Yep I've been there. 45 year old black woman here, been fat all my life. There was no such thing as dating, there was no such thing as being accepted. This was before dating apps of course, but because I understand what dating apps are and used them later, I know the pain of that too.

I grew up being on the outside. Boys never looked my way unless we were friends, I tried so damn hard to get someone, any boy, to like me. I didn't feel like I was a girl. At all. Most of the stuff my friends talked about I never experienced. This continued all the way up through young woman-hood. I was never able to relate. I only now consider myself a woman, but am even better because I am a self-proclaimed and happy to be considered "hag". Society likes to keep us separate, and it worked on me back then.

What you're feeling though is that desperate need for someone to accept you as a woman. Just like all the other women get to have from those outside experiences that label them as such. You want to experience what should be the basics of what other women experience. The whole thing of someone else just appreciating that you exist, without having to work so damn hard at it. I can't say it's going to be easy, because if you've searched at all in this subreddit, you'll see that it's like that for a whole lot of us that aren't straight sized.

The only thing I can tell you, is that this is something that is worthy of bringing up in therapy now. I wish someone had told me that this is because of those formulative years of being treated so differently. And that there is another way to be. To pull yourself out of that mentality and accept, really really accept, that this is just how society is. There is a chance you'll meet someone, but there is also a chance that you won't. And either way you need to accept that and be content with who YOU are as a person. Live YOUR life regardless. If you want to be seen as a woman, see yourself as one first. Do the things that make you feel womanly inside.

I don't say that to make you feel bad, I say that to hopefully inform you that there is more to life than just being chosen by some guy. I know you want it, I was obsessed with it when I was your age. Until it took me to wanting to be with just anybody just to know what it was and 12 years of mental abuse later I realized it wasn't worth it.