So I was recently reading a blog written by my blog nemesis, SimplEnigma (if you don’t have a blog nemesis get one… its kind of refreshing), where she details how she feels about fat men. The whole “fat” thing is a touchy subject. Its hard to discuss this without wondering to oneself if you are really just being shallow. I also happen to have a lot of friends that probably fit into the whole fat category, some of whom are more sensitive to the subject than others. But blogging is about speaking your mind and speaking from one’s subjective truth so… if I offend anyone I ask your forgiveness and give you full permission to blog on people with large ears!

We all have our preferences, likes and dislikes. Much of these preferences are shaped by the society(s) we live in, our cultural/racial backgrounds, and our own individual experiences. The ancient greeks had a far different idea of beautify than most modern western society. While the famous Venus de Milo, a sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite was by no means fat, even in this age, she would certainly have qualified for being plus-sized and/or manly. Check her abs… Serena Williams had nothing on her.

Over the centuries the beauty criteria in the U.S. has certainly shrunk to Paris Hilton type proportions. Narrow waists, washboard stomachs, v-shaped torsos, and less than 12% body fat are the order of the day. Humans are visually-stimulated creatures and our initial attractions are usually based on the physical template provided us by our society. As such, it is unlikely that we would be initially attracted to someone who had no legs. Our initial reactions might range from sympathy to curiosity, with desire a remote possibility for most.

Preferring a certain weight, height, shape, or even skin colour is not shallow… its being honest. Shallow is when you discard all the other positives in a person because of the physical only. Shallow is when the physical becomes one of the conditions that shape your relationships as opposed to one of the conditions that initiates them.

For me, its mostly a matter of health. Being significantly overweight is just not healthy. Some people have medical conditions that cause them to gain or lose weight in an unhealthy way. Others are genetically predisposed to gaining weight. And then some people just bring it on themselves. But there is no way to know which is which on sight. My natural instinct is then based on what I do know… I am not attracted to fat women who I otherwise know nothing about. This is not to say that I cannot become attracted to a large woman because of other factors that out weigh her weight issues (even other physical factors). In fact that has happened before…

*blog post shimmers and fades away in typical flashback tradition*

So I was out dancing and knocking back a few guinness (my favourite beer when I feel like drinking and eating a hamburger at the same time but am too lazy to actually go buy the hamburger) when I almost get my small intestines squeezed out of me by a fairly large woman trying to order a drink. Pressed up against the bar and leaning over to get the bartenders attention she had not noticed that her extremely rotund posterior had me pinned against a wall.

“Exc… Excuse me lady… (pant)… uhmmm miss… (wheeze)!” I gasped as my ribs tried to tell my lungs to back off.

“Oh! I am sooo sorry honey!” she said turning to see if I was still breathing and simultaneously gazing at me with a pair of the most beautiful, intense, deep, soul-searing, lie-detecting, stutter-inducing, flirtatious eyes I had ever seen.

“Ah-ah-ah… I am f-f-fine. Just didn’t w-w-want to spill my d-d-drink on you.” I stutter-lied. Her eyes, which had induced the stuttering, immediately detected the lie and, flattered, she cozied up to me. I forgot she was over-weight and we had a great time talking about what type of hamburger would go down best with a pint of guinness.

She eventually got bored and went to go dance with some guy with much smaller ears than mine. How shallow!