Delusions of Grande

*Part 2 (Or: He's Not Done YET? Or: Delusions of Grande-er)
So the entirety of the outside world may not consider me as desirable as the inside world of gaining. So what? Didn't I spend enough time worrying about what people thought of me in high school? Clearly not, based on the accidentally-dyed-orange fro and overalls with collared velour shirt look I was rocking back in the day. That's right: rocking. I loved it, even if it put me outside the A Group in high school ("Oh my God! We weren't in the C Group, were we?" "Oh God no; that was, like, all the losers and honor students.") And corny as it is, isn't what we think of ourselves really the most important at the end of the day? As the wise sage RuPaul says, "If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?"

We know the fact we're fat and getting fatter is most attractive indeed, but how do we gauge our own attractiveness when it's so tied to how fat we are and that's a hard thing to gauge? (Note to self: Gage could be a hot name for a six-packer) Most growing boys I talk to (and I'm no exception) have a really hard time telling how big we are/appear to others. For the most part, we tend to see ourselves as smaller than we appear to the general population. Occasionally I come across the starting gainer who has put on 12 pounds and thinks he's suddenly a blimp and get a little chuckle, but I've been there. When it's the first time venturing above your normal weight and it's the biggest you've ever been, it's huge relatively speaking. Then I stop chuckling and apologize for being amused. That could very well be how guys who've put on 150 pounds see someone like me: aw, isn't it cute he thinks he's a big boy now**.

There's just no standard, objective formula to determine how fat someone is. There are so many variables: height, bone heartiness (some people really are big-boned!), fat location location location, softness vs firmness, and Capricorn-ness vs. Piscesness. At least in our happy little family, BMI is fairly widely considered a moo point (ask Joey Tribbiani). Two guys can be similar heights, similar weights, and both carry the bulk of their bulk in their bellies, yet one looks more like the Michelin Man and one can look closer to Violet Beauregarde. So how do we go about determining our own size? Or do we? Perhaps we don't have a set "bigness" and it can ONLY be subjective. My hair, for instance, has been described as blonde (by people with hair darker than mine) and as brown (by people with hair lighter than mine). Is either wrong? No, they're just both right to different people.

So where do we turn? The scale? Pants size? Note regarding pants size: when I hold up my pants to fold or hang, they look pretty darn wide to me, but I have convinced myself they magically shrink to a slightly-above-average width when I actually put them on. I find photographs to be helpful, but even then I tend to see how much bigger I am than I used to be, so they're more for comparison's sake than this. is. how. fat. I. am. now. How about the mirror? Mine obviously lies, showing me a previous version of myself; the mirror and photographs never seem to agree on my size. I tend to turn to other guys. I don't mean to tell me how fat I am. **My personal gainer's paradox is that I want so very much to be told how fat I am (and for the fat-caller to mean it) but then I don't believe I'm as fat as he says I am. Go figure (it out: gratuitous call out of the blog name alert!). No, what I mean is I find it helpful to see my body next to another fatboy's and see where I fall on the fatness spectrum next to him. "Oh, I'm bigger than that?" or "Guess I've got some work to do in Zones 2, 5, and 6B!". In my perfect world, I would locate my exact body double, someone my height who carried the same weight in the same way, so I could look at my own fatness on another person, at 360 degrees. But for lack of a perfect world, I'll have to settle for that oh-so-fun game: Am I bigger than him? Is he bigger than me? His ass is bigger than mine, right? My gut is rounder than his, isn't it? Now that's what I call a Saturday!

For the record, I don't mind not having a particularly accurate body image, as I do find it helps keeps me motivated to keep going. I can't imagine being in much of a rush if I envisioned myself a foot bigger around than I actually am! How about you? How do you determine your own bigaciousness? Or for those who may be closer to the encouraging end of the spectrum, do you determine a gainer's?

Delusions of Grande

You can't perceive without receive. And you can't receive without vice. And you can't vice without ice. And you can't... why do I suddenly want ice cream?

Pardon my cranial drifting. I don't really edit/revise these blog posts, as you may be able to tell. As a result, maybe I come across as scatterbrained or pleasantly conversational, perhaps confused or perhaps genius. Who knows what you think of me as you read my blog (thanks, by the way, especially to those of you who have commented to give me some insight)? And that brings us to this post's topic: perception.

