This participant observation and interview study of adolescent girls discusses how overweight adoiescent girls perceive their fat handicap to be a threat to social interaction with thin people. Four aspects of this threat to sociability described in a general way by F. Davis are considered: 1) overweight as an exclusive focus in interaction; 2) overweight as overwhelming others with many mixed emotions; 3) overweight as clashing with other qualities of the person; and 4) overweight as an equivocal and uncertain predictor of joint activities. The girls studied related many approach-avoidance conflicts in interactions with others.