The Benefit of Being a Fat Asshole

Women are kind. I know this is not universally true. Nothing is universally true. There are no absolutes in this universe.  Still, when I think of women, kind is the first word that comes to mind.

The reasons why I believe, in spite of my own unfriendly history with several women, that women in general tend to be kind, are not important.  It may be a result of my relationship with my own mother, who in spite of the fact that I am and always have been particularly difficult to deal with, and not always very nice, has demonstrated only the finest example of maternal love and caring throughout my life.  It may be because most of my closest friends have always been women.  It may be because I have spent my career in a field dominated by women and have known many amazingly intelligent and talented women over the years.  But who really cares?  Why doesn't matter.

Women are kind, particularly in contrast with men.  Men are not kind.  And as a result I am not kind.  I am mean to my kids (just ask them).  I was a terrible husband.  I am selfish, lazy, and unapologetically unsympathetic. I ignore people's birthdays and hope they ignore mine.  I like neither kittens nor puppies.  I am a holiday grinch. And generally I can't wait to get old and yell at kids to get off my lawn.  Even women who know me well know I am not kind. I have been accused, recently, more than once, by close female friends, of being a misogynist, and it is probably true.  Again, why doesn't matter.  That's just how I roll.

I am also fat and bald.

The first time I got divorced I was 30 years old.  I had spent my teen years being a heavy-metal teen dad.  I spent my twenties as a 1950s husband and father, working for the man and bringing home the bacon to my perpetually pregnant stay-at-home wife and mother of my small children.  When I was suddenly single at 30 (and it was sudden for me, even if it wasn't for her, because I am selfish and insensitive and I never saw it coming), I had no idea what the real world was actually like.

One night, out at a bar with a friend, a couple of her friends, and some younger guys who were working hard to impress the ladies I was with, I had one beer too many, and spoke up in what I assumed was a fairly obnoxious manner.  These kids (the younger guys), in an effort to sound intelligent to some older ladies, attempted to wax philosophical about the beat generation. The only problem was they had no real understanding of how the movement fit into our culture chronologically or influentially, and they misunderstood, and subsequently misrepresented the major contributions of one of the movement's key players on our cultural psyche.  Basically, they had just read On The Road and considered themselves big fans of Jack Kerouac.

But really they were dumb kids who clearly had not even read the Cliff's notes.  Maybe they thought that merely mentioning a key novel and writer would help charm the women. They clearly knew something about women which at the time I had not understood.

I was drunk, and sad about my divorce, and I didn't give a fuck. Also I had an actual  literary degree from a college and had recently read and studied much of the body of work left by Kerouac, Cassidy, Burroughs, and Ginsberg, including their overlap and extensions into the work of Kesey and Wolfe.  Shit I had a recording of Howl on my iPod in my pocket. So I corrected them.  I stood, somewhat stumbling, ranted for about ten minutes about the actual societal contribution of the beats and specifically of Kerouac and On The Road, payed the collective tab, and split. I left to smoke and brood alone in the parking lot, generally feeling sorry for myself.

That was when shit got weird and my limited and naive understanding of women changed forever.

First the kids came out and found me.  There were three of them.  Each them shook my hand and proclaimed me their personal hero.  I guess they struck out but enjoyed the time regardless.  Thinking back now I think those kids were okay, and I probably didn't need to be so hard on them.

Next the ladies emerged and since they were my ride they directed me to the car we had arrived in, because I could not have found it on my own.  As we all shuffled in to the late model VW sedan I found myself in the backseat with a young teacher, a friend of my friend whom I had just met.  She was thin and pretty and I had not thought about her at all, considering her out of my league from the time of our introduction.

So imagine my surprise when by the end of a twenty minute ride back to my friend's house I found this young woman on my lap.  We were making out like teenagers.  I had no idea what had happened or how, or why, but I didn't really feel like asking any questions.  I just went with it and spent the next twelve or so hours with her.

Later I understood what had happened. Having had no interpersonal experience with single women since I was a teenager, I had assumed that at 30 women were more or less the same as they had been as girls, shallow.  I was wrong and it opened up a whole new world for me.  In fact the young lady I described was not even 30 yet.  She was several years younger than me.  She was different from most women I thought I knew, but I know now not terribly different from all good women.

It turns out she was attracted to intelligent men.  This is not news to anyone, except for me at the time.  In this particular case, it just happens that she is really into american literature, and Kerouac was her favorite writer. She knew those kids hitting on her had been idiots, though she didn't speak up like I did. She wasn't drunk like me.  The point was my little rant at the bar had not just earned me the respect of the guys at whom it was directed, but she admitted later that she was immediately more attracted to me than she could ignore.  The fact that I was fat, bald, drunk, and sad made little difference.  She was the first woman I knew explicitly to overlook all physical characteristics because there were other personal qualities in which she was more interested.

And she really liked me a lot for a little while.

Once I understood that unlike my tragic time as a teenager, which was the last time I had been single, grown women really appreciated intelligence and charm, I used it to my advantage, particularly following my second divorce.  I started writing a blog regularly and met a lot of new friends.  I took plenty of time to practice my barroom rhetoric.  And it all worked in my favor.  Using the same basic model, I have managed to have a pretty good time now for a lot of years.

Years later, a friend noted that being divorced in my thirties hadn't really damaged my social life said to me "being fat doesn't seem to slow you down that way."  I took this as a great compliment, because he was right, being fat and bald doesn't matter at all in my relationships with women.

This would never happen in reverse.  That is the sad truth.  While personally I like women with a little meat on them (I sometimes think it is because I am a vegetarian now), I still have fairly shallow standards for physical appearance. I suppose all men do, and even if our individual preferences are a little different from each other, it is a universal truth that when we describe what interests us most in women we always begin with physical traits.  Because men are shallow. I am shallow. I often describe the kind of woman I am interested in as having a pretty face, comically high intelligence, and a really sick sense of humor. That's all I am concerned with.  And while those last two traits may somewhat unique to my own preferences (and may also actually be a single trait), I still start my list with a pretty face.  I am not as good as the women who have liked me. I would have a hard time really appreciating a fat, bald woman no matter how smart or funny she is.

I understand that some women are shallow.  I know this.  In fact I might even assume that half of all women are shallow.  It may be that fully 50% of all adult vagina holders in this country would not give me the time of day, simply because of my appearance.  But that doesn't matter, because the other 50% will at least listen to (or read) my bullshit rhetoric.  And the good news is these two halves of the feminine population are not divided by any sort of type, some women of all varieties will prefer humor and intelligence over other characteristics.

This is the reason why when another friend asked me recently if I would consider online dating I immediately answered with a definitive negative.  Because I know in my heart of hearts that the type of women who are attracted to a fact-and-photo-based browsing service are the shallow ones.  Even if they are not shallow they are far too practical.  I look terrible on paper.  Combine a photo of me with just one basic fact, I have six children, and no woman on any dating site will ever look further than that.  I always say I don't "date" as a matter of principle, which is true, because I think it is dumb to pretend at my age.  But the truth is, fat, bald guys with six kids don't date, regardless.

If I am going to meet women, I need a chance to charm a bitch.  And sometimes I do.

This is how I know women are generally kind.  They are the better of the genders.  Women place value on all the important characteristics in a way that makes life easier for a guy like me.  Women are good, and so I don't need to be.