In the past, family pressure, potential health problems, and sheer expense have driven me away from my desire to become what they call a superchub—but it's always only been a matter of time before it's come back.
So why am I not actively gaining now? Well, here are the reasons:
1. SSI
Right now I'm taking college classes to lead to a better job. I am currently on Social Supplemental Income (SSI), which pays between $600 and $700 a month. I depend on it because of my difficulty holding a job, but of course I avoid a lifestyle of poverty only by living with my parents. If I moved out right now, I would, as someone put it, make just enough to keep me alive. But I am well above average height, so it may not even be so. Naturally, this would interfere with the ability to buy extra food and larger clothes.
2. Disneyland
Yeah, I'm a sucker for Disney and my big goal for next year is to go back and revisit attractions that I've either never experienced or would like to try again after being overly apprehensive, as well as all the other staples. (Man…I haven't been there since I was 13…hopefully they're all still open.) It seems to be relatively rare that you have to be under a certain height (which mostly applies to kiddie rides anyway), but it's fairly common that people have been rejected from rides or experienced injuries for being too wide. In fact, they had to build stronger boats for It's a Small World because one buckled and the patrons sank. During my Los Angeles stay, I also plan to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain just to say I've been on many really intense rides—for what, unless things turn out otherwise, will be the last time I will be capable.
3. PE for GE
After I finish my current certificate, I plan to get the degree I really want: an associate's in Instructional Assisting—Special Education. As anyone who's been to college knows, a certificate only requires the most relevant courses, but a degree encompasses general education, which no doubt includes an admittedly easy PE class.
The idea of getting as big as a cartoon character still sounds good to me, but I won't pursue it until I've taken care of these three things.
Friday, July 4, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Why Grommr and Chasabl don't speak for me
Probably every member of the gaining or fat admiration scene of the gay community is on either Grommr (www.grommr.com) or Chasabl (www.chasabl.com)—two sites that have set back my progress in meeting people at all, let alone those who share my interest.
And I can tell you, the "bear" community in my God-forsaken hometown of Sacramento, California, is practically nonexistent. The county has an obesity rate of 21.5% compared to the national average of about 35%. Other cities have lower rates, but they still have more users on either sites. Many local profiles are "former" users who apparently "saw the light" in exercise.
Given that 225 million Americans are overweight but only 30,000 people in the whole world are on either site, how else will I find a partner who tolerates, let alone shares, this desire unless on the sites? Maybe I won't, but for the reasons I state in no particular order, neither site is "the lesser of two evils."
#1: The people are asocial.
What good is a social network (emphasis added) if half the users want to be left alone? By the time I deleted my account, I had friended perhaps dozens of people who never looked at my profile (the site told me who did) or done anything to acknowledge my presence or interest in them. All of the most publicized gainers on the Internet's underground had a Grommr…but all they wanted to do was post pictures.
It should be noted that there are a handful of users with Asperger's syndrome, and that, as far as willingness to interact, the tables have turned from them as children to the other users as adults. Most of the Detached Ones, not surprisingly, lacked "Encourager" or "Admirer" classifications; I had a little more luck with ones who identified as such, and Chasabl was a whole different animal.
#2: The people are sexist.
In the past, homophobes might have implied that lack of romantic interest in women is the same as misogyny—and in the case of these sites, they'd be right.
One Grommr user made a very sexist remark that went along the lines of wishing for a woman to be hurt and calling her a "f**king bitch." What I found especially upsetting was that some users (actually, only a handful) are not gay, but did nothing to stand up for their orientation.
#3: The people are mean if you say the wrong things.
On Grommr, after an insufficient number of people wished me a happy birthday, I threatened to leave the site. Instead of acknowledging imperfections or apologizing or changing, one user said, sarcastically, "Au revoir!" and another user "nommed," or liked, it.
Last weekend I posted on Chasabl's wall: "Am I the only gainer who thinks this site is way better than Grommr?" By the time I checked back, four users had responded; one was more neutral, but the other three attacked and abused me for asking an innocent question and committing the so-called sin of being a gainer on a maintaining site.
Enough said.
Actually, there are other gainers on Chasabl. Why don't they just get mad at them too? Now, mostly because of these insults, I'm done with both sites—probably forever.
