Hold The Fat, Please

Red flag or green light?

So far, Jack is adding up nicely on paper. His pictures and his profile make him seem fun and easy going. He seems energetic and up for fun, but not a maniac. His smile looks like one that comes easily to his face.

All this in opposition to a lazy couch potato with hang ups and a brooding personality. There is a reason those people are single. They should commit to staying so.

But there is something that bothers me about one or two of his questions.

One of them asks specifically about the most adventurous thing I've done this year.

Besides joining a ridiculous dating website? Does there have to be more than one?

Not an unfair question but sort of a buzzkill. I have noted that Jack has no children. I am wondering if his sense of adventure is such that he will be annoyed by the fact that I have a home life and children that I am committed to nurturing, and can't just randomly drop everything to go jump out of an airplane because it's a nice day to do so. Adventurous? What kind of adventure are we talking about? Hang gliding or an impulsive jewelry purchase?

And there was a question or two that seemed to want to suggest that my physical appearance would be of high significance. Pictures aside, he's looking for some assurances that I will hit the gym immeidately if the holiday festivities pack on an unsightly muffin top. That I will meticulously crunch my abs to six pack perfection. A veiled waving of the No Fat Chicks flag.

And I wonder if that is in and of itself a problem.

Happy to have the honesty...but a little concerned about it as a prerequisite. "I solemnly swear that I will adhere to a POW-style starvation diet and log countless miles on the stationary bicycle and wear a fat burning suit and will not object to an occassional finger-down-my-throat-induced vomitting episode in the event of a brownie eating binge at the first sign of a weight gain in excess of 2 pounds that can not be reasonably explained away by normal cyclical bloating."

Not that I have any concerns about my body. With all the endless walking I've done, the little bit of flab that was no more than a nuisance to jam into a pair of low rise jeans has gone the way of the dodo bird. No body issues at all. But why does he have to ask?

Scott, as you know, turned out to be a lot different than the saint I'd thought he was, but on more than one occassion he'd told me (as I lamented that I needed to spend a little after-the-gluttonous-weekend time on the treadmill) that it did not matter to him if I was 300 pounds, he loved me for who I am not what I looked like. (And then quickly adding, lest I clobber him with the skillet that I've just sprayed with low-fat cooking spray to make a low-carb omelet, that I am the most beautiful girl in the world.)

So...value the honesty in putting it out there that he will not tolerate a lazy, bonbon-eating couch potato or flambe him for being a judgey, picayune asswipe who is probably not in a position himself to judge? Jack better show up looking like David Beckham after all this.

I spend some time churning about whether or not to answer, and if so how.

In the end I reply. Let's see if he does.