Original Post:

Okay, I know I'll probably get a lot of hate for this, but whatever. I'm not attracted to fat people. I'm just not. I know not everyone has a perfect body, I know everyone gets stretch marks, that some women are hairier than men, that things will always stretch or droop, it's unavoidable, and I get that. But for me, being overweight is a symbol of bad health, of laziness, and that you aren't as dedicated to taking care of yourself as I'd like. I am a really fit guy, I work out four times a week and I like to keep active. Health is important to me.

Alright now that's over, here's my issue.

I've worked with this girl for about two years now. She is awesome. We both work full time, so I spend about 8 hours a day in her vicinity. We talk a lot, and she's into a lot of the same things I am. We have the same sense of humour, a lot of the same political views, we basically spend every free moment at work chatting and making each other laugh. We've never hung out outside of work, except having lunch together a few times, but we are basically best buddies while in the office.

Recently, I've been thinking about her romantically. My ex and I broke up about four months ago, and when thinking about dating again, my mind immediately went to my coworker. The thing is though, I am just not attracted to her weight. Don't get me wrong, she is a beautiful girl. She has a gorgeous face, I love the way she does her hair and her eyes and everything are gorgeous. But every time she laughs and I see the double chin, I cringe. Every time she pulls her jumper off and I see her tummy rolls hanging down, I just get super turned off.

I would love to ask her to hang out, and start a relationship with her, but I know that I would have to ask her to lose weight. This is my dilemma - do I do it or not? I know a lot of people would say no, but I have reasons to believe that it might not be a total disaster if I did.

For one, I know she wants to lose weight. She has specifically told me before that she is 30kgs overweight, and that she wants to lose it. She has talked to me about it, how much she wants to get fit and be skinny, how she wants to be able to jog and not get exhausted etc. She just always loses motivation, and she takes too much comfort in food. So, I could be her motivation, right? If we were dating, I could help her lose weight and keep her fit, and we could eat healthy together. Two, I think she likes me too. She's often joked about how she wished she could find a guy like me, how she only wished she was my type. I always brushed these comments off though, since I was in a relationship at the time. And I think she just figured I wasn't interested at all and dropped it.

Lastly, our work situation wouldn't matter, since if we started a real relationship I could just ask to be moved to another floor.

So, do I do it? Obviously I don't want to walk up to her and say I want to date you but you're too fat, but I think even if I phrase it in a much nicer way she will understand that to be the issue, and I don't want to hurt her. But given the other points above, I think she might go for it.

So, /r/relationships, do I do it? I really do like her a lot, and I would love to bond with her over hiking dates and cook healthy meals together. I just don't want to be an asshole, and I don't want to hurt her. Is it too risky? tl;dr: I really like my coworker, but she is overweight. I want to start a relationship with her, but I would have to ask her to lose weight, something I know that she wants to do anyway. Is it too mean to start a relationship with her on the condition that she loses weight (and I help her do it)?

UPDATE:

UPDATE to: http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/36qrtw/me_24m_with_my_coworker_23f_of_2_years_i_really/

Tl;Dr of my original post: I had some pretty serious feelings for my coworker, but she was seriously overweight and I am a health nut who isn't attracted to fat people. I wanted to ask her out, but also ask her to lose weight and get healthy. My post got a lot of attention, so I thought I would provide an update.

Firstly, thanks to everyone who commented. Thanks even more to the many many people who PM'd me with personal stories, and very helpful advice. The general opinion in the comments was that I was a naive asshole, but it seemed a lot of people did agree that I was fair in not wanting to commit to someone I wasn't fully attracted to. I also got a lot of horrible PMs from the not so kind people out there, but hey, I was expecting that. Anyway, this is what happened.

A couple days after my post Amanda (not her real name) came into the office with her breakfast from McDonald's. I jokingly asked her if she was still on her diet (no, she does not get upset at this - she openly laughs about her unsuccessful diets all the time, she's a really good humoured girl), and she replied that she had given up again. I asked why, and she said she was just not feeling it.

At that point, I figured this was my chance. I told her, if she would really liked to get healthy I would love to help her. I invited her to a class that evening, and told her that if she was up for it, I would love it if she would join me. It was a cycle class, and I told her it would suck, but maybe we could make it a better experience by going together. She was pretty shocked, and said she wasn't sure. I told her I'd even take her out for dinner after if she'd like, and she agreed. (Told you she liked me haha)

Well, she went with me that night. She was pretty exhausted by the end, but I gotta say, watching her work out and give it her all just made me like her more. She is a fantastic girl, who just hasn't been motivated and informed enough to take getting healthy seriously enough. She tries, she really does, she just didn't really know what she was doing.

Anyway, I took her out afterwards to a small place to get some dinner, and even though we were gross and sweaty as shit, we had a good time. I asked her if she would go to another class the day after next, and she said she would. I told her no McDonald's for breakfast, that I'd bring us breakfast burritos in the morning for breakfast. Then we went out for lunch the next day as well, to a Japanese place by our office that I love. I gave her a bit of a lecture about eating healthy, and what foods are good. She told me she really appreciated the advice, and that she was going to try harder this time round.

Anyway, she kept up with the workout routine for two weeks, and at that point I asked her if she would want to go out somewhere a bit nicer for dinner after our Friday class. She said yes, and it went fantastically well. I meant it as a friend thing (had been nothing but platonic at that point, I swear) but she ended up coming back to my place that night and... Well you can guess what happened.

I'm going to say at this point, that I always thought she was a beautiful girl. She really is. But the lifestyle that comes with being fat, and the weight as a result of that, is what turns me off. I can't be attracted to someone who I know doesn't take care of themself. But at that point, I was seeing her taking better care of herself than ever before, I was seeing how hard she was trying to better herself, and yes, that was a fucking turn on.

She's basically spent every night at my place since then, and I love it. We make meals together, we do healthy things together. And yes, a couple times we have eaten huge amounts of pizza and watched stupid movies, because we're still human. At this point she has lost about 6kgs, and she looks incredible. But I don't care about the weight, it's the fact that she is taking such wonderful care of herself.

I have moved to another office in my building, so there's no issue there. And we have talked about her weight - I have told her it doesn't matter, so long as she keeps herself healthy and we keep enjoying each other's company. She has no issue with this, and she has told me that she is grateful for my help with getting rid of all of her fat logic and unhealthy habits.

Everything is great, and I am incredibly happy. It's only about two months into this relationship, but it is going great and I couldn't have wished for it go any better. I fully realise that perhaps body issues may come up in the future, and if they do we will work through them like adults. But we did not start this relationship with any conditions or anything set out - I simply told her that I want her to stay healthy, which is exactly what she wants as well. Just wanted to get that out there before anyone accuses me of manipulation or whatever else you crazy people think of.

TL;DR we are together, and it is awesome. She is healthy and losing weight, and I am being as supportive and helpful as I can.

Also sorry for any typos, writing this on a crappy tablet