feel after, not just during the date
It can also be helpful to pay attention to how you feel after a date, not just during it. Chemistry can feel intense and intoxicating. But when you leave, do you feel calm, grounded, valued and seen, or tense, self-critical and replaying everything you said? Your nervous system is often more honest than your inner critic.
4. Expand your identity beyond appearance
If body dissatisfaction has been present for a long time, your appearance can preoccupy your mental space. Your body though, is only one small part of who you are. Freely expressing your humour, loyalty, creativity, intelligence, resilience and passions can reduce the focus on your body in your relational world.
5. Refuse the ‘despite’ narrative
You are not lovable despite your body, you are lovable as a whole person. Anyone who makes you feel as though your body is a hurdle they are generously overlooking is not offering a secure or respectful connection.
Raising the Standard Starts Within
The relationship you have with yourself quietly shows others how you will accept being treated. If you believe you are lucky to receive crumbs, you will accept crumbs. If you believe you are fundamentally flawed, you may tolerate being treated as an afterthought. If you believe your worth is negotiable, you may negotiate it away.
When you begin to see your body as just one part of a much larger and richer identity, something shifts. You stop dating from fear of not being chosen, and you start dating from curiosity about whether the other person is right for you.
This Valentine’s Day, the invitation is to notice whether you’re offering yourself the same loyalty, compassion, kindness and respect that you freely extend to others.
Because the most important relationship you will ever have is not with the one who might send flowers, it’s with the one who decides you are worthy of them.
If this article has resonated, support from a Psychologist at Mind Body Well can help you build emotional safety, strengthen self-worth and untangle the impact of body image and eating challenges on dating and relationships.