‘I get so upset and frustrated’: What dating is like on a GLP-1

GLP-1s are inescapable online, as Mashable reported, including extensive discussions about them. The latest topic of conversation to hit your FYPs may be about being single and dating while taking the drug.

“Dating after weight loss sucks,” said Katherine Lipovsky on social media, where she posts videos about life after losing 300 pounds with the help of a GLP-1. In this particular video posted in Aug., she went on to say she was insanely jealous of people who’ve had partners who have loved them in all sizes, because she’ll never know if her future partner would’ve stood by her.

Lipovsky, who’s 41 and has been on a GLP-1 for several years, expressed similar emotions to Mashable.

“Until last summer, it was impossible for me to find a man who didn’t want to keep me a secret,” she said in a phone interview. That’s the biggest difference that she’s seen since losing weight. It wasn’t that men didn’t desire her, or weren’t physically or emotionally attracted to her. 

“It was that they didn’t want to be seen with me,” she said. “It’s literally that they were embarrassed to like me, and that was just really made me feel like shit.”

Now, she’s navigating the mindfield of post-weight-loss dating and wondering whether her dates would’ve accepted her before.

Societal bias against fat people is well-documented. Weight discrimination is linked to poorer physical and mental health, worse healthcare, and being turned down for jobs. The bias persists in the dating world. A 2022 article in the journal Stigma and Health on dating and hiring preferences found that there was a stronger weight bias amongst heterosexual participants and gay men, but less so in lesbians and bisexual women.

Lipovsky is one of many people who’ve experienced this stigma and are now learning to live life in a smaller body while taking GLP-1s. As she and others Mashable spoke to, it’s changed every facet of their lives, especially dating.

Dating with ‘skinny privilege’ 

Alejandra, a woman in her 20s who withheld her last name for privacy reasons, started posting about how GLP-1 use is impacting her dating life because she didn’t find much about it online herself. 

She has PCOS (now called PMOS) and has been on a GLP-1 for almost three years. Dating while on the drug is a fairly new topic, she told Mashable over the phone, and it’s changed for her in so many ways. Like Lipovsky, she wonders if the men she dates like her for her.

“I may come off as more confident now that I am at [my] goal weight,” she said, “but at the same time, that does bring a lot of insecurities in relationships because I get in my head about, ‘Do they like me now because of the way I look or do they like me for me?'”

That’s a question she’ll never know the answer to, she said, because they didn’t meet her before she lost weight. 

Both Alejandra and Lipovsky also said they get a lot more attention from men now that they’ve lost weight. 

“Now, I’m living and experiencing what dating is like, or should be like, and being treated with default kindness and respect by people, which is wild,” Lipovsky said. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to it.”

Lipovsky said she now has “skinny privilege,” which has come along with better treatment from people: Men open doors for her and carry her luggage, for instance. She gets compliments, which didn’t happen before.

“I feel like I was just as valuable and deserving of respect and kindness, no matter what my size was,” she said. “But it’s impossible to not see it happening with my own eyes.”

Still, that doesn’t mean finding a partner has been any easier. 

“When you’re fat, you think, ‘If I could just be skinny, my life would be perfect. Everything will be perfect if I’m skinny,’ and you blame everything on being fat,” she explained. “That’s how it was for me, and that’s not how it is at all. Life is still very hard. Things are not perfect.”

“Men don’t suddenly become knights in shining armor when you’re thin,” she continued. 

Lipovsky uses dating apps (though she finds them overwhelming), and also goes “manhunting” with her best friend, which she describes as “practice flirting.”

“I’m like a baby deer interacting with men because I always was the fat, funny friend,” she said.

Alejandra also uses dating apps and has started going out to bars this year. A point of vexation when dating is other people’s opinions on GLP-1s.

Misconceptions of GLP-1 use

“I get so upset and frustrated in the dating world,” Alejandra said in terms of the negative associations with GLP-1 use. On first dates, she doesn’t purposefully disclose that she uses one because people make assumptions about those who take it.

“My thought process now is like, ‘If they can just get to know me first, and then this conversation comes up after the fact, and there’s opportunities to educate, then maybe it won’t immediately affect their opinion on me or about me,'” she said. 