I can't be the only gainer who doesn't like either of these sites…can I? Maybe not. Just listen to this quote from another blog I found:
I don’t like Grommr. I am very attracted to bigger guys but the egotism and sexism on the site is very unattractive. I’m smaller and wanting to get bigger and I just seem to be put down on every post! I just want to find a nice guy who’s into the same stuff!
And I can tell you, the "bear" community in my God-forsaken hometown of Sacramento, California, is practically nonexistent. The county has an obesity rate of 21.5% compared to the national average of about 35%. Other cities have lower rates, but they still have more users on either sites. Many local profiles are "former" users who apparently "saw the light" in exercise.
Given that 225 million Americans are overweight but only 30,000 people in the whole world are on either site, how else will I find a partner who tolerates, let alone shares, this desire unless on the sites? Maybe I won't, but for the reasons I state in no particular order, neither site is "the lesser of two evils."
#1: The people are asocial.
What good is a social network (emphasis added) if half the users want to be left alone? By the time I deleted my account, I had friended perhaps dozens of people who never looked at my profile (the site told me who did) or done anything to acknowledge my presence or interest in them. All of the most publicized gainers on the Internet's underground had a Grommr…but all they wanted to do was post pictures.
It should be noted that there are a handful of users with Asperger's syndrome, and that, as far as willingness to interact, the tables have turned from them as children to the other users as adults. Most of the Detached Ones, not surprisingly, lacked "Encourager" or "Admirer" classifications; I had a little more luck with ones who identified as such, and Chasabl was a whole different animal.
#2: The people are sexist.
In the past, homophobes might have implied that lack of romantic interest in women is the same as misogyny—and in the case of these sites, they'd be right.
One Grommr user made a very sexist remark that went along the lines of wishing for a woman to be hurt and calling her a "f**king bitch." What I found especially upsetting was that some users (actually, only a handful) are not gay, but did nothing to stand up for their orientation.
#3: The people are mean if you say the wrong things.
On Grommr, after an insufficient number of people wished me a happy birthday, I threatened to leave the site. Instead of acknowledging imperfections or apologizing or changing, one user said, sarcastically, "Au revoir!" and another user "nommed," or liked, it.
Last weekend I posted on Chasabl's wall: "Am I the only gainer who thinks this site is way better than Grommr?" By the time I checked back, four users had responded; one was more neutral, but the other three attacked and abused me for asking an innocent question and committing the so-called sin of being a gainer on a maintaining site.
Enough said.
Actually, there are other gainers on Chasabl. Why don't they just get mad at them too? Now, mostly because of these insults, I'm done with both sites—probably forever.
I can't be the only gainer who doesn't like either of these sites…can I? Maybe not. Just listen to this quote from another blog I found:
I don’t like Grommr. I am very attracted to bigger guys but the egotism and sexism on the site is very unattractive. I’m smaller and wanting to get bigger and I just seem to be put down on every post! I just want to find a nice guy who’s into the same stuff!
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Welcome!
Hi. I'm Eric and this is my blog about my gaining journey. I am a gay man in my early twenties and…well, I'll tell you why I'm here.
The desire to be so hasn't always been in me, but ever since I was a little kid, I've had fantasies about getting fat. When I was a preteen, I daydreamed about having a son who I force-fed all the time, and his toy truck was on the menu. I also frequently put a basketball in my shirt to look fatter. The direct-to-video Scooby-Doo revival movies, especially The Witch's Ghost, had me spellbound by including scenes where Scooby and Shaggy devoured a risible number of calories in a scene or two. When I hit puberty, the Holy Trinity of types of men with which I was preoccupied were buff, tall, and/or fat.
And, as hinted at in the blog's title, I already met one of those yardsticks. When I was a toddler, my pediatrician predicted my adult height to be between 6' 4" and 6' 7". I needed a special desk in elementary school and by the time I graduated, they basically said, "That's the tallest we can make it. Live with it." My final height was beyond the projected range by one inch.
My preoccupation deepened in my teen years. I spent much of my free time going onto search engines for images of anything having to do with fat, buffed and/or tall men. (I think fat women are ugly, but my romantic interest in women has waned and now vanished—what can I say?)
