Step Right Up, Watch the Fat Lady Dive Into the Piranha Pool

193.4 lbs. I believe the scale is just toying with me. It knows that only 2 lbs. stand between me and leaving obesity in the rear view mirror. Scales are evil. You heard it here first.

I had a “hubba hubba” moment at the gym. The guy on the machine next to me looked like Antonio Banderas. We exchanged a smile, but since Melanie Griffith didn’t materialize to hang on him, I’m thinking it wasn’t Antonio.

After the encounter with the enthusiastic spinning teacher yesterday (and I say that with a smile. He seemed like a decent guy), I got to thinking about…men. There’s a heavily loaded minefield for you.

I have dated. While not exactly a Parade of Horribles, there was only one guy who wanted to go out more than once and that was because he was trying to convince me to blow him in a public place. I never heard from him after I made it clear that it wasn’t going to happen. There were the men looking to cheat on their wives. I firmly believe that what goes around comes around and if your significant other cheated on someone else with you, he will eventually cheat on you, too.

In graduate school, one friend (on my behalf and with my permission) asked another classmate if he’d be interested in dating a “woman of size” (I was told my name was left out of it). This guy was also big. His reply (and this is verbatim): “One of us in this relationship needs to be thin.”

I swear on a stack of Red Sox autographs this high (including a picture signed by both Fred Lynn and Jim Rice) that I speak the truth.

There was a guy at a previous place of employment. We were on great terms, a lot of similar interests and both single. I took the plunge, asked him if he’d like to go out some time and he shot me down cold. I have no idea why, but when I saw him later and he made a point of telling me about a trip to Hawaii he’d just taken with his girlfriend (whom he wasn’t dating when we worked together). I don’t know if it was the weight or something else, but I’d put my money on the double chins.

Self-image: My belief was that RuPaul made a more attractive woman than I do.

As mentioned, when people seek to really wound me, the insults start with “fat…” and build from there. And those come thick and fast, like the oysters in “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” This tells me of the depth and breadth of prejudice against me. Not me as who I am, but my appearance. It does tend to make one cautious.

I have formed close, solid friendships with men I have worked with, gone to school with, but it never went any further. They all had active relationships, but our connection never went any further than really good friend. It should be noted in the interests of accuracy that they are (or were. At least one past tense here) married. I get along with the wives, too.

There is one man I had a crush on in graduate school. He’s currently unattached and I had occasion to run into him last year. Not a date. He talked what he wanted in a woman: it turned out to be a combination of Marie Curie, Martha Stewart and Gisele Bundchen. I’ve got the brains (well, not as far as physics are concerned) and the housekeeping/cooking skills, but I ain’t got the lingerie model body.

I had a guy who was in his fifties, going bald but with a ponytail halfway down his back, bulbous eyes, a paunch that looked like he was carrying triplets, more body hair than an orangutan, not much of a job and living with his mother (really) tell me that my desire for an attractive, educated and well-employed was never going to happen because “you always want what you can’t have.” He was dating a slender blonde in her forties and constantly hitting on girls in their twenties. I was younger than his girlfriend, but a complete non-entity in his eyes. Not that I wanted to be hit on by him, but the fact that someone pretty much at the bottom end of the dating pool rejected me out of hand pretty much confirmed that I was better off on my own and that was going to be my lot in life.  I never really surrendered to it, though.

So, I’ve sat out a bunch of Valentine’s Days and New Year’s Eves. In order to deal with bitchy co-workers, I have sent flowers to myself a couple of times (I have great taste and know exactly what I like. And it did silence the bitchy co-workers).

I am doing this body improvement for me. While I appreciate the expressions of support, I am doing this to be at home in my own skin (please God, let the lysine and garlic do their collagen building thing and not leave me with excess skin). If I am at ease and can take pleasure in my own company, chances are, somebody else will, too. I hope that person has 1) brains, 2) heart, 3) sense of humor, 4) a good job and 5) a penis.