Some of her TikTok videos address this frustration. “There are so [many] men who have a problem with this, that the next time I go out to bars, to clubs, whatever, I’m just gonna…wear a sign that says, ‘Warning, I’m on a [GLP-1],” she said in a video posted in April. “And I think that that will keep the men away.” 

“Dating on ‘the glip’ never gets easier,” she lamented in one posted in May.

She told Mashable that she sometimes wants to put something about being on a GLP-1 on her dating profile, which she hasn’t done because it’s “terrifying.” But having a problem with GLP-1 use is a huge red flag for her.

“GLP-1s, especially with having PCOS, will forever be part of my life. That’s not going away, and I could never be with a partner who doesn’t agree with it or has terrible things to say about it, because that tells me everything I need to know about them and their lack of support that I’d receive continuing on this medication,” she said.

She doesn’t shy away from correcting men she’s on dates with. She told Mashable about a time she was on a date with a man who said his roommate was on a GLP-1 and called them “lazy”. “Of course, I can’t stay quiet,” she said. She corrected him and said she was on a GLP-1, and not because she’s lazy. 

Another date of Alejandra’s on retatrutide (which isn’t approved by the FDA) called it a “shortcut.”

“I did have to stop him in his tracks,” she said. “I was like, ‘It’s not a shortcut. At least it wasn’t a shortcut for me.’ And then that opened up the conversation of PCOS and why I specifically had to rely on the medication to lose weight.” She said he was open to learning more and understanding her experience.

She’s also now hesitant to share her social media with someone she’s dating because of her content. What she shares online is very vulnerable, she said, and sometimes she even thinks about deleting her account. 

“But every time I think about deleting it, getting rid of it, starting fresh, forgetting about that past version of me, I just think about that one person who needs to see what I’m posting about so that they can relate and know that they’re not alone. And that’s just honestly what keeps me from deleting it all,” she said.

Most of the videos Mashable observed on Instagram and TikTok about dating on a GLP-1 were posted by women dating men, though some were by men dating women. Mashable reached out to several of these men, but none of them responded. 

Comedian Jared Freid, however, shared about his experience on a June 2026 episode of the podcast he co-hosts, U Up? (Freid didn’t respond to a request for a Mashable interview.)

When responding to a question about whether a listener should disclose whether they’re on a GLP-1, he said, “I can relate to the shame,” and that it’s vulnerable to mention any medication you’re on. But he thinks of it as a lifestyle medication, not a “vanity medication,” though vanity is a part of it.

“The vanity element of [GLP-1s] has been overplayed,” he said. “It’s a daychanger for me, being able to live a life without food on my mind,” he continued. 

GLP-1 and the dreaded dinner date

GLP-1s curb appetite, and there are many memes out there about how little some people on the medication eat. Some people on GLP-1s also reduce drinking as alcohol makes them feel uncomfortable or nauseous, or they just stop wanting it. When a typical first date is dinner or cocktails, that can make meeting someone new harder.

Alejandra said that when she was in the middle of her weight loss and going up on higher doses, it would be awkward if she were out on a dinner date and could only take a few bites. “I didn’t want them to think that I didn’t like the food or that I wasn’t hungry, and so sometimes by default, it comes up, like, ‘I don’t have like a huge appetite right now because I’m on this medication.'” 

But at this point, she avoids the conversation on a first date.

Lipovsky said she likes to go out for coffee and a croissant on a first date, so she doesn’t have to bring it up, either. But if she’s out on a dinner date, she’ll say she’s on a GLP-1, and she’s down to split something. She’ll joke that she’s a cheap date, because she doesn’t drink alcohol, either, mostly because of the medication.

On disclosing GLP-1 use, Alejandra said she doesn’t have all the right answers. But disclosing any medication use is one’s choice and should only be done when someone is comfortable doing so.

Neither Lipovsky nor Alejandra plans on stopping GLP-1s. Alejandra hopes that the more people open up and share their experiences, the more it can help everyone else, including herself, as she’s still in the dating scene. 

“Hopefully other people can relate as well,” she said.