A guy who likes fat but agrees with health officials on the world's "obesity problem" is, to quote Robin Williams, "like an Amish hacker"—but don't think my thinking wasn't at all influenced by the news. When I was 13, I watched the entire first season of Garfield & Friends on DVD. The first segment of the third episode, "Nighty Nightmare," caused me to place Jim Davis on my liberal antidote to Bernard Goldberg's conservative book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.
But what really got me going—what really put me under the media's spell for a little more than two years—was Steven Greenstreet's documentary Killer at Large (2008). It single-handedly turned me into a rabid health official-in-the-making. I would have made a great poster boy for the WHO and other health organizations; I even held a poll on Facebook to see what, by popular opinion, was worse, this or the Holocaust.
I now regret that most of all, for more reasons than one. Not only may it seem insensitive to Jews (and other subgroups), but now I realize that the media are obviously controlled by interest groups, among them health officials. My main quarrel with this is that it's probably been years since we've seen a news flash or article that does not mirror my viewpoint from 2011-13.
On May 10, 2013, I discovered this blog: fatboydiet.tumblr.com, which finally caused me to give in. I was introduced to all of the "gaining" literature and sites on the Internet, met some [people whom I thought were] friends, and decided to lead a "highly caloric, sedentary, and food-centric" life.
But I have to take care of some things first (they will soon be disclosed). So until the time comes for some serious gaining, I will analyze Marilyn Wann's landmark fat acceptance book, FAT!SO?: Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size, in a weekly series.
And welcome to my blog.
The desire to be so hasn't always been in me, but ever since I was a little kid, I've had fantasies about getting fat. When I was a preteen, I daydreamed about having a son who I force-fed all the time, and his toy truck was on the menu. I also frequently put a basketball in my shirt to look fatter. The direct-to-video Scooby-Doo revival movies, especially The Witch's Ghost, had me spellbound by including scenes where Scooby and Shaggy devoured a risible number of calories in a scene or two. When I hit puberty, the Holy Trinity of types of men with which I was preoccupied were buff, tall, and/or fat.
And, as hinted at in the blog's title, I already met one of those yardsticks. When I was a toddler, my pediatrician predicted my adult height to be between 6' 4" and 6' 7". I needed a special desk in elementary school and by the time I graduated, they basically said, "That's the tallest we can make it. Live with it." My final height was beyond the projected range by one inch.
My preoccupation deepened in my teen years. I spent much of my free time going onto search engines for images of anything having to do with fat, buffed and/or tall men. (I think fat women are ugly, but my romantic interest in women has waned and now vanished—what can I say?)
A guy who likes fat but agrees with health officials on the world's "obesity problem" is, to quote Robin Williams, "like an Amish hacker"—but don't think my thinking wasn't at all influenced by the news. When I was 13, I watched the entire first season of Garfield & Friends on DVD. The first segment of the third episode, "Nighty Nightmare," caused me to place Jim Davis on my liberal antidote to Bernard Goldberg's conservative book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.
But what really got me going—what really put me under the media's spell for a little more than two years—was Steven Greenstreet's documentary Killer at Large (2008). It single-handedly turned me into a rabid health official-in-the-making. I would have made a great poster boy for the WHO and other health organizations; I even held a poll on Facebook to see what, by popular opinion, was worse, this or the Holocaust.
I now regret that most of all, for more reasons than one. Not only may it seem insensitive to Jews (and other subgroups), but now I realize that the media are obviously controlled by interest groups, among them health officials. My main quarrel with this is that it's probably been years since we've seen a news flash or article that does not mirror my viewpoint from 2011-13.
On May 10, 2013, I discovered this blog: fatboydiet.tumblr.com, which finally caused me to give in. I was introduced to all of the "gaining" literature and sites on the Internet, met some [people whom I thought were] friends, and decided to lead a "highly caloric, sedentary, and food-centric" life.
But I have to take care of some things first (they will soon be disclosed). So until the time comes for some serious gaining, I will analyze Marilyn Wann's landmark fat acceptance book, FAT!SO?: Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size, in a weekly series.
And welcome to my blog.
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