The fat girl's guide to the flop sweat *Guest Post*

Today's post is from my IRL friend Katy from Project - Look Good Naked. The thing is, six months ago, I didn't even know Katy...we met through our blogs. I posted about selling my house (and put up pictures of my place) and she commented that it looked like places in Denver.  I thought she was one of those crazy stalker type chicks that you read about in chain emails.  She probably felt the same.

But we met for dinner anyway.  I spilled my guts about something that was going on behind the scenes of my blog within about 5 minutes of meeting her.  Clearly, that's her fault.  She's a good listener.  And a great photographer.  But that's another story altogether. 

We've hung out a few times since (not enough as far a I'm concerned) and I was pleased to find that she is just as fantastic as she seems. She's frank, funny, bold, and yet still genuine. A rare combination, to be sure.

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I'm not the most socially outgoing person, but I'm also not a hermit. I play nice with others and am generally pretty interested in what others have to say. But sometimes you'd think I have a very severe case of social anxiety disorder. Why? Two words, flop sweat.

Flop Sweat: The time in which a person starts to sweat uncontrollably and must ask one simple question. Do I own it, or pretend it's not happening?

I wish it wasn't so, but unfortunately I seem to find myself in a flop sweat scenario fairly often. The worst is when you're meeting new people. Like I said, I don't believe I have any diagnosed social issues, but that doesn't mean I don't get a little nervous meeting new people. I'm not sure if I'm nervous about meeting new people, or nervous that the flop sweats are going to start.

Take for instance last month. I was going to a social gathering...ALONE. Meaning, I'd have no wing man. Strike one. The venue was indoors. Strike two. Cocktail hour...alcohol makes me hotter. Strike three. You get the point. The event was one where I'd be meeting fellow women business owners and we'd talk about ourselves and puff up our chests and try and “network.” Does the word network send chills up your spine like it does mine? I think of networking as a big giant popularity contest and let me tell you, when you grow up husky, tall, and with huge pink & purple plastic coke bottle glasses, popular isn't the word that comes to mind. Part of my brain automatically digresses back to a 10 year old, when in social networking groups and well...I can't help but just sweat it out.

So I'm at this networking group and start talking to some ladies and I feel it coming on. Tiny beads of sweat forming right at my hair line. Easily disguised, I tell myself. No one will notice...you're glowing and in fact you may look prettier! It's at this point, I tell myself to calm down because once the sweat starts, if I obsess about it, it only gets uglier. The hairline sweat starts to creep down a little bit. Not like, dripping, but you know...forming. So I'm talking and stuff trying to ignore it and praying to sweet baby jesus that no one can see it. Then I do the familiar “I have an itch” move. God I hope I'm not the only one who's done this, but you know...it's where you pretend to sort of itch your forehead to assess the damage. Am I sweating as bad as I think? Worse? This is a critical time in the flop sweat process. It's here you either decide to A) own it and just blatantly wipe the brow, B) Continue to ignore it and hope to God it stops, or C) Excuse yourself to the restroom. My modus operandi is to gingerly excuse myself to the bathroom so I can sweat/cool down in private. If all goes well, the bathroom will be a few degrees cooler and you can preform some triage on yourself. Including, but not limited to the paper towel under the armpit trick. Tried and true.

Hopefully after a few minutes in the bathroom you can return your body temperature to normal and go out and re-join your crowd and in my experience you usually have at least 30-40 minutes before it starts again. Sometimes one good sweat is all that's in me, sometimes it goes all night. Back patios and outdoor spaces can be a fat girl with a flop sweat problem's best friend. I'm just sayin'. Sometimes there's no one outside though and in these cases I say go forth and forge your own path. You'll be surprised at how many people follow suit and join you to cooler climates.

Look, flop sweat isn't cute. But sometimes it just happens. Us overweight dames and gents carry an internal space heater wherever we go so really it's just a matter of time before we're in a sticky situation. My experience has taught me to own it, not ignore it, but don't own it so much that you're wiping sweat away in front of someone else. Do it in private whenever possible and please please seek an outdoor space. Even a hot breeze in the summer is circulating air and that's better than nothing, know what I'm sayin'?