So apparently a "glow up" won't fix your dating life, who knew! (Me, lol, and yet...)
I [31F] didn't set out to have an actual "glow up". I find the whole discourse about it kind of nauseatingly hyper-capitalistic, and I've never actively tried to do it.
What did happen is that I finished chemo a year ago with significant excess weight on me. My cancer is already potentially chronic and not considered fully curable. I've had issues with my weight my entire adult life (and teens) to some degree, but this time the gradual gain from not knowing I had cancer (less activity, more fatigue -> needing more calories etc.), then from cancer treatment itself (steroids suck) reshuffled my priorities around the topic. I wanted my agency back everywhere I could. It wasn't remotely about beauty.
Fast forward a year, and I'm doing well in most aspects of my life (career, friends, family, routines/hobbies, mental health etc.) - I dare say, in many ways, better than ever. Cancer treatments have gone well. Post traumatic growth is pretty cool.
And yes, I've lost the weight and then some. I'm about 44 pounds lighter and back at the gym (cramped as hell as I type this). I've also revamped my whole style because it was so exciting to have the energy to play with girly things again, so it's a huge visual change essentially from head to toe. I get compliments constantly. People (men) stare at me more.
It is a full-on traditional "glow up" that happened just because I was determined to give cancer the middle finger.
And you know what? My dating life still sucks ass!
The apps are still a miserable experience, I somehow almost never meet single men "organically" despite living in a big city full of 'em (and trust me I have resumed my social life with a vigor), and just yesterday a guy I'd been talking to for about 10 days, with which I've had one very fun date, told me out of the blue he wasn't interested in continuing after being very effusive about me before that.
I don't know if this is depressing or comforting or a bit of both, but there's something kind of vulnerable about not having excuses anymore. Dating is hard right now in a specifically depressing way and I can't fix it, and it sucks to sit with this uncontrollable situation without the "comfort" of thinking that it will finally be better if I "just do X". It's also hard to imagine that maybe now someone could just reject you for reasons you can't optimize away, because humans are messy and convoluted even to ourselves.
Just thought I'd share, because it's been weighing one me (lol) for a minute.