Hannah Hails, 42, was excited to start dating again after losing more than 200 pounds in a year.
But she didn’t expect that her weight loss would make it harder to find love.
Hails’ rapid shedding has left her with excess skin — and it’s scaring away men on dating apps, she tells South West News Service.
It’s also dinging her self-confidence. “Out of clothes, I’m disgusted with what I see,” she writes on her GoFundme page, which she’s started in hopes of raising funds for a skin-tightening procedure.
Hails, who is from Pulborough, England, weighed 462 pounds two years ago. But after getting gastric bypass surgery, she shed 252 pounds in just 12 months.
Though her weight loss was going well, her love life was not: Amid her journey, her husband of 22 years divorced her.
So Hails got on Tinder to find a compatible mate.
She matched with a handsome bachelor in London. After 10 days of chatting online, she decided to “prepare him” for the reality of her post-weight loss body, so he wouldn’t be surprised when they met in person.
She sent some scantily clad pics of herself in underwear — and the man ended up cutting off contact with her, she tells SWNS.
Hails says other matches did the same when she sent photos of herself in underwear.
“They would just go cold,” she says. “I’m just glad they rejected me on the app. I just really, really couldn’t deal with that rejection face-to-face. It would be mortifying.”
While her instinct to preempt in-person rejection is understandable, dating expert Julia Bekker says singles should not be sending semi-nude selfies to strangers, regardless of size.
“If someone loves you they will love you whether you’re bigger or smaller, for better or for worse,” Bekker, owner of NYC matchmaking service Hunting Maven, tells The Post. “But sharing these pics before you form an actual relationship with someone is way out of line.”
With her GoFundMe, Hails hopes to raise $33,000 to tighten up the skin in her stomach, arms, breasts and lower body. So far she’s raised $222.
“Right now I just feel completely unloveable,” she says. “I just want to get to a point where I have the confidence to be intimate with someone again.”