Amalie Jennings, 30, knew all too well how cruel the world could be.
For most of her life, she struggled with self-hatred and feeling like an outsider because of her body. But everything changed when she met a man named Sean.
”I have always been fat since I was two years old,” Amalie explained in 2019.
=
”My mum took me to the doctors because I was gaining a lot of weight. Since as long as I can remember, I have been fat. And of course, that comes with a lot of bullying, a lot of picking on. My oldest memory of bullying is in Kindergarten, when I was around four. And all the kids picked on me for being fat.”
As Amalie grew older, the bullying only intensified.
”I gained even more weight, which meant I was picked on even more. I started self-harming, and I got picked on again,” she said. ”I just had a really horrible self-image. I hated looking in the mirror.”
Shopping for clothes had been another source of pain. Amalie recalled how, even as a little girl, she had to shop in the women’s department because children’s clothing didn’t fit her.
Amalie couldn’t wear the trendy clothes other kids her age wore. Instead, she had to settle for adult clothing, which only added to her feelings of isolation.
Her feelings of isolation grew as she noticed the lack of representation for people like her in books or media. And when overweight characters did appear, they were often portrayed as caricatures.
A life-changing connection
Things began to change when Amalie, originally from Denmark, met her husband, Sean, a British man, through an online video game. Their unlikely connection grew into a friendship that blossomed into something more.
”My husband Sean and I met 11 years ago on a game on the PlayStation,” she said. ”At first, I thought he was an old man just looking for a young woman to talk to. But then I learned he was my age.”
Their relationship began on a solid foundation of conversation, free from immediate judgments about appearance. Although they had seen pictures of each other, it took a while before they started video chatting.
Amalie admitted her insecurities often made her self-conscious, even in the beginning. ”I could see how fat I was in the pictures, but he kept talking to me,” she said. ”I was so insecure about myself; I would hide my double chin. But he still didn’t care—he just wanted to talk to me.”
Before long, the two became best friends. It took some time for them to realize they were in love. Amalie began dropping hints about her feelings, but he didn’t immediately pick up on them.
Eventually, she began posting subtle love notes on Facebook, which Sean noticed but didn’t fully understand at first. Sean initially assumed she was referring to someone else.
Finally, the Danish girl worked up the courage to confess her feelings directly.
”It was the weirdest feeling because I hadn’t had luck with boyfriends before,” Amalie shared. ”And finally, here’s this guy, 500 miles away, who fancies me as much as I fancy him.”
