Like any woman, I’d come to expect explicit photos, unwanted advances and, when I dared decline, epithets hurled too easily. But I also faced messages like these, tinged with entitlement to my fat body — a body that they expected was theirs for the taking simply because of the size of it. In their eyes, I wasn’t a new land to conquer, held no promise of the thrill of the hunt presented by thinner women. No, I would go willingly, grateful for their conquest.

But more than that, this message mirrored so many experiences I’d had before. It echoed the hogging, the pig roasts, the fat jokes on TV. The concerns from family and friends, dangling the promise of a loving, healthy relationship at a smaller weight. I just want you to find someone.

Then, on top of all that, messages like these. Messages that received my body like tissue: plentiful, accessible, disposable, trash.

This took place one year after I had quietly excused myself from dating apps. The whole exercise of online dating had been exhausting, as it is for so many. But online dating as a fat woman meant that every message was a minefield, poised to shred through my tender body. The only question was when the blast would come.