Love Yourself to Love Someone Really
Nicole had tried dating apps before, always with a caveat in her bio: “Yes, I’m curvy. No, I don’t want to ‘shed a few for summer.’” But even with that honesty, she’d grown weary of shallow compliments and conversations that stalled at “You’re brave for owning it.”
Then she joined lovebbw.com, not as a last resort, but as a choice. A reclamation. Her new profile photo showed her laughing in a sunflower-yellow dress, arms open like she was embracing the day, and herself. Her intro read: “Nicole, 38. Poet, pie baker, and believer in softness, in pastry, in blankets, in love.”
Eric, a landscape architect with kind eyes and a habit of remembering people’s coffee orders, saw her profile and paused, not at her shape, but at the ease in her expression. He messaged: “That dress looks like joy made fabric. What kind of pie would match it?”
She replied within the hour: “Lemon-meringue. Tart, sweet, unapologetically golden.”
They exchanged messages for days, light, witty, thoughtful. He shared sketches of garden nooks designed for quiet reading; she sent haikus about morning light on her kitchen counter. No rush. No performance. Just presence.
Their first date was at a botanical garden café, his idea.
- Plenty of benches. - he’d said. - And zero pressure to ‘keep up.’
When Nicole arrived, wearing that same yellow dress, this time with strappy sandals and a silver cuff bracelet, Eric stood, not to greet her, but to meet her. His smile was calm. His handshake lingered just long enough to feel like intention.
They walked slowly, Pip (a rescue terrier he fostered weekends) trotting ahead, leash loose in his hand.
- You seem… settled. - Nicole said, watching him pause to let a child pet Pip.
He glanced at her.
- I spent years trying to be more, more driven, more polished, more… acceptable. Then I realized: love doesn’t thrive in performance. It grows in honesty.
She nodded.
- I used to edit myself before speaking. Soften my laugh. Tuck in my elbows on the subway.
- And now?
A breeze lifted a curl from her temple. She didn’t push it back. “Now I bake pies that spill over. I laugh until my ribs ache. I wear yellow because it says, I’m here. Fully.”
Eric stopped near a koi pond, sunlight dappling the water. “You know what I admire most?”
- What?
- The way you move through the world like you belong in it. Not despite your body, but with it. Like it’s your ally, not your apology.
Nicole’s breath caught, not in embarrassment, but in recognition. Seen. Not desired in spite of, but cherished as is.
Later, over shared lavender shortbread, she asked gently:
- What changed for you?
He looked down, then up, steady.
- I dated women I thought I should want… until I asked myself: Who makes me want to be kinder? Quieter? More myself? - He smiled.
- Turns out, it wasn’t a type. It was a feeling.
- And now?
He met her gaze, warm, unhurried.
- Now I’m here. With you. No pretending. Just… possibility.
Nicole reached across the table, not to hold his hand, but to rest hers beside his. Two hands, side by side. Equal. Open.
In that quiet alignment, she understood: self-love wasn’t the end of the journey.
It was the door, and Eric hadn’t knocked. He’d waited patiently, until she opened it herself.
And when she did, love didn’t rush in. It stepped gently over the threshold… and stayed.
Why This Resonates
True attraction begins when confidence isn’t armor—it’s invitation. Nicole and Eric’s story celebrates the radical act of showing up whole: softness as strength, joy as resistance, love as a choice rooted in self-respect.
On lovebbw.com, connection blooms not from shrinking—but from expanding: into space, into truth, into the quiet certainty that you are enough, just as you are.