The Fat Suit Dating Experiment

Goldie Hawn in a fat suit, but she still looks like a normal woman.

You may have heard about the fat suit experiment or maybe you haven’t. An attractive fit woman and similar handsome man advertise for a date on Tinder using recent snapshots, and then they don a fat suit for the actual date.   

Skinny Girl in a Fat Suit Video

The entire Tinder dating phenomenon is about looks and availability.  With this in mind, the company Simple Pick Up, is in business with a sole purpose to teach men to pick up women. Simple Pick Up chooses a gorgeous swimsuit-worthy female.  Then, of course, the people running the experiment make her almost hundred pounds overweight. Quite a difference when you consider the photos she had on Tinder.

Five different men show up at different times for the date. All five are initially friendly. None of them is the date who walks by and doesn’t like what he sees and heads out without speaking. The woman stays in her chair and allows the men to approach. Once they identify themselves as her date, she becomes quite friendly and chatty.

It’s obvious the first four men are uncomfortable with her weight. One storms off concluding that posting thin pictures makes her a liar. A statement I’d have to agree with, but he could have handled it in a classier way. Another man confesses he’s married before ducking out. He may have been married, there’s no way to know. The third gives a polite speech about not suiting. The fourth goes to the restroom and never comes back. The fifth guy doesn’t do a disappearing act a couple of minutes into the date. For his persistence, the woman reveals that it is all a social experiment and points out the cameras. That’s his reward for sticking it out with the fat date.

What we’ve learned is that men in the 24-36 age range have little tolerance for overweight women. More specifically, men who expect some fit hot chick, and meet a woman who bears no resemblance to her, tend to go to pieces.  Men are single-minded, linear thinkers, which might explain their reactions. The simple conclusion would be that it’s not okay to be an overweight female.

Let’s move onto the guy in a fat suit video, which is really, what the whole social experiment was really about.  The creators of Simple Pick Up want to show how you can pick up girls no matter how you look. There was a not so hidden agenda here.

Five fit women choose to meet the man who is actually a dating coach in a fat suit. This person tells men how to meet girls. All the women are polite and stay through the date. One asks him if he prefers fit women to non-fit ones and calls him a hypocrite when he admits he does. That’s as ugly as it gets.

They stay through the date even though, in my opinion, the man spouted a great deal of garbage, often taking a counter viewpoint to whatever the woman said. At one point, he even admitted he hated dogs. Seriously, he was not acting like an average overweight guy, but more like a bombastic bad boy who expected women to fall for him.

As a result, the makers of the video claimed the man had successfully snagged two additional dates and a kiss, proving their point that they could teach any man to pick up girls. After I watched the video initially, my first two thoughts were women are more polite and less judgmental. Men can get by with carrying weight in society more than women. Don’t believe me? Check out the UK study where women prefer men with a spare tire to six pack ab guys. The reasoning behind this distinction is that six-pack guys were devoid in personality and obsessed with their looks. Women also didn’t want to date a man in better shape than she was.

After considering the video overnight, I came up with some other conclusions. Women often say things on dates they don’t mean such as pretending to plan for a second date. Acting as if you’re happy on a date is learned behavior most women know how to do while counting the minutes until it’s over. The girl who kissed him did not kiss him on the lips. It was a sweet kiss reserved for someone you just met, a relative, or a co-worker. It could have been a pity kiss too.

Even though I thought the women showed good manners and made an effort to be a decent date, male commenters on the video viewed their actions differently.  Some believed the females showed up for the free food.

There is a mention of this is taking place in LA.  A city noted for its beautiful people, chocked full of wannabe actors and models where personal beauty standards might be understandably higher than elsewhere. I’ll leave you with this thought. If you were making a video about a guy successfully meeting girls in a fat suit, would you show any bad meets?