Wait, What Weight Are You?

In the gay world "fat" is an ugly word.  I suppose in the straight world it is too, but in the straight world those that are conscious of their weight more often than not are women.  Straight men don't pay that much attention to their actual weight but focus instead on having a six-pack.  In gay world however weight is a number, a statistic, and at times it seems more important to gay men in narrowing down suitors than what someone actually looks like.

This is more visible and easier to demonstrate online than in-person.  The latter seems to afford some degree of lenience.  When you set up a profile on dating sites however you are prompted to fill out a profile of statistics.  Those statistics at the end of the day are filters.  What you put is going to determine whether someone on the site even sees your profile at all.  That's a bit unsettling.  It means if you don't fall into a given range of "acceptability" then you're not even seen.

When you visit one of these sites it is inevitable that you will filter people like this.  You see a site prompt you by saying 25,000 profiles match your criteria - the first thing you do is not to try and view them all but to narrow it down.  The filters come out in force and you enter your "ideal" values for a partner.  That's where the problem arises.  A number is just that, a number.  It's not a story, it's not an explanation, and more often than not it is not realistic, nor is it an accurate representation of the person you have pictured.

Let's say you are a 5 foot 7 inch man.  If you are of average build then you'd aim to be 10 stone to 11 stone to be "healthy" according to the Body Mass Index - BMI.  [1.7m, 151 lbs / 68kg]

The problem with this is that it does not factor in body type, and muscle to fat ratio.  This does play a big part in determining whether the person is a healthy weight.  A pound of muscle is much denser than a pound of fat.  Let's take another example:

John Cena, a rather famous wrestler is just over 6 foot [1.85m], and weighs 17 stone 13 pounds [251lbs / 114 kg], according to the Body Mass Index, John Cena is Obese.  Now looking at his picture you will be no means argue he is anything but Obese.  He's an exquisite specimen of fitness.  However if you were to see a dating profile without his picture and saw an almost 18 stone, 38 year old man, most gay men would pass without a second notion.  Now you can argue if he included a picture you wouldn't - but that only assumes you get to even see the picture, those filters we mentioned earlier would automatically filter out John Cena because he's not in your ideal definition of a healthy weight.

Therein lies the problem - we apply our own standards to other people and fail to realise that what applies to us might not apply to others.  We assume that because we are a certain height and a certain weight that anyone else should have the same proportions as us to be healthy - assuming we actually think we ourselves are healthy.

The question is why do we do this?  In the real world we don't stop someone before they speak to us and ask them what weight they are, how tall they are, and the plethora of statistics we look for and filter by online.  We don't do it in those situations but at the same time we do still narrow people down to a lesser extent in the real world.  Why do we like to say no more than we like to say yes?  Is it the genuine desire to reduce the possible number of people making Mr Right easier to find?  Or is it something else?  I've wondered about this and I have a theory.  We like to reject others because it makes us feel good.  The more people we say no to the "higher" we elevate ourselves.  We see a site with 25,000 profiles and enter our filters and get it down to 1,000 and we feel some pleasure in thinking 24,000 people weren't "good enough" for us.  We want people to be interested in us, and to be in the position to say no, because it makes you feel desirable.  Dismissing those 24,000 people makes you feel good but what does it achieve?