Okay. I’m round. I’ve always been round, pretty much. I’ve just varied in terms of degree.

It’s depressing, in one way – people judge me based on my weight and decide I am stupid, or lazy, or desperate for love, or have low self-esteem. None of those is true.

I merely enjoy life, and all the chocolate and wine and tasty things (primarily involving cheese) in it. I’m not greedy – I’ll bet I eat less than 80% of the people in North America. My MS means I can’t always exercise as hard as I’d like to, but I try. I’m fit, have muscles your average weightlifter might desire, and can and do swim many many laps without stopping to catch my breath. Add to that I am smart and confident and perfectly okay with myself, though I long for nicer clothing. But no one looking at me would think that.

Funny thing is that once people actually get to know me, they adjust to all that. They seem to realize that this is just the way I was born and I can exercise and exercise and I’ll always look chunky. (Although presumably less chunky than I do right now, the fault of a medication I was placed on that guaranteed I would gain 25 pounds “on average”.) I have broad shoulders and ribs and my huge first pregnancy destroyed my abdominal muscles, (Children, drat them! And does she call? Does she buy me presents?)

But its funny about the first introduction thing. I met a fellow today and I have to say I worried a bit about whether he would take one look at me and say “too fat” and walk away, like one of my former dates did. That guy explained, helpfully, that he was a “visual person” and he couldn’t handle my appearance. He had crazy grey hair and was wearing Birkenstocks with socks.

It was kindof funny because once we started chatting (I forced him to say hello), he told me about all his weird theories of life and his food “allergies” and his strange background. What the heck made him think I would automatically want HIM? To be fair, I only wanted to meet him because he was an artist and we had a fascinating discussion about degrees of white. I knew it wasn’t going to work out.

Ah, men, men. You’ve got to pity them, sometimes. They believe, so totally, their own personal stories (or as my galpal says, their bulls**^). We women, instead, go about beating ourselves to a pulp and so are trained to feel grateful for any small attention.

Not all men, I hasten to add. Some of them are quite pleasant and wonderful and can understand that they probably have as many faults as we do.

Those ones are pretty darn refreshing. Even if they have a tummy.