On Body Images
I'm a fairly self-deprecating person. I tend to hate on myself a lot, whether for the enjoyment of other people, or just in my own time. The harshest of my self-criticisms are always aimed at my physical appearance. A lot of the time it's really funny and I have a good laugh about it, but I do fixate myself on it sometimes, even to the point of frustration and anger with myself. In an effort to figure out why that is and where it comes from I started writing this post... For the record, I am not trying to detract from REAL body issues; eating disorders and obesity are on a FAR different level then what I'm discussing here. I respect the seriousness of those issues and am not in any way trying to whine myself into the same category. I'm just a slightly weird, averagely built guy who is dissatisfied with his body and curious where that comes from.
A lot of it originally stems from my mild case of dwarfism when I was growing up (not really, but I was so damn small it might as well have been...) I think I taught myself to just accept that I didn't like how I looked and move on, I had bigger and better things to deal with. This doesn't mean I wasn't bothered by it, I just learned to scoop it under the rug; because if I focused on it I wouldn't gain anything.
I grew though, eventually. By Grade 11 I was of pretty average height, albeit really skinny. I started dating my first girlfriend and after months of torturing myself at the beginning of our relationship ("Am I good enough? Is she settling for me? Is she faking it?" ...I know eh, so attractive...) I started to think I was the shit. For a year and a half or more I was pretty cool with myself, I was looking at my friends and the people I went to school with and thinking "Damn, I actually look pretty okay!" I started doing weights and working out semi-regularly, and although I didn't even approach "ripped", I did make some progress. I was at peace with myself.
After our breakup I started cycling like a motherfucker. I shrunk and was REALLY skinny during that summer; but that was offset by the fact that I was really good on my bike. I didn't mind being a skinny little bastard because I felt like I was excelling at my sport, and if girls didn't like it, then those girls weren't for me. As the winter rolled around I continued to cycle but started on the weights again, looking to maybe put on a little poundage for hibernation. This was basically completely unsuccessful, and I stayed REALLY skinny. I started at university and even then, looking around, I was comparing myself to the guys I knew and was pretty satisfied with where I was physically; mainly based on the fact that I could brag about riding from Toronto to Niagara and back in under 17 hours.
I met my current girlfriend mid-winter, and from the start she seemed to be really impressed with me physically. She talked about her exes but none of them sounded too threatening, and I was pretty confident that I was the best thing she'd ever laid hands on. About halfway through our relationship though, I started to notice more and more guys that she knew or that I met through music and other shit I was doing that were in A LOT better shape then me. This is when my trouble started again.
I always assumed that dudes who had Marky-Mark bodies were reserved for magazines, or on the RARE occasion someone you knew would pack a few ripples. In my mind though, these guys were the asshole-types who hung out at gyms in the daytime and clubs in the night, flexing and aggressively picking up girls in both places. They weren't tangible threats to me because I figured any half-intelligent girl would pick me over them based on the fact that I was... well... just a half decent guy.
After being close with young women for a few years, you start to realize this is not the case. Girls are just as susceptible to bad decisions involving tans and a washboard stomach as guys are to blindly following a pair of tits with a firm ass (even now, writing the second part of that sentence got a slight rise out of me.) To make matters worse, I started to realize that there were a lot of nice guys out there who just wanted to look good, so they got jacked.
So I think my current dissatisfaction with my body, despite being in arguably the best shape of my life, stems from the collapse of the two ideas I believed in so strongly before. One, that the amount of guys out there with picture perfect bodies is really low, and the few who do have them are avoided like the plague by any girl with half a brain. And two, that the amount of NICE guys with picture perfect bodies is so low it is almost non-existent, and therefore not worth worrying about.
Not sure how this solves anything for me, but it was fun to get it written down. Welcome to the rocket-ship-gone-haywire that is my brain! Time to read up on protein supplements and bulk-building... I've got to become a new breed of nice guy.
A lot of it originally stems from my mild case of dwarfism when I was growing up (not really, but I was so damn small it might as well have been...) I think I taught myself to just accept that I didn't like how I looked and move on, I had bigger and better things to deal with. This doesn't mean I wasn't bothered by it, I just learned to scoop it under the rug; because if I focused on it I wouldn't gain anything.
I grew though, eventually. By Grade 11 I was of pretty average height, albeit really skinny. I started dating my first girlfriend and after months of torturing myself at the beginning of our relationship ("Am I good enough? Is she settling for me? Is she faking it?" ...I know eh, so attractive...) I started to think I was the shit. For a year and a half or more I was pretty cool with myself, I was looking at my friends and the people I went to school with and thinking "Damn, I actually look pretty okay!" I started doing weights and working out semi-regularly, and although I didn't even approach "ripped", I did make some progress. I was at peace with myself.
After our breakup I started cycling like a motherfucker. I shrunk and was REALLY skinny during that summer; but that was offset by the fact that I was really good on my bike. I didn't mind being a skinny little bastard because I felt like I was excelling at my sport, and if girls didn't like it, then those girls weren't for me. As the winter rolled around I continued to cycle but started on the weights again, looking to maybe put on a little poundage for hibernation. This was basically completely unsuccessful, and I stayed REALLY skinny. I started at university and even then, looking around, I was comparing myself to the guys I knew and was pretty satisfied with where I was physically; mainly based on the fact that I could brag about riding from Toronto to Niagara and back in under 17 hours.
I met my current girlfriend mid-winter, and from the start she seemed to be really impressed with me physically. She talked about her exes but none of them sounded too threatening, and I was pretty confident that I was the best thing she'd ever laid hands on. About halfway through our relationship though, I started to notice more and more guys that she knew or that I met through music and other shit I was doing that were in A LOT better shape then me. This is when my trouble started again.
I always assumed that dudes who had Marky-Mark bodies were reserved for magazines, or on the RARE occasion someone you knew would pack a few ripples. In my mind though, these guys were the asshole-types who hung out at gyms in the daytime and clubs in the night, flexing and aggressively picking up girls in both places. They weren't tangible threats to me because I figured any half-intelligent girl would pick me over them based on the fact that I was... well... just a half decent guy.
After being close with young women for a few years, you start to realize this is not the case. Girls are just as susceptible to bad decisions involving tans and a washboard stomach as guys are to blindly following a pair of tits with a firm ass (even now, writing the second part of that sentence got a slight rise out of me.) To make matters worse, I started to realize that there were a lot of nice guys out there who just wanted to look good, so they got jacked.
So I think my current dissatisfaction with my body, despite being in arguably the best shape of my life, stems from the collapse of the two ideas I believed in so strongly before. One, that the amount of guys out there with picture perfect bodies is really low, and the few who do have them are avoided like the plague by any girl with half a brain. And two, that the amount of NICE guys with picture perfect bodies is so low it is almost non-existent, and therefore not worth worrying about.
Not sure how this solves anything for me, but it was fun to get it written down. Welcome to the rocket-ship-gone-haywire that is my brain! Time to read up on protein supplements and bulk-building... I've got to become a new breed of nice guy.
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