Small Strokes Big Oaks

Today’s post is a guest post from Trelk.  You can find his blog here and follow him on Twitter here.

Today I have decided to voice a problem I’ve had for some time. Body image. We all struggle with it. Not just overweight women, not just women. Everyone. Sure there are those who really are extremely happy in their own skin but honestly I think you’d have a very difficult job finding one of those people. I’m tired of hearing that guys don’t have to deal with the same weight and body image issues as women. We may not be as open and vocal about it but it’s there.

Typically guys don’t talk about such things openly. It usually amounts to biting comments about one another when we do. But honestly? I can’t rock the wife beater or bare chested look unless it’s meant for laughs.

I’ve spent most of my life as the friend. I’m not kidding. My life is a romantic comedy and I’m not even a main character. I’m not just talking about not getting up the nerve to ask a girl out and eventually becoming friends. I’m talking about expressly asking them on a date and they’re flattered that I think of them like that and then tell me we’re better as friends and tell me all about the football player they’re hoping will ask them to the dance I just asked them to. (I’m not kidding. I swear that has to be the plot of a billion teen movies.)

My point in telling you this is not to go into a sob story (I’ve done that often enough already), but rather to illustrate how I was quickly able to draw the conclusion that six pack abs was the ticket to a girl’s heart rather than my twelve pack of jelly rolls. Now it’s been brought to my attention through a number of conversations that there’s more media pressuring girls into getting thinner rather than boys. This is quite simply not true. Every time you see a conventionally attractive girl there’s a guy with washboard abs and hair that is just the right amount of messy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people crooning over Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and any number of other guys with similar physiques.

Some of you might say “There are plenty of overweight guys on the screen.” And which roles are those exactly? We’re the friends, the funny guys, the nice guys who don’t get the girl unless of course it’s a movie about a nice funny guy who does get the girl in which case we might get the role of the boss who’s let himself go and takes it out on the main character by demeaning him. That’s right. The moment the girl is allowed to fall for the nice guy they recast him to make sure he doesn’t cast a shadow. The only time the fat guys can get a kiss is when it’s funny.

There’s a problem with the way movies are cast today. Hollywood is convinced that washboard abs along with as much skin as the ratings will allow is what will sell movies. Apparently that’s the only way to decide what is and is not attractive. Forget all the people who show you otherwise like Queen Latifah or Kathy Bates, John Goodman, Nathan Lane. They’re just trying to get you to pay more money by telling you they can be attractive using a craft that’s useless today. No the attractiveness is all about the physically fit and muscles.

Well that’s my two cents. I’ve done my best not to ramble. I realize that there’s nothing too terribly cohesive here but I’ve realized that I have a lot more to say about this than I can put in a single blog. In the end there’s only one thing you need to remember is that you are beautiful. I don’t care who you are or what you look like there is always something beautiful about you.

Later days,

Trelk