I need to get some things off my chest, and was hoping to get a little perspective from those of you who are smarter than the average bear (err..gainer..encourager....you get the point):
I've been trying to get back into the dating scene recently; going on dates, meeting new people, flirting, etc. But no matter what I do I feel this immense distance between me and people who are interested in me. As a chaser/encourager/who know's what, I find it hard enough to meet guys who I find physically attractive; or what I mean to say is, sexually attractive. I can be on a date with somebody who's charming, sweet, and cute, but the whole night the back of my mind will think, "If only he was into the whole gainer/feeder scene." Or more accurately, if only I wasn't. I mean, no matter who I'm dating, at some point if a relationship buds I'll have to go into my fetish, right? Would it be ok not to? To just keep it secret? To jus
t kind of hide it away? I mean...in a situation like that it's only getting in the way, but it's still part of me, no matter how much I hate it at that moment. It feels like...being in the closet, only a whole new one; your still hiding who you are attracted to and what turns you on.
It's at that point of my frustration that I feel like a freak. I mean isn't that what we are? Freaks? This whole site, is it not just set up for all of us to let our freak flags fly? And I mean that as a positive thing, I am really, really not trying to offend anybody, so please no deathwish-replys to this. I just want to know how the rest of you deal with it. I mean, to be into this kind of a scene, is meeting people online the only option? Has anyone here ever dated a stranger and just never told them? Is it possible to just hang up the XXL belt (notice how i keep a sense of humor) and put that part of yourself aside?I'm just tired of feeling like a sexual deviant. Well, ok, being gay I'm pretty much made to feel that way by society; but I mean a sexual deviant within a sexual deviant. (again, notice the small attempts at humor)
I would really appreciate as many different views as you guys (and few gals) have to offer. Thanks.
Well, first of all I don’t have a context for your age or the nature of your actual dating history—does the mention of “been trying to get back into the dating scene recently” indicate that you were withdrawn from it for a specific length of time? A month? A decade? Were you in a relationship during that time? Focused on work? As someone who has experience working as a couples therapist, I would also be curious as to what sort of specific role models you have available to you in terms of what you would think of as successful or appropriate dating/relationships.Let me clarify—one of my personal foundations of doing therapy with folks is trying to understand what sort of stories—or another way of thinking about it—what sort of scripts-- people use to make sense of their lives and experiences, and how these scripts act as guides for their interactions. To put it another way—sometimes a story is so powerful—you don’t tell the story, the story tells you.
In my experience with a lot of couples, they may have grown up in home environments where there was no modeling for them of how to be in a happy, loving, and supportive relationship (remember I’m based in the U.S., where about 50% of marriages end up in divorce). I’ve also done a lot of work with transracially adopted children. In the case of a child of color being adopted into a white family, no matter how much love the family has for the child, they will never be able to model for the child how to be a happy, health adult of color, because that’s not their reality or experience. I’ve also worked a bit in the deaf community. When a deaf child is born into a hearing family, no matter how much love the family has for that child, the family will never be able to model for the deaf child how to be a happy, healthy deaf adult. To a certain extent, a gay child born into a straight family will have difficulty learning to be a happy healthy gay adult, based on what he learns growing up in the straight family. In all three of these cases, it is useful to have “modeling” opportunities, or “mentorship” from others within the specific communities. That make sense?
On the other hand, gaining and encouraging are behaviors that cut across ethnic, sexual orientation, and generational lines. Just so, a number of members of this board have shared that they watched their aunt encouraging their uncle to have one more helping, or proudly talking about how much their family enjoyed their cooking, or being told that someone was “too skinny” in the family, and should eat more. There has been more than one mention on this board of how common it was felt (by the poster) that certain ethnic groups—as I recall, he was talking about Puerto Ricans, where after marriage, the husband was supposed to pork up to show to the community what a good wife he had married, so the gaining was supported by a cultural norm. We’ve also discussed on this board that a husband often gains weight during his wife’s pregnancy. My point—there are often many “scripts” that on at least some level, reflect gaining and encouragement, even if it’s in the context of love, affection and support, as opposed to a specific sexual/erotic expression.
Just so, what I picked up from your posting is that you seem to have a sort of “short circuit” in your logical processing…you find an interest/attraction in someone, but then you cut it off because he may (but the irony is—you don’t know if this is actually the case) not be interested in fattening up. Then you worry that you should “stop the process” of getting to know the new person more. My point in the previous paragraph is that your potential partner may have his own script going that gaining weight is something that happens naturally in a happy relationship, or a script that says once you pass 30 your metabolism slows down, and of course you gain, or a script that says, “wow, now that I’m in a relationship, I can quit working my ass off at the gym and let myself go, or a script that says, “just like my mom,--every time he brings me a plate of chocolate cookies it means he loves me.” People may go through many doorways in packing on pounds. 
Is the motivation of some folks who are gaining an erotic one? Certainly not always, although some people who do not have the primary interest in gaining expressed by a lot of people on this board may find a sensual pleasure in their softening up, particularly when they realize that their partners find the new fat a turn on and not a turn off. I think one of the sad aspects of the gay experience is how many individuals have internalized a self-hatred of “I’m a pervert, I am bad” where in the growing up process, there was an attempt to hide that part of oneself, because if people found out you were gay, they would reject you. Just so, I think what you express in your post reflects this type of conditioning…if the potential boyfriend finds out I’m into chubs and would prefer him with a beachball gut, he’ll freak out and reject me. This kind of thinking results in a “freezing,” where a lot of interaction simply doesn’t take place, and potential relationships don’t get a chance to play out. If you want to win the lottery—you have to buy the ticket and take your chances. If you want to play safe, then you should try placing personals that put your encouragement interest up front—but be aware of the fact that like gambling—you’re going to be trying to win with really bad odds, because there are a lot more guys out there who might be appropriate long term partners who aren’t interested in gaining as a personal erotic expression, but once they’re in a relationship may end up getting fat anyway…just as they might have added pounds with a partner who didn’t have an interest in encouraging….And finally—and then I’ll close, because this is becoming way too long…but you did ask for some comments and advice; The other analogy about “coming out’” as gay, and “coming out” as an encourager also holds up. A person doesn’t tend to just wake up one morning and shout, “I’m GAY!”—this conclusion and behavior normally reflects a significant amount of time—sometimes years---of going through specific developmental stages (there are a number of models of this—I personally like the Cass model), where there’s an awareness of being “different,” trying to figure out what exactly that means, being afraid that you’re alone (or in your words, a “freak,”) and then a normalization process where you start to meet others like yourself and don’t feel so ‘crazy,” and then often an immersion into the experience (becoming involved in the “gay scene”—in some cases, doing this to an extreme where your only social interaction is in the gay community, you work in the gay community, and all your friends are gay), and eventually a synthesis, where you are fine with being gay, but you realize it’s not the only aspect of your life. The point here is—when someone is in the middle of this process and “comes out” to his parents, teachers, priest, friends, whatever—it’s usually after a lot of deliberation and research and experience.
For his “audience,” they have often had none of this deliberation, research, and positive experience. They’re often at the “OMG, he’s a freak/pervert!” stage, and the revelation doesn’t go so well. For some people where there is a sense of intimacy, like with parents or very close friends, there is both a sense of loss (I have lost the image/concept of my beloved one) and a sense of betrayal (I thought I knew who this beloved person was, but now I feel as if I’ve been lied to for a long time, and he’s not who I thought he was).
Just so, it’s obvious that you’ve given a lot of thought about your particular brand of eroticism, but unless you’re dating someone you meet through a messageboard like this one or a gainer chatroom, it’s unlikely that the “new person” will have had a chance to have gone through the thinking, the deliberation, the “normalization” of what your erotic interests may involve. To me the issue is how you get to introduce the potential new partner to this in an appropriate manner, rather than dumping it all in his lap along with dessert, on your first date.
And finally, finally, you may discover that the person you want to share your life with is a wonderful person who really isn’t into gaining at all as an important aspect of his life, and the most you’ll be able to hope for is a mere fifteen pounds after years of a happy relationship and countless plates of chocolate chip cookies. As I posted in a different thread, in my Inter-Racial Same-Sex Couples study, when I asked what ethnic group a person found most erotic, it was almost never the ethnicity of his actual partner. My conclusion was that what contributes to a long term relationship (All my couples had been together a minimum of one year) may not be the element of eroticism, but other factors of what makes a couple compatible...
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Thank you so much for all the insight, Professor Fatology. I must have read your post five times over. It really helped clear my head. And to answer your question, I'm 19. So while I am a young man foolishly acting as if being single is the end of the world, I have (for what seems like forever now) thought about what it means to have this specific sexual orientation, and how it will affect my life in the years to come when looking for a romantic connection. Thank you so much for helping me put things in perspective.
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There is also another factor going on here that I've mentioned some time ago in other posts--there's a theory that when a person has been traumatized, he tends to "freeze" at the point of emotional development he was at the time of the traumatization. Connected to this is the idea that when a gay person is growing up, he will often "freeze" at the age of puberty, when straight boys are starting to explore their sexuality and interest in girls. They "practice" interactions, dating, attempt to "score" and to become sexually experienced.
But for gay boys who are trying to accept their sexual orientation they will often "freeze"and end up not exploring their sexuality, or practice dating other boys or trying to "score" with them. The concept here is that their "psycho/social/sexual clock" stops at this point, and then kicks back in when they "come out" and accept themselves. However, the "clock" kicks in at the point it "froze," rather than their actual calendar age. I can't tell you as a therapist how many times I would encounter a guy, who was say, 38, and had just come out, and behaved a lot like a young adolescent...the "Kid in the candystore" thing--And a lot of stereotypes about gay men—having multiple sexual partners, not maintaining long term relationships—partying---can then be understood as behaviors associated with puberty—“puppy love,” “crushes that last a week,” “Having a GOOD time…”
I was also struck by a presenter on same-sex relationships, who said that the strongest “hook,” of what a potential partner finds attractive is when the other person shows a definite interest in you. An interesting exercise she had us do was to write down fifty items we found attractive in a person…for example, blonde, tall, fat, funny, etc., andthen accept the fact that these items often limit us or blind us to other potential partners, where we might never have approached a blonde guy if dark haired men are what turns us on.
Let me leave you with a quote from an old friend: “If you’re looking for one guy in a hundred, that means you may have to go through 99 guys to find him. Volume, volume, volume. “As a good exercise, it can be helpful for you to not put a high premium on initial success…in other words, you’re not “investing” in the idea that you will approach someone and get everything you want. You instead look on the interaction as practice with the expectation that nothing may happen as a result, so there’s no pressure on you. Once the pressure is off (and a lot of young gay guys are experiencing thebestlittleboyintheworld syndrome, which means, “if I am perfect in everything, people won’t reject me when they find out the secret that I’m gay.” Don’t make success (whatever that means for you) as your immediate goal as you start to develop your social skills. Think instead of how you’re getting better and better at starting aconversation or being able to comfortably talk to someone. Also, we know from studies that if you physically touch a stranger in a non-erotic way—for example, touch the back of their hand, pat them on the shoulder—areas of the body that are not sexually charged, it will tend to trigger a more intimate and comfortable response from the person you touch. This is something really good waitpeople do that helps get them higher tips.
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