A lot of the gainerverse exists solely online, a land of people who will never talk to another resident, who will never put up a picture or at least won't show their faces, which is fine, as there's a balance between "lurkers" and folks who treat gaining sites like any social networking site, replete with candid snapshots and notes on the latest movies seen, sometimes to the point of oversharing (I'm sorry you wet the bed until you were 28, but I'm not sure your profile is quite the right forum for that). We get to choose how "out" we are, how much of ourselves we want to reveal, based on what we're comfortable with, and there's room for everybody. What we can't control is how the images and words we put out are translated by those stumbling upon them.

Probably my favorite aspect of the online gainerverse is the validation it brings that I'm not in this alone. I might be crazy, but not for my interest in gaining. There. Are. Others. I can't know whether guys out there think I'm funny, ugly, nice, snobby, hot, dumb, or have tragically poor taste in shower curtains, but but just by existing, the online gainerverse is a supportive network of semi-likeminded fellows, which makes me feel good. Even if it's not directed at me specifically, seeing a guy who's put on an obvious inch get sincere kudos -why do I suddenly want Kudos?- makes me feel better about my endeavors; this is a place where we won't be shunned but rather applauded for a rather bizarre pursuit. Going through a drought? Encouragement that things will turn around is just around the photo comment. Sometimes because I can tend to surround myself in the gainerverse at home nestled snugly between my four walls, I forget that it's not the real world. Which is not to see that there isn't an offline gainerverse- events like Expansion and successful couplings from our midst tell the tale- but the rest of the world is not quite so supportive as this safe(is) cocoon we've created in cyberspace.

Sometimes I worry I've read one too many gainer stories when I notice a "conventionally" attractive fellow and figure he'll likely be into my less-than-trim self, just like in that one story (you know, the one with the guy and the other guy and the eating and the weight gain and that moment when the chubster is comforted by the hottie with the six-pack and piercing eyes gently placing his hand on fatboy's belly and whispering in his ear how hot it's been watching him plump up like he has and said hottie wants to continue the efforts overtly as they skip off to the Baskin Robbins hand in pudgy hand with eyes newly twinkling in both parties). I'm not exactly massive*, but I'm big enough that I can't get away with "put on a few" anymore and from spending so much time in the virtual company of my fellow gainers and encouragers sometimes I forget that not every guy out there is into a big-boned gentleman. For the record, I'm not afraid of the word "fat"; I am genuinely big-boned and have never been able to wrap my thumb and forefinger around my wrist. So there. I've been fortunate never to have been dismissed with a sneer or rude comment, but my occasional forays into smiling at a cute boy on the subway have been met with... nothing. Like I wasn't even there. Side note: I still don't know how to flirt, which may also play a role... why do I suddenly want a fruit roll-up?

Do you ever forget that the world isn't waiting to fall at the invisible feet of a handsome porker? Whether it's intrinsic or they've fallen prey to society's standards male beauty (clearly, this is all Men's Health's fault!), the average guy who likes guys likes guys who aren't fat guys which I like being. Do I find this discouraging? Sometimes. But then I remember there's always a limited pool of who will be into someone. Blond hair, brown eyes, glasses, argyle, hairy backs, mustaches, lacks of mustaches, and an affinity for Velveeta could all be dealbreakers to some guys out there. But they could also be huge draws to others, so while I know that the entire world isn't living in the gainerverse, I know there are enough residents I can't scare off EVERY guy. Just a chunk of them. In a way, it's almost helpful. To the fit encourager solely into fatties and fatties-to-be, fellow fit-and-staying-that-way guys expressing interest might be flattering but frustrating (that's about as deep into the mind of an encourager I'll attempt to go for the time being) whereas I'm much more likely to draw a friend of the chub now than when I was waffling about whether or not to gain... and why do I suddenly want... nah, I already had breakfast. But if a nice boy into my personal brand of chubosity has mixed plaid with polka dots, I have an appointment the day he wants to take me on a date. Why do I suddenly want a nice heap of fiber-rich dried dates? That's right, I